Wednesday, December 19, 2012
After long debate over several possible changes to Wauwatosa's residency ordinance – including doing away with it all together – Common Council votes to stay with status quo.
- GOVERNMENT
- Jim Price
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Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Wauwatosa will continue to require all department heads and some high-level supervisors to live in the city – unless they qualify for a waiver – after a failed vote to remove all but three positions from the rule. Common Council members were all over the map on the issue Tuesday night, as has been the case since it was brought up in mid-summer by city staff seeking to ease hiring restrictions. The strongest faction proved to be those aldermen who believed that "it isn't broken," citing strong hires for top directorial positions under the current ordinance. Others, who proved to be in the minority, believed just as strongly that all residency requirements should have been lifted. In between were the few who actually believed that the …
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Only the police chief, fire chief and public works directors should, along with the city administrator and attorney, be required to live here, a council committee recommends.
- GOVERNMENT
- Jim Price
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Wednesday, December 12, 2012
After months of tilting over whether to keep all current residency requirements for appointed city employees or to do away with them all together, the Employee Relations Committee on Tuesday did neither but voted its way back to square one. After another debate lasting nearly an hour and a half, committe members voted 3-2 to recommend doing away with the residency rule for all but three department heads – the police and fire chiefs and the director of public works. (Residency is also required of the city administrator, who works under a separate contract, and the city attorney, who is covered by a separate ordinance.) What's more, the committee stipulated that there should still be no option of granting residency waivers for those …
Monday, December 10, 2012
After an attempt to reduce the number of city managers who have to live here turned into a debate on whether any should, the discussion has continued with no action. It comes up again Tuesday.
- GOVERNMENT
- Jim Price
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Monday, December 10, 2012
Once again, the Common Council's Committee on Employee Relations will take up a debate Tuesday night that seems to go on and on: Which, if any, city employees ought to be required to live here? The residency requirement for Wauwatosa department managers at certain levels is among the more stringent among municipalities in the metropolitan area, and over the years, relaxing the rules has been discussed a number of times with no action taken. Earlier this year, the question appeared to have gathered steam toward a large reduction in the positions requiring residency. After initial discussions in July seemed to lean in favor of doing away with residency for all but a few department heads, of police, fire and public works, Assistant City …
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
With a recommendation for steep reduction from city staff, and a powerful demand for doing away with it all together from Police Chief Barry Weber, city may go from stringent to wide-open on live-here rules.
- GOVERNMENT
- Jim Price
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Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Few, if any, employees of Wauwatosa will have to live here, if and when a new set of residency rules is adopted. And if one department head – the police chief – has his way, it will be none of them. In the wake of a raft of recent hirings of new department heads, the city appears to be on the verge of doing away with most, if not all, of its residency requirements. Most of those hirings were beset somehow with problems related to where the applicants lived and whether they were willing to move soon, if at all, to Wauwatosa. Starting about two years ago, department head-level jobs opened in fire, finance, public works and the new position of economic development chief. Several of those hirings were complicated by residency rules. The chosen…
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
With one dissenter, panel votes to do away with residency requirement for officers below chief.
New Wauwatosa Fire Chief Rob Ugaste envisions a day when the Fire Department can be leaner in ranking officers, yet more responsive. That will happen, he says, when better communications and cross-training between area fire departments allows for a battalion chief or deputy chief from West Allis or Brookfield to respond first to a fire or other emergency in Tosa, or vice versa, and take command. "But we aren't there yet," Ugaste told the Employee Relations Committee of the Common Council on Tuesday. "Until we are, and it will be awhile, we need to have special individuals in those roles." Ugaste was asking the committee to do away with Wauwatosa's rather arcane residency rules for officers of rank in the Fire Department, which require the …
Mark
10:11 am on Thursday, December 20, 2012
the common council must think the residents of the city have money trees growing on our property. All they seem to do is spend money for this and that. examples: fighting a law suit over tax exempt status, the sewers that had deferred maintenance, studies to see if we need side walks. I seriously think it is time to pound the for sale sign in the ground and move out of this tax and spend city. more ›