To enforce the law, one must observe the law. Conversely, one cannot credibly enforce the law by ignoring portions one does not like.
This principle is so simple and clear that stating as much states the obvious.
Whitewater has a lawful requirement that senior city leaders live within the city limits, among them nearly a dozen positions. The requirement is reasonable — those who have authority over the community should live within its borders. Our Common Council approved an expansion of an earlier requirement that required residency on February 2, 2010, and it has been our policy since. So reasonable was the policy, that it received unanimous approval. It has been our policy for thirteen months. It had been discussed favorably at the council meeting prior, as well.
So important is this rule that it extends even to positions without the authority to exercise lawful force for public safety. Whitewater may lawfully require civilian leaders to be city residents; it’s simply absurd to think that the city would apply a lesser standards to someone exercising the authority of police chief. This is true regardless of the amount of time for which that authority is exercised; exercise must be in accordance with our law each moment of the day.
The video record of the February 2, 2010 council meeting is embedded at the bottom of this post.
Whitewater’s police chief will soon leave his post, and our city’s Police Commission met last week to consider an interim police chief, for the time between the incumbent’s departure and the selection of a new, permanent successor. For two published accounts of that meeting, see Whitewater Police Commission delays naming interim chief and Whitewater commission delays decision on interim police chief. (Reporting on the residency discussion appears in paragraph eleven of the latter story.)
Among two choices considered last Thursday, only one was a resident of the city. The Commission, being evenly divided between the resident and non-resident, made no decision (one commissioner was unable to attend).
Although a Police Commission has authority to appoint an interim or permanent chief, there is no authority in that commission, or any other in the city, to disregard the city’s lawful residency requirements. Council alone (excepting a court ruling or act of the legislature) has the power to repeal or modify an exiting municipal rule.
There is no legitimacy for a commission’s disregard of this clear and settled rule. To do so would be actually to negate existing lawful requirements.
That disregard would be both wrong and absurd. Not wrong and absurd as a matter of policy, but of law itself.
Upholding this lawful rule, by its obvious and plain meaning, would be a credit to the city – a necessary and simple willingness to comply with the law.
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