Credit Attleboro City Councilor Bill Bowles for having both the common sense and the political courage to do what politicians often find hardest - state the truth rather than the politically popular.

Bowles and fellow councilor Peter Blais got into a somewhat heated disagreement recently over the need for all newly-hired city firefighters to be certified paramedics. Their differing opinions highlight an oft-unspoken and unwritten rule in local communities:

When it comes to local jobs, where you live is often considered more important than your actual qualifications.

Councilor Bowles believes the city should only hire paramedics for the department, recognizing the growing importance of the medical role for firefighters.

Councilor Blais no doubt also wants his constituents to have excellent medical responders should the need arise. But he is concerned hiring only paramedics would freeze out the children of current firefighters from eventually taking the places of their parents. "Their children are being refused the ability to follow in their father's footsteps," Blais said. He probably also meant to say they were being prevented from following in their mother's footsteps.

But Blais's argument lacks common sense. No one is preventing the children of city firefighters from going to paramedic school and earning certification. It is in no way unfair to anyone to insist on qualified professionals to fill important city jobs.

Most people seem to agree that if all other qualifications are equal, preference should be given to hiring local residents for municipal positions. After all, they are often taxpayers with a vested interest in their community.

However, giving preference is one thing - giving an unfair and unwarranted advantage at the expense of fellow taxpayers is yet another.

In many communities, positions such as firefighters and police officers are filled through processes that make it virtually impossible to hire or promote individuals from outside the community or department.

In many cases, local applicants don't just get an advantage - they get a rigged system where they compete only against each other, and not with anyone from outside their community.

Take Norton, for example. The town has hired a new police chief twice in the last decade or so. Each time the promotion came from within the department, allowing a hometown candidate to move up the ranks and everyone underneath them to also advance. Nothing wrong with that, you might say.

But in each case, there was no effort to look outside the town or the department. No one from outside the community was even allowed to apply.

The taxpayers were prevented from having a hiring process where qualified candidates could apply regardless of their address.

Both times much was made of the value of having local people in local positions. It was said the town had spent much time and money training these individuals, and it only made sense to keep them and protect that investment. It is hard to understand how any process that limits the number of qualified candidates for a public position can be considered "good" for the taxpayers. But it is easy to see how it is "good" for those who benefit directly from it.

Processes such as Civil Service, the archaic and corrupt system by which many communities still hire police and firefighters, advances the cause of those who seek to keep municipal jobs "in the family."

Civil Service makes geography more important than education, experience and leadership abilities.

When people with excellent experience and qualifications are prevented from applying for municipal jobs simply because of where they live, no one benefits except the local people who eventually get the jobs.

Local politicians like to make local people happy. In fact, their jobs often depend upon it. And municipal workers have a commendably high turnout rate in local elections. That does not go unnoticed.

Nothing written here is meant to imply people currently working in any municipal positions are not qualified to hold them. But being qualified - and being the best qualified person available at the time of hiring - are often two different things.

When a paramedic or a police officer comes to your door in an emergency, do you care more about their abilities and qualifications, or where they live?

Yeah - me too.

BILL GOUVEIA is a local community columnist who often writes about places other than where he lives. He can be reached at aninsidelook@aol.com.