To vote, or not to vote

While I have to admit I do not have a definitive opinion on what is 'best' all around on this question of residency requirements for city workers, I am rather perplexed that a piece of city code can be thrown out merely by the fiat of a labor arbitration.  I must be missing something.

This goes beyond some century old piece of city administrative ephemera of course. There was this city referendum just a few months ago that set in stone Belgian block the longstanding requirement.  It passed overwhelmingly, with just under 80 percent of the vote, making it far more popular than even the library tax recently enacted within the city.

I am not sure this was ever parsed publicly, but if you go look at the referendum results by ward you get the following. Basically it was without opposition most anywhere with 'yes' votes ranging from a low of 72.6% to a high of over 90%.

I think the bigger question here is why the public so wants what the actual workers so oppose.  Just take a look at the results by ward:

Ward	Yes	No
1	90	28	76.3%
2	230	59	79.6%
3	236	38	86.1%
4	973	234	80.6%
5	597	103	85.3%
6	568	124	82.1%
7	1092	370	74.7%
8	1143	324	77.9%
9	1003	222	81.9%
10	1927	454	80.9%
11	1707	366	82.3%
12	680	82	89.2%
13	840	131	86.5%
14	4863	1439	77.2%
15	1509	340	81.6%
16	637	150	80.9%
17	514	125	80.4%
18	633	136	82.3%
19	3052	835	78.5%
20	1423	409	77.7%
21	318	34	90.3%
22	302	56	84.4%
23	246	43	85.1%
24	376	124	75.2%
25	306	55	84.8%
26	1026	258	79.9%
27	1228	332	78.7%
28	1026	348	74.7%
29	983	263	78.9%
30	283	58	83.0%
31	569	215	72.6%
32	687	246	73.6%