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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010-07-13 Government Operations Committee Minutes Government Operations Committee July 13, 2010 Minutes Councilor Attendance: Blanchette, Wheeler, Hawes, Gratwick, Weston Staff Attendance: Heitmann, Gastia, Yardley, Nicklas Others: Attorney Hamer, Dennis Mable, Ms. Hoy Committee Chair Gratwick opened the meeting at 5:00 p.m. Items were taken out of sequence. 2. Forest Avenue Handicapped Parking Spot and Correction to Schedule VI, Parking for Persons with Disabilities Nicklas stated that the purpose of this is to add a handicapped parking spot in a better location than the two spaces that currently exist at the Abraham Lincoln School. These two spaces are currently near the back entrance of the school, which is now kept locked and difficult to locate for those unfamiliar with the building. The primary access to the school is on Forest Avenue. This is also where there are cameras and a buzzer system. This Ordinance would establish a handicap parking spot on Forest Ave. near this entrance and correct an error that was made several years ago which included some language in City Ordinances in Schedule 6, the handicap parking schedule, which should not be there. A motion was made and seconded to approve staff’s recommendation. 1. Sex Offender Residency Restrictions Nicklas stated that a Bangor resident has asked if the City of Bangor would enact a restriction for sex offenders on residency. The Ordinance would not allow those convicted of certain sexual offenses, such as those that are classified as class A, B and C crimes against children under the age of 14 to move to locations within 750 feet of schools or publicly owned property where the primary users are children. Sex offenders who fall under those designations, but are already living within that buffered area, would be grandfathered and be allowed to continue to live there until they chose to move. There would be penalties associated with this, which would include a fine and an injunction. These restrictions parallel those which are allowed by law enacted last year by the state. The State has preempted Legislation in this field to a large extent, which means there are certain limits on what municipalities are allowed to enact. This Ordinance would enact as wide a restriction as allowable under State law. Responding to Weston, Nicklas said that the State mandates the maximum extent to which the City can regulate in this field. The City can be no stricter than the State; however, the City can be less strict. Weston asked Nicklas to give a brief overview of what the class A, B and C crimes are. Nicklas said that a Class C sex offense is a crime punishable by up to 5 years incarceration and a $5,000 fine. Class B crime is punishable by 10 years incarceration and a $20,000 fine and a Class A crime is punishable by up to 40 years incarceration and a $50,000 fine. Hamer, an attorney for Rudman and Winchell, stated that his client, Angela Hoy, is the reason that this all came to light. He said that many people in the City believe that either the City or the State already regulates where sex offenders can reside. When it was discovered that there are no regulations, Ms. Hoy came to him and asked what can be done. They did some research and came up with the State statute that does regulate the extent to which the City can regulate where sex offenders can reside. Prior to 2009, municipalities had free reign. They could have whatever restrictions they wanted and some towns had extremely restricted Ordinances and some had none. Since 2009, there are limits to which the City can regulate where sex offenders reside. This does have the effect of making it somewhat fairer to all the communities. Currently, there is some consistency that is in place for the Ordinances that are adopted for those municipalities that decide to do so. The Ordinance that has been provided is consistent with State law, and in terms of what Hamer’s firm believes this will do, is balance the needs of the community to provide a safe environment for children with the needs of people by allowing them to choose their place of residence. They think this is the proper balance to do so. These crimes are felonies and serious felonies with 5, 10 and sometimes up to 40 years of incarceration. These are not misdemeanors or felonies with one year penalties but can include gross sexual assault, sexual exploration of a minor, and in certain instances of sexual abuse of a minor, unlawful sexual contact, visual sexual aggression, sexual misconduct of a child, and solicitation of child by computer. There is class A, B and C felonies associated with all of those crimes. Hamer also pointed out that this is an Ordinance that applies to people that are convicted of these crimes against children that are up to 13 years of age. This includes very young children. Hamer said that the Ordinance is prospectively, which means that if someone lives in a house and the Ordinance goes through; they are not required to move. Publicly owned property where kids are the primary users would include playgrounds and the City’s pools. The way this would be enforced would allow a police officer to give a written notice to the resident to allow that person the opportunity to move. If the person refused to move in a reasonable time period, the City can sue to enforce the Ordinance with fines and an order to move. Hamer clarified that the way that the Ordinance is written includes any park that has playground equipment or something special about that park that makes it a place where kids congregate. The 750 feet would be measured from the playground equipment instead of using all four corners of the park. Responding to Wheeler, Hamer said that Davenport Park would not be included due to the lack of playground equipment. He concluded by saying he has confidence that setbacks are