Dayton, Ohio Mayor Thinks Her Employees Are Chattel
Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin is not happy about losing a battle (link may require free registration) to force City of Dayton employees to live in the city (bold is mine):
Thursday, June 07, 2007
DAYTON — The City Commission lost a court battle Wednesday to require that all city employees reside in the city, but Mayor Rhine McLin said the war over residency is not over.
“We will appeal,” McLin said.
The city had sued the state, claiming a new law curtailing residency requirements violated the city’s home rule provision. The city sought to have it ruled unconstitutional by the courts.
….. An impassioned McLin spoke out. “City employees do not move. You move at your own risk,” she said. “We are going to fight residency in support of our city.”
While the law prohibits political subdivisions from requiring employees to live in the same jurisdiction, it does allow jurisdictions to restrict workers to live within the same or contiguous counties.
Translation of McLinese: Don’t you dare leave the plantation.
Nancy Salvato had a great post on this a few years ago at Intellectual Conservative on a similar rule affecting most (but, interestingly enough, not all) teachers:
Recently Chicago newspapers reported that Mayor Daley was going to enforce the residency requirement for Chicago school teachers. Something is inherently wrong with this decision because it seems to me as if by signing a teaching contract, teachers literally have signed over their lives. It reminds me of company towns from an era gone by.
….. Perhaps teachers are considered not more than 3/5 citizens, not subject to the same rights and privileges as the rest of the population.
What a teacher does outside of the school is not of concern to others unless it is in some way illegal. This obviously includes where teachers choose to live.
….. More reasonable people understand that the goal of any administration is to hire the “best teachers” for the job, regardless of where they live.
….. Where a teacher decides to live is an issue of privacy. Teachers are not chattel. If there was ever an express purpose for a union, the defense of the teachers against this indefensible practice would merit their operation. But of course, the unions are too busy pushing their partisan political agenda to look out for the teachers!
In contrast to the Chicago situation, it appears that Dayton’s unions are against the residency requirement.
Mayor McLin needs to get a grip, and give it up.
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OOPS: Thanks to Matt at WoMD, who caught the gender error in the title, which has been fixed.
I’m somewhat conflicted on these issues. I would want teachers, policemen and firefighters, etc. to be an active part of the community. I like the fact that my kids teachers go to the same school system. It’s nice seeing their teachers helping out at the church festivals and such. However, forcing it on them is clearly wrong. Maybe these mayors should be doing more to make their cities into place people will voluntarily live. This mayor is sending a serious subliminal message to people deciding where to live. IE: We have to force people to live here. Improve the city and in time the majority of people will live closer to where they work.
Comment by largebill — June 7, 2007 @ 8:57 am
#1, exactly.
Maybe these mayors should be doing more to make their cities into place people will voluntarily live.
Of course. Employees would naturally gravitate towards this if they thought the city to be a good and safe place to live, raise kids, and send kids to school. I think you will find that those who want to live outside the city are very often concerned about schools and safety.
Comment by TBlumer — June 7, 2007 @ 9:57 am
Sounds like your mayor and our mayor are getting their ‘talking points’ from the same place…our fire fighters got a TRO so they didn’t have move into the city…
http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=6397505&nav=DYG0dxEC
Comment by Maggie — June 7, 2007 @ 10:42 am
#3, Municipalities all over are doing this to keep their employees from, in effect, voting with their feet. Pretty nervy to demand that someone living outside the city move in to keep their jobs when state law says in essence that it is illegal to do that.
Comment by TBlumer — June 7, 2007 @ 10:56 am
Hey Tom, “His” ought to be “Her”…Rhine McLin is a woman…she’s the daughter of a big time Dayton area politican. Her run at state government wasn’t all that hot either. Somehow, she defeated Mike Turner…Mike was MUCH better as a mayor of Dayton than a Congressman.
Comment by Matt Hurley — June 7, 2007 @ 12:24 pm
#5, fixed. Thanks.
Comment by TBlumer — June 7, 2007 @ 1:33 pm