By Don Walker
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
MILWAUKEE — Don’t put the “For Sale” signs up just yet.
Still livid over what it considers an encroachment on home rule and worried about the impact on the city’s neighborhoods should workers leave the city, the Milwaukee Common Council is preparing next week to ask the city attorney to go to court to halt the removal of residency requirements for local employees.
Meanwhile, aldermen will also consider directing city officials to ignore the measure that Gov. Scott Walker is expected to sign into law Sunday as part of the state budget.
Resolutions on the residency issue are to go before the council Tuesday and are expected to gain the support of the 15-member council. The moves would mark the beginning of what is expected to be a legal battle over the residency requirement, which has stood for 75 years. The legal battles could not only ensnare the Walker administration, but the labor unions that sought an end to residency in the first place.
Walker proposed in his budget earlier this year an end to residency rules in all local units of government. The proposal was altered in the Legislature slightly to give local officials statewide the ability to require police, fire or emergency personnel to live within 15 miles of the boundaries of their jurisdictions.
Milwaukee’s police and fire unions have lobbied for an end to residency for decades, as did the Wisconsin Professional Police Association. Walker, who received political support from the Milwaukee Police Association and the Milwaukee Professional Firefighters Local 215, put it in the budget.
In backing an end to residency, the governor said it was a matter of personal freedom for municipal and other public-sector workers. Mayor Tom Barrett said Walker’s proposal was a political payoff to the fire and police unions, and said the possibility of legions of city workers leaving the city would hurt middle-income neighborhoods in the city.
If the council approves, City Attorney Grant Langley would be asked to go to court to challenge the constitutionality of the measure. The other resolution, which asks city officials to continue to enforce residency, argues the governor’s provision violates the city’s home rule rights under the state constitution. The constitution states cities and villages may determine their local affairs and government.
The resolution also cites a previous resolution approved by the council in February 2011, in which the council stated “the issue of local residency is not a matter of statewide concern but is instead clearly a local question that should be determined by local governments that are directly accountable to local voters.” The 2011 resolution also notes that residency requirements have been upheld and deemed constitutional in federal courts.
Dave Seager, president of the firefighters’ union, reiterated he was grateful to legislative leaders that they passed Walker’s proposal.
“The bill pertains to all Wisconsin’s municipalities,” Seager said. “It will become the law in Wisconsin.”
Seager said he was considering attending Walker’s budget-signing event Sunday in Pleasant Prairie.
Milwaukee Police Association officials did not return a call seeking comment.
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