> Require local residency for the first ten years of service. This is a popular idea, but it seems like a bad one. It limits the pool of highly qualified appl

> Require local residency for the first ten years of service. This is a popular idea, but it seems like a bad one. It limits the pool of highly qualified applicants, which we badly need to expand. I've seen arguments in favor of this rule that take the form of "why would you privilege nonresidents in the hiring process?", but that is a non sequitur: not requiring residency isn't a way of privileging nonresidents. In addition, police officers sometimes point to the difficulty of policing in the places that they live. This seems to me like a secondary consideration, but perhaps one that also merits attention.