Residency Requirement Kept For City Fire Chief

Though Sturgeon Bay’s police officers no longer have a residency requirement following action last week by the Common Council to help recruit officers from elsewhere, one still applies to the fire department.

When the council also revised the fire chief’s job description, which hadn’t been updated since 1997, it backed a provision calling for the fire chief to maintain residency “within 15 miles of the corporate limits of the City of Sturgeon Bay.”

The job description was revised as part of the current process to fill the fire chief’s position on a permanent basis. Interim fire chief Kalin Montevideo had urged the city’s Personnel Committee to not abolish a residency requirement for the fire department, saying the department’s response relies on its personnel getting to a scene quickly.