A recent trend in metro-east towns of allowing police and firefighters to live outside city limits has spread to Alton.
Alton firefighters are awaiting a decision by an independent arbitrator on whether they must continue to live inside the city. Alton Police already have obtained the privilege through the same type of arbitration.
Several other towns, including Collinsville, Glen Carbon and Granite have loosened their residency requirements as the result of union contract negotiations with city employees.
A union spokesman said residency requirements go back to a time of patronage, when it took some political connection -- and no particular skill or test score -- to get a job with the city.
"The law goes back so far nobody remembers how far," said Capt. Rick Welle of the Collinsville Fire Department, who is vice president of the southern district of the Associated Firefighters of Illinois.
Welle is one of the union representatives in the Alton negotiations.
Both sides presented their cases to an independent negotiator last week. Attorneys have until Feb. 22 to submit their written arguments to the arbitrator.
A decision could be months away, said David Miles, Alton's director of personnel.
Miles said the firefighters' argument for living outside the city are different for those presented by police. Police officers raised concerns about the safety of living and sending their children to school in the same community with people they have arrested or investigated.
"I don't know of any fireman who's been threatened for saving someone's life or getting their cat out of a tree," Miles said.
The police union also cited a problem with getting and keeping qualified officers. But the Fire Department has a 95 percent retention rate, Miles said.
Welle said some firefighters would like to live in a rural setting, perhaps buying a farm or other acreage.
"In Alton you couldn't buy acreage if you wanted to," Welle said.
The firefighters' proposal is to allow people with five years service to live within a 30 mile radius of downtown Alton, but not in Missouri.
