When are you too old for us but not for Lauderdale?

I have always felt that mandatory retirement ages are unfair. As I age, I probably think so even more.

I cannot imagine why anybody would want to be a police officer after age 65, but I have wondered why anybody would want to be one at 25 also.

But per this morning’s DPP one local police officer is being forced to retire later this month. Chief Harrington [or presumably the Mayor or anybody else] cannot help him, it seems, since the matter is determined by statute, a law which apparently only refers to police and fire employees in cities of the first class.

I don’t believe that I have met John Morrow who has been with the department since 1967, longer than anybody else now on the department, but it would seem unlikely that I will now, and all because of a law that makes no sense.

If the newspaper coverage is correct, the statue applies to all employees in the P.D., not just officers. And it only applies to cities of the first class [us, Minneapolis, and Duluth].

Translated it means that anybody who works for the department has to be under 65, even if the job does not involve any special risk or physical activity. I don’t know how the people who maintain police equipment and facilities are employed, but this would seem to include people who file paperwork, repair the vehicles, and mop the floors as well as John Morrow. And it means that Maplewood or Hilltop or Landfall or Coates could hire somebody over 65 to be on their police department, but Saint Paul cannot. We keep forgetting that “suburb” begins with “sub-“ indicating something less. Yet somehow a lesser government has more rights than a real city.

It would seem that although it would be too late for Mr. Morrow, that our legislators should address this at its next opportunity. [Of course, some of our legislators are busy doing their own law enforcement work, already. See post below.]