City councils can sometimes do weird things, often because they get tunnel vision. They just can’t see past their municipal boundaries.

Take Port Alberni’s outgoing council, for example. Believe it or not, they had a contentious debate last week over bringing in a rule that would prevent City Hall from hiring anyone from outside Port Alberni. From the Alberni Valley Times:

Should municipal employees, including those who have an influence over property tax increases, be required to live within the City of Port Alberni?

(clipped)

Some employees on the municipal payroll, including management staff, live outside city boundaries, and McLeman put forth the idea to hold those with an influence on property tax rates more accountable for decisions. Since 2000, the residential portion of property taxes collected to run the municipality has grown from 36 to 59 per cent, amounting to an increase of $859 for the average valued home.

"My concern and the concern of a lot of people that I talk to is that someone is making decisions and those decisions affect the mill rate of the taxpayer," said McLeman. "That individual should be paying the same taxes and affected by the same mill rate."

McLeman’s motion failed in a 5-2 vote, as Port Alberni staff noted, quite rightly, that it was illegal to require such a thing:

But Theresa Kingston, the city's director of corporate services, said a new hiring policy could break Canada's human rights laws. Employment restrictions based on residence are discriminatory under the British Columbia Human Rights Code. In a report for council, Kingston also noted that a residency requirement would contravene the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person, and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice," reads Section 7 of the charter.

The Supreme Court of Canada upheld this principle in 1997 after Longueuil, Que., passed a bylaw requiring new staff to live within the city's boundaries.

Kingston, kindly, didn’t note that the motion was just plain stupid.

I understand the reflex of wanting people who work for City Hall to live within city boundaries. It should be encouraged – one would hope that a community would be an attractive place for its staff to live. But to try and enforce such a rule is silly – and would have been potentially very costly for Port Alberni taxpayers.