Written by Michael Cass and Brian Wilson The Tennessean
A Metro councilman said he plans to introduce legislation requiring anyone hired by Metro government after a certain date to live inside Nashville and Davidson County.Councilman Charlie Tygard said the idea, which has been debated before, is relevant again as Mayor Karl Dean and the council discuss a 53-cent property tax increase that would result in 4 percent pay increases for most city workers.
“If you’re asking for raises and you want support, we want you to be a resident of this county,” he said Wednesday.
Data compiled by the council office for Tygard — who distributed it to the rest of the council last week — showed that nearly 55 percent of Metro firefighters live in other counties. More than 46 percent of sheriff’s office employees live elsewhere, the numbers showed.
Tygard said he wouldn’t try to force current employees to move into the city. Metro used to require all employees to be residents, but it dropped that requirement in the mid-1990s in what Tygard, now an at-large council member, described as a “contentious debate” driven by employee unions.
Sgt. Robert O. Weaver, president of the Nashville Fraternal Order of Police, said his union believes “people choose to live where they live for a variety of their own reasons.”
“We believe that it’s beneficial to have an adequate pool of candidates,” Weaver said. “The more limited you have a pool, the smaller it is. If you have a larger pool, you open yourself up to the best candidates.”
The council considered legislation in 2009 that would have forced new employees to live in the city. Critics of the plan, proposed by former Councilman Eric Crafton, said it would shrink the government’s recruiting pool, create confusion and take away simple freedoms.
“I just don’t think it’s right that Metro employees should be bound to the land like Russian serfs,” former Councilman Randy Foster said at the time.
But Tygard said he thinks a new council is ready to revisit the issue and that a lack of good candidates for jobs isn’t an issue nowadays.
Tygard said his bill is ready to be filed next week and should be up for the first of three required votes June 5. He said fellow at-large Councilman Jerry Maynard is expected to co-sponsor it, and he thinks other members will sign on as well.
