Maybe the answer is not to require officers to live within the City limits, but to incentivize their pay for doing so. A long time ago, I lived in a remote town in South Central AK (Cordova). No roads in, no roads out. If you wanted to go elsewhere (even for the day), you had to either fly, or take a boat. I worked for a large PNP hatchery Corporation as its purchasing & logistics director. The Corporation I worked for was smart enough to realize that it was important to the citizens of the community to have the corporate staff living in Cordova, although for many of the positions, it wasn't required (we also had offices in Anchorage). Their answer - a housing stipend.
There's no doubt in my mind that having a MPD officer living on my block would probably increase the livability. However, they'd probably never have any time for themselves, even when they weren't working. However, if one were willing to do so, it would probably be a wise investment (on the oart of the City) for a few hundred dollars a month, as I'm sure the drug dealing, gambling and other various and assorted activities would cease.
Dennis Plante Jordan
Jim Writes:
I had a similar experience with a Minneapolis police officer at a social occasion earlier this summer. He told me that several years ago he bought land and built a house "almost halfway up to (Lake) MilleLac to get away from all "that city crap". When I asked him why he lives so far away from the city he works in he said that he "hated" Minneapolis but he loved being a police officer and that Minneapolis is where "all the action is" and that he would be bored as a rural, suburban or small town police officer. He also said that "you couldn't pay me enough to live in Minneapolis or St. Paul". I found his attitude very demeaning. I don't think it is possible or necessarily important to have officers living inside city limits; I certainly don't begrudge Minneapolis police officers of firefighters from living in Richfield, or St. Louis Park or Robbinsdale or any other "close in suburb". I do question the motives of one who decides to pick up an move away from the metro area however.
Jim Bernstein Fulton
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