Page 22 - May 2017 Newsletter

Residency appeal denied in Milwaukee
The 7th Circuit Court recently issued a warning to police officers in search of a home with a white picket fence locat-
ed in a quiet, tree-lined suburb: Call
your Realtor and put the search on
hold. The case of Milwaukee Police As- sociation, Michael V. Crivello v. City of Milwaukee, No. 16-4151 was decided on
May 3. The appeals court upheld a residen- cy requirement for Milwaukee Police Officers,
firefighters and other emergency workers to live within 15 miles of city limits.
In December, the union representing rank-and-file officers appealed an earlier decision by a federal judge who said the city was allowed to require employees to live within 15 miles of Milwaukee or risk being fired. For decades, all city employees (with few exceptions) had to live within Milwaukee boundaries. This changed in 2013, when the Republican-led state legislature passed a law that undid all such strict residency requirements
but did allow for cities to require certain employees, in- cluding police and firefighters, to live within 15 miles of city limits. At that time, Milwaukee did not adopt a new rule but instead continued to enforce its
FOP
Legal Rep t
residency rule.
The police union sued. The state Supreme
Court sided with the legislature and the police union that the state law blocked the city’s historic residency requirements. After that ruling, the city ad- opted the 15-mile zone limit and said employees out- side that limit could be fired; however, the city allowed employees six months to move into the zone and gave
temporary exemptions based on financial hardship. Plaintiffs then sued, claiming that the Wisconsin stat- ute gives them a vested right to live outside the City and that Milwaukee’s new residency requirement violates that right as well as their substantive due process rights. The court disagreed and held that substantive due pro- cess “provides heightened protection against govern- ment interference with certain fundamental rights and
DANIEL HERBERT
22 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ MAY 2017