an appropriate means of achieving some sort of protection. He is trying to address part of the problem and thinks that addressing part of the problem is necessary and failing to take that step would be a negative thing for the community. He said they are asking the Committee to recommend that this item be placed on the Council Agenda for first reading with the idea that by then there will be a very good draft ready. This is a workable and reasonable Ordinance and something that the community owes the children. Responding to Weston, Hamer said that the State allows the City to regulate the resident and does not allow the City to have a generalized setback for personal appearances. The person has the ability to walk through these areas and would not have to drive their car three blocks out of their way to get where they are going. Responding to Hawes, Hamer said that the State statute does not cover privately owned daycare centers. Blanchette is requesting that if this goes to first reading and comes back, she would like to have maps with the areas within the City that is being affected. She would also like to request that the Chief of Police come back to this committee with a plan of how he will enforce this and what impact it will have on his workload. Hamer provided the Committee with a map of the City with the schools and playgrounds that will be protected. Gastia applauds anyone who brings forth an item that can assist the Police Department in protecting the City and secondly someone who brings something forward that will protect the most vulnerable assets this community has, which are the children. He wanted to point out again that this Ordinance does not prohibit anyone from visiting the park or being in the area. This only applies to those felonies residing in that area. He feels that this is important because an Ordinance like this sometimes instills a false sense of security. It sometimes makes people believe that their children are safe or safer because a person cannot reside within this certain area. The reality is that many offenders do not reside in these locations, but visit them. He stated that he was prepared to answer Blanchette’s question tonight regarding the impact that this Ordinance would have on the Police Department. He said that although the Police Department is very stressed in attempting to monitor registered sex offenders, as is mandated by the State but added that it is unfunded, but this would create virtually no more heavy lifting for the Department than what is already being done. The department already has to track where people are residing, they need to be checked on periodically. The only additional work would be if someone chooses to live in this restricted area and action was needed to enforce the Ordinance. He spoke to the Lieutenant and the Sergeant for the detective division and the Department’s Detective that handles the registered sex offenders. While he has a case load of over 200 registered sex offenders, it is just a matter of plugging the new Ordinance in and making sure that when he goes out to check on these individuals that he is aware of what the Ordinance says and whether or not that residence is within the buffer zone. Responding to Weston, Gastia said that the investigator receives the information from the state and goes out to physically visit that sex offender. Everyone on the list gets checked and some get checked more frequently. The offenders that are known not to follow the law are the ones that get check more frequently. If the sex offender is not residing at that residence, the officer has to apply for a warrant for that person that comes from the DA’s office. Sometimes this warrant is granted and sometime it is not. He pointed out that the periodic checks might happen every 6 months, but it all depends on the case load of the Officer. When someone looks at the Stat’s website to find out where the offenders are residing, it is as accurate as it can be from the City’s perspective. If the department finds that someone is not residing where they are indicated on the website, the department immediately notifies the State at which time they are supposed to update the website. Yardley informed the Committee that he has taught child welfare at the University of Maine since 1986. He also applauds anyone that tries to make the community a safer place. He cautions the Council to consider that when speaking of sex offenders, it conjures up ideas and images of people, but in fact, a lot of the sex offenders that he has worked with in his career do not fit a description that he thinks this law is trying to address. The vast majority of people convicted of sex abuse violate a child in their home or a child visiting their home. He cautions that whatever comes out of this people should still exercise appropriate supervision over their children. This Ordinance will not make them safe. He provided the Council some information from the American Journal of Public Health where there have been a number of studies done around these kinds of issues. His role at the City is a big part of housing poor people. One of the concerns he has is the limitations on where poor people will be able to live because they are much more exposed to public scrutiny because they have to go through the City. This map would be used by his department and he has asked for a legal ruling from Augusta on whether they will allow them to include this as a screen in the application process if this Ordinance is passed. He thinks it is important to think about the possibilities that if this is passed, the offenders will then move somewhere else. He thinks this is a simple solution to a very complicated issue. Wheeler spoke about an article he read on Sexual Offender Laws and Prevention of Sexual Violence by Dr. Kelly Bonnerkid in the American Journal of Health and he found the data interesting and intriguing and somewhat complicating. He brought