Home Rule

[jay]

I agree with you Rick.
However, I've heard the city administration wants new hires in the police department to start at a greatly ruduced rate of compensation.

[Rick Rowlands]

Well then the compensation package from the city has to be higher so as to make the increased risk worthwhile. 

[jay]

In many instances now, home rule cities are not allowed to make their own rules.

Question
If a police or fire candidate had the choice of working for the city of Youngstown or working for any suburb, which would he/she choose?
I suspect the person would opt for the cushy suburban job.
The danger associated with the city job would limit the pool of job applicants too.

[Rick Rowlands]

The residency requirement was ridiculous.  Purchasing a house is a long term investment. Maybe you are living in your family home.  MAybe you just got it set up the way you want it.  Maybe your children are enrolled in a good school and have close friends.  Why uproot your life and basically have to start over for a job which requires you to move down the street to live on the other side of some imaginary line. Is there any guarantee from the city that they would employ these people long term to justify the expense and inconvenience of selling a house then buying another house in the city? It goes both ways you know.  Make me invest in a new house and that employee better damn well have a guarantee of long term employment!

Youngstown has 80,000 residents and probably a few hundred employees.  If things are so bad that it would cause major economic disruption if a couple hundred of those employees lived in the suburbs, then the city is in very bad shape indeed!  Perhaps for some of you Youngstown residents this now overturned rule made sense, but you inner city people have a different way of thinking than us suburb dwellers.

[Why?Town]

Westsider,

Why wouldn't you expect them to do a good job?

Do you expect a policeman that lives on the south side to do a good job on the east side?

Do you expect the snow plow driver that lives on the north side to do a good job on the west side?

Anyone that has a job of any kind should be expected to do a good job <PERIOD>

[northside lurker]

Why should I expect them to do a good job working for a city they aren't even willing to live in?

[Why?Town]

I'm sure there were qualified people that decided NOT to apply for jobs because they didn't want to move into the city, thus limiting the pool of applicants.

[jay]

As far as I know, the residency rules never limited the pool of people from which new city employees could be hired.  Some cities, Youngstown being one of them, required all employees to move into the city shortly after they were hired.

The court ruling allows city employees to live where they want.  As a result, many Youngstown city employees have already moved out of the city.

As more people with good incomes leave the city, economic activity declines, income tax revenues decline, and the city become less of a "place where people actually want to live."

[Why?Town]

Neither of these things are neccessarily bad rulings. Yes they take some control away from the cities but I don't think it hurts them.

"Outlaw guns and only outlaws will have guns." Now, I only have an antique .22 rifle with no ammo and a couple of pellet guns but I hope that at least a couple of the gun toting citizens out there are good guys and wouldn't it be great if we could say most of them are good guys?.

As for residency requirements, the cities shouldn't limit their pool of workers, they should be seeking out the best regardless of where they live. They should also be striving to make their city a place where people actually want to live.

[jay]

And

A previous court ruling abolished a city's ability to have a residency requirement for its employees.

[Towntalk]

Could this possably be what our friend is referring to?

Ohio Supreme Court upholds law that lets state set gun rules
http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/article/20101230/NEWS01/12300333



Ohio Supreme Court upholds state law blocking Cleveland's gun law
http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2010/12/ohio_supremes_uphold_state_law.html

In the 5-2 decision, the Republican-dominated court said a 2006 state law does not violate Ohio's home rule provision that gives local authorities the ability to enact measures in the interest of their citizens. A key question in the case was whether the statewide gun law is considered a "general law"-- which under the home rule provision would override local ordinances.
The 13-page decision written by Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton supports the rationale of lawmakers that the statewide gun law was needed in 2006 to keep gun owners from being at the mercy of "a confusing patchwork" of licensing requirements and possession restrictions.
The gun law "is a general law that displaces municipal firearm ordinances and does not unconstitutionally infringe on municipal home rule authority," Stratton wrote. Concurring were Justices Maureen O'Connor, Terrence O'Donnell, Judith Lanzinger and Robert Cupp.

[Rick Rowlands]

Could you provide some details?  Otherwise this is a worthless post.

[jay]

The Ohio Supreme Court recently dealt another blow to Ohio cities with home rule charters.  This just makes it more difficult for cities to deal with their own problems.