“The city would need to grandfather any employee who lived outside the city, as well as any current employee who had an existing contract to purchase property outside the city, or was already building a house outside the city,” he said back then.
On Wednesday, Houston cited the difficulty in renegotiating labor contracts should the residency requirement be reinstated as the reason for him voting against holding a referendum. The city has 23 labor contracts that would have to be renegotiated, Houston said, which would be expensive.
The problem with Houston’s argument is that all Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin’s ordinance would do is ask the people of Springfield their opinion on the issue.
Even if the referendum passed and aldermen decided they wanted to listen to voters and implement a residency requirement, it would not necessarily require renegotiation of labor contracts. The city council could explore making any residency requirement effective on a date after all of the city’s union contracts expired and only for not-yet-hired employees.
While it is troublesome that more than one out of every three Springfield workers don’t live in the city they work in, there are good arguments on both sides of the issue.
Past debates have centered around whether nonresident workers care enough about the city or could get back in time in case of an emergency. More recent discussion has centered on whether workers pay their fair share of the taxes that fund their jobs. The counterargument is that people should be able to live where they want and that residency rules are an anachronistic rule from the past.
McMenamin should introduce a new ordinance and ask for another vote when Lesko is present. Hopefully, the public will be able to weigh in once and for all.
Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 