Boston Mayor eases off rules Reverses course on residency requirements with new limits

The Boston Herald reports:

Mayor Thomas M. Menino - who ran his first campaign riding a controversial rule requiring cops, firefighters and other city workers to live in Boston - is easing off that regulation in a dramatic about-face, saying he wants it to be more fair and uniform in the face of skyrocketing property values.
“When I ran for mayor it was a different city completely. There were ‘For Sale’ signs on every other house. No one wanted to live here,” Menino told the Herald on Friday. “Now Boston is a desirable place. We have low taxes, safe streets. People want to live here.
“It’s not about giving up on residency. It’s about being fair and having some uniformity in the rules,” Menino added. “Right now there are so many dates, so many different rules for different workers, we just wanted it to be fair all around.”
But the tentative pact city officials reached last week limiting mandatory residency to just 10 years for some 1,200 civilian workers represented by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees has reignited a decades-old debate over the rule.
It has also raised fresh concerns that police, firefighter and other unions will be seeking the same concession, possibly setting off a new wave of middle-class flight from the city.

It appears a "city residency requirement" is an important part of a political machine's corrupt voting block.Notice how many people really don't want to live in Boston.