City is better off without coward, white-flight cops

? /Journal Star/:City Council to ponder police residency rule

The Peoria City Council will meet in closed session to decide whether to
appeal an arbitrator’s decision that the city cannot require police
officers to live inside the city. The unusual meeting time is due to a
Sunday deadline, the article stated.

Of course the city should appeal.

As I said in a comment to my earlier post, the city has every right to
make residency a job requirement: People who work for Pepsi can get
fired if they are caught drinking Coke.

Wendy’s executives would likely get fired if they get caught enjoying a
tasty Big Mac.

Macy’s doesn’t tell Gimballs.

Why shouldn’t the corporate entity called the City of Peoria have the
right to demand that, as a condition of employment, that’s it’s
employment avoid doing business with its competitors: The Burbs.

I, as a citizen of Peoria, have a right to demand that I be policed by
someone who who lives under the same conditions in which I live?

There is NOTHING unreasonable about residency requirements.

And to those who say police need to live outside the city because they
or their children might face retaliation: Bunk.

What they really are saying is that want to treat city residents any way
they want to without having to look them in the face in the supermarket
checkout line. It’s easy to hand out tickets for minor traffic
infractions — and be a general prick — when you don’t have to live
with the consequences of having the reputation for being a prick. It’s
easier to be a tough guy when you are wearing a badge and a gun when you
don’t have to face these same people when you are not wearing the gun
and badge.

Perhaps these cops just don’t want their kids learning what pricks they are.

And here is a little irony for you: Exactly where do these cops want to
live: Why, they want to live in communities that require police officers
to live in the city. Obviously, they are much safer and nicer places to
live.

Any officer who won’t live in the city he polices for “safety reasons”
is too big a coward to wear a badge in the first place. We are better
off rid of them. I’m willing to bet there would be a dozen applicants
for every one who leaves because of the requirement.

I’d also make the requirement a little bit stiffer. I’d not only require
officers and all city employees to live in the city. I’d also make it a
requirement that all new employees, if they actually buy a home, it has
to be below Forrest Hill Drive, in either the East of West Bluff of
older valley neighborhoods. These are the places suffering worse from
white flight and need the stabilization. I’d even make low-interest loan
available. I would also make it a requirement that they send their kids
to public schools, to better stabilize District 150.