There was plenty of knuckle-bumping yesterday at the Cleveland Police Patrolman's Association headquarters. President Steve Loomis said the Ohio Supreme Court had taken the handcuffs off his membership.
STEVE LOOMIS: This is more about the right to choose, rather than the right to be forced. Nobody likes to be forced to do anything, especially when you're talking about having to raise a family and making those personal choices.
Loomis says it was his personal choice to be a policeman and now he wants the city to respect his choice to live outside the city limits --- a choice based largely on concerns about the quality of education here.
STEVE LOOMIS: I think the Cleveland school district is okay for grammar school, but I am absolutely not prepared to send my kids to Cleveland high schools, so I will, as a result of that, be out of the city of Cleveland, I would anticipate, within three years.
Loomis, who lives in the Old Brooklyn neighborhood on the southwest side, says the cops are still city employees --- they'll still be paying their income taxes --- so Cleveland won't be losing any money on this deal. But, Old Brooklyn councilman Kevin Kelley says the city will be losing something else. Something that's important, though less tangible.
KEVIN KELLEY: The greatest impact is going to be that of perception. People look at Old Brooklyn as a neighborhood of well-kept homes, a middle-class neighborhood, because there are a lot of employees of the city of Cleveland who live in this neighborhood. My greatest fear is that perception will leave.
Kelley estimates that his community is home to upwards of 500 city employees. He's taking the long view of what could be a bad situation for the neighborhood.
KEVIN KELLEY: There's not going to be a mass exodus. It's not going to be a situation where there's signs in every yard. It's something that we need to take a look at in terms of the long term perspective. What will the community look like in 15 to 20 years, as opposed to what's going to happen in 2009 and 2010.
David Sharkey of Progressive Urban Real Estate says there could be a big impact over the long term.
DAVID SHARKEY: When you look at neighborhoods like West Park, Old Brooklyn, North Collinwood, that have a high concentration of city employees, those with children who may want to go to a different school district are probably going to strongly consider moving. If one person on every street in West Park is a city employee that decides to sell their house, then all of the sudden you've got all these houses on the market, that's going to further depreciate the market.
Police union head Steve Loomis says the soft housing market is just about the only thing stopping him from moving out.
STEVE LOOMIS: I'm not prepared to take a 30 - 40,000 dollar hit on my house at this point. So, I'm certainly not going to go anywhere, right now.
The state Supreme Court's 5 to 2 decision is the final word on this bitterly fought legal and political battle that has stretched over the decades.
The Ohio legislature essentially sided with city employees across the state when it passed a law in 2006 declaring residency restrictions illegal. Now, the Court has backed them up. Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson, while expressing his disappointment, said the city will comply.
