State Law Trumps Local Sex Offender Rules, Locals Not Happy
Legislators in favor of the original law not to allow boundaries say statistics show that restricting where sex offenders live does not make children safer, but does the opposite. Read More...
Editor’s Note: This version of this story will appear in The Reporter newspaper (Waterboro), and also, in the American Journal. It appears here courtesy KeepMeCurrent.com Executive Editor Brendan Moran.
===
A new law is trumping local ordinances that regulate where sex offenders can live. Supporters of the local ordinances are not happy.
New state law trumps local sex offender rules
By Ann Fisher - June 24, 2009
Reporter – The Reporter
WATERBORO (): A new state law that establishes boundaries for convicted sex offenders overturns stricter ordinances in Lyman and Waterboro, infuriating local officials.
In the municipalities that choose to enact the new law, which will take effect in September, registered sex offenders will be prohibited from residing within 750 feet of a school or any municipally owned building generally used by children. Waterboro and Lyman both have local ordinances that prohibit registered sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of a school.
The bill signed by Gov. John Baldacci this month gives towns and cities the option of enacting local ordinances to prohibit sex offenders from living within 750 feet of a school or other public property primarily used by children. The law is not mandatory and does not automatically apply to every municipality. However, it will supersede and town or city ordinances that are more restrictive, and municipalities will not be allowed to keep or enforce ordinances that are more restrictive.
Sen. Jon Courtney, R-Sanford, whose district includes Waterboro and Lyman, said he was “outraged that the state would pre-empt our local ordinances. The state has had multiple opportunities to address this issue before and hasn’t. In the face of the state’s failure to act, many towns and cities have enacted their own ordinances. Lyman and Waterboro are prime examples. Now, the state wants to step in and impose from on high a maximum safe zone of 750 feet? This is a matter for local people … to decide – and many of them have.”
The catalyst for the law was pressure from the federal government for uniform categories of sex offender laws at the state level, according to Rep. Joe Wagner, D-Lyman. Maine has a waiver that gives the state until July 2011 to hammer out those categories, and he fully expects the issue of restrictive boundaries to be revisited when the categories are debated by legislators during the next session. Wagner said he hopes legislators look at urban and rural areas separately and “they can be adjusted accordingly.”
As originally written, the bill, called An Act To Ensure a Uniform Comprehensive State Policy Regarding Residency Restrictions for Sex Offenders, sponsored by Sen. Anne Haskell, D-Portland, proposed no restrictions on where sex offenders could live. The bill that was eventually passed, Haskell said, was a compromise among the Maine Municipal Association, the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault and the Department of Corrections.
“We’re not really thrilled with the way it came out,” said Dennis Abbott, chairman of the Waterboro Board of Selectmen. “We’re looking at how we’re opting in to the new law.”
Former Waterboro Selectman Evan Grover, who was in the forefront of the effort to enact Waterboro's strict ordinance, said, "I'm very disappointed with any compromise or effort to reduce the boundaries we set and approved with Waterboro voters. Waterboro voters were very clear with their vote on this issue and 'home rule' should definitely apply with this ordinance. We need to be less concerned with the rights of sex offenders and more concerned with the rights of our children and other law-abiding residents."
Legislators in favor of the original law not to allow boundaries say statistics show that restricting where sex offenders live does not make children safer, but does the opposite.
“They have a tendency to drive offenders underground,” Haskell said about residency restrictions. “Then you don’t know where they are, which is a more dangerous situation.”
In addition to driving sex offenders off the radar, Haskell said, strict ordinances create a false sense of security.
Sen. Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick, chairman of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, said he’s attended forums around the country on the subject and heard experts give the same testimony over and over again about the ineffectiveness of residency restrictions on sex offenders.
“It doesn’t give you what you want,” he said. “The argument for having restrictions is purely emotional.”
Gerzofsky said no matter where sex offenders live, they always have the option of driving to another town and parking in front of a school where no one knows who they are. When residents and parents are aware of who they are and where they live, there’s more pressure for them to stay in line, he said.
“I’d put them all downtown across the street from the police station,” Gerzofsky said. “The more people you have staring at you, the more likely you are to behave.”
“Unfortunately, when researching, 2,500 feet was the trip wire for court challenges in Pennsylvania and New Jersey,” said Wagner, who was part of a working group formed to reach the compromise by the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.
Because the large distance means there would be so many overlapping concentric circles around offenders in urban areas like Portland, the fear, said Wagner, is that offenders would not register or move to rural areas.
“Twenty-five hundred feet is a little bit short of a half mile,” said Wagner. “The working group said 1,000 feet is better than three footballs fields away. At this point it’s a victory in terms of getting the state to achieve the municipalities’ ability to adopt" compared to the original bill.
Abbott also said there is a big difference when dealing with urban and rural communities when essentially cordoning off an area to make it off limits.
“Seven-hundred and fifty feet barely gets you to Old Alfred Road,” he said, referring to the road that is a short distance from both the Waterboro Elementary School and the Massabesic Middle School. Both schools sit on land flanked by Old Alfred Road on one side and Sokokis Trail (Route 5) on the other. Because of the land area on both schools' grounds, there are not many houses within a 750-foot area, but there are beyond that boundary.
Massabesic High School on West Road is surrounded by even fewer houses. The town’s stringent sex offender ordinance was sparked in 2006 by the unannounced presence on West Road of a registered sex offender, Joseph Tellier, who has since died. Residents were up in arms when they learned Tellier lived within 1,000 feet of the schools. His victim, whom Tellier had beaten, raped and left for dead in 1990, lived in the next town.
"With the new boundries in place, Joseph Tellier could have lived in the same house without issue," said Grover. "Unacceptable."
According to Wagner, the new parameters would only apply to felony offenders whose victims are under the age of 14.
In a letter released before the amendment passed, the Waterboro Board of Selectmen said, “Our community officials were not notified or consulted when placing a potentially dangerous offender next to our district school. The victim was never warned that the man who had committed such heinous crimes against her would be living just minutes from her home just one town away. We were concerned for the safety of our residents and implemented an emergency ordinance to prevent a similar situation in the future.”
In the letter, the Waterboro board said, “Residents of Waterboro enacted a sex offender ordinance with well over 90 percent of our voters approving the measure. Our residents were very aware of what they voted for and were concerned for the safety of our children when the Department of Corrections placed an offender within sight of a district school.”
Courtney didn’t mince words about the situation: “Once again, Augusta is flouting local control.”
Said Grover, "Our lawmakers should be working on reducing the tax burden and leave decisions such as constitutionality of an ordinance up to the court system."
Reporter Leslie Bridgers also contributed to this story.