Buffalo is about to become the first large city in the state of New York to require all newly hired police officers to reside within the city limits for a minimum of seven years. According to The Buffalo News, the City of Buffalo and the Police Benevolent Association announced this change to the union contract on Friday.
The plan has support from the mayor and police commissioner. As reported by Syracuse.com, the new arrangement was discussed on Friday by Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown, Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda and other police officials in Buffalo’s City Hall. When commenting about the new plan, Brown stated that it “provides fiscal certainty with respect to police wages, secures important cost-saving concessions for the future and will change the makeup of the Police Department of the future by requiring new hires to be stakeholders of this community.”
Brown says that he believes this will benefit everyone involved. He said, “We think when officers live in a community, it provides officers a greater stake in that community. (It’s good for) the neighbors of the community that they police in and we think it is good for the morale of our department.”
According to WIVB, Buffalo Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda said, “I believe every officer should live in the City. Back in 2007. When I visited Chicago Police Department, one of the first things I found out that every police officer, every firefighter, every teacher has to live in the city, and I think Buffalo would be a better place if we had the same rules in place long ago.” Derenda also thinks that the requirement might become even stronger in future contracts. In a similar arrangement, the fire department of Buffalo now requires that all of its new employees reside within the city for the entirety of their employment.
This new agreement is still tentative and needs to be ratified by the members of the PBA. Derenda said that this ratification could occur on July 9, during a meeting of the PBA members. After this, the contract then requires the approval of the Common Council and the Fiscal Stability Authority before it becomes permanent.
Absolute BS. Who is the city to REQUIRE an employee live inside the city limits? And what posessed the Union schmucks to agree to it? What next, the city tells the officers what neighborhoods they are “allowed” to live in? Maybe how many kids they can have?