up the allegation that many have heard regarding the welfare recipients and sexual offenders from other communities, in and outside of Maine, that have a habit/addiction of “buying them a bus ticket to Bangor” because Bangor has the facilities and the expertise to take care of the problem. He asked Yardley his opinion on this allegation. Yardley said that there are limited options for correctional facilities, for example, when they discharge someone that has no place to live there are only a limited number of resources available across the state. He is afraid that this point might complicate this discussion. The message he would like to leave is he thinks that this Ordinance would address a very, very small portion of those that are convicted of the crime of sexual abuse, whether it is Class A, B or C. In his experience, and he has been involved in child welfare for 30 years, a very small segment of those offenders are convicted of sexual crimes against children. He is not saying that is not worth doing, but the vast majority of those convicted of sex offenders are going to be outside of that restricted area. Hamer thanked Yardley and Gastia for the reminder that passage of this Ordinance does not make it a safe place. It is the tool that is being allowed to enact by the State and the best that can be done. He would rather have this on the books than nothing. He also thinks that it is clear from the statistics that there is a need as well. Ms. Hoy has gone through a number of different websites to get an idea of the kind of numbers that are in the Bangor community, and how that compare to other communities. He thinks it is important to understand that because Bangor is a service center, or maybe because Yardley does his job so well, there are an inordinate number of people with sex offences that are residing in Bangor. According to the State of Maine sex registry, there are 210 in Bangor, 190 in the greater Portland area, 207 in Augusta, and 174 in Lewiston, which are all service areas. In Old Town, there are 19, Hampden has 12 and Orrington and Orono have 7. It drops off quickly when out of the service center. When factoring the population, the story really comes out. In terms of the number of sex offender residents per 1,000 residents, Augusta is the highest at 9, Bangor comes in second at 5.82, and Brewer has 4.3, etc. This drives home the need to do whatever the community is allowed to do. Ms. Hoy is a Bangor resident and thanked everyone for being there. She said this is a very personal matter to her and explained that two of her direct family members were molested as children. She stated that the child is the primary victim and pays for the rest of their lives. The criminal eventually gets out of jail and is free to live and offend again. She is a local business owner and owns a local publishing company. She is the author of 12 non-fiction books and a married mother of 5, with children between the ages of 4 and 23. She is from Texas and after reading an article that said that Maine was the safest place to raise a child. They moved into a beautiful home in Bangor and her children are well entrenched in the community now and they love it here. She was shocked a few weeks ago when the neighbor called to ask if the police have come to visit her because she was given a flyer indicating that a sex offender had moved in just down the street. She pointed out that there was one that lived 7 houses down the street and have had no problems with him, but this new man was living right across the street from the park and was twice convicted of sexually assaulting children. He was not just a sex offender but a child molester. After learning this, she called her attorney only to find out that there was no residency restriction concerning sex offenders in Bangor. After doing a lot of research over the last few months, she heard that the Bangor homeless shelter is the only, or one of the only, homeless shelters in Maine that accept sex offenders. She also heard from a source that there are rooming houses in Bangor that cater to sex offenders and many of them are located right in the middle of neighborhoods. She stated that Portland has more than double the population of Bangor, yet Bangor has more sex offenders than Portland. She thinks that combining the fact that Bangor offers so many great services to convicted sex offenders and that there is no residency restrictions has caused the Greyhound bus tickets to come out. This is a result of Bangor being a major service center that is sex offender friendly. She thanked everyone for their help in making all of the parks in Bangor a safe zone. This means individuals are not allowed to deal drugs, take drugs and/or alcohol within 1000 feet of a park. If a business offers nude entertainment, it cannot be located within 500 feet of a church, school, park, library, etc. She personally would prefer to live next door to a striper or even a drug dealer as opposed to a child molester. She feels that a child molester is a greater threat to the children than strippers and drug dealers. The City of Bangor does not bus students who live 1 to 1 ¾ miles away from schools depending on their age. She feels that allowing convicted child molesters to live around the schools allows them to watch the same children walking to and from schools every day. This increases the chances that they might become fixated on a particular child, befriend and groom that child, and possible befriend the family of that child. She speaks from personal experience that they will do everything they can to groom the child and the family to gain their trust. She feels that if the community is going to force the children to walk to school along the path of convicted molester, it is just like throwing the children out as bait. She also said that officials who track high risk sex offenders watch for specific grooming behaviors. One of the things they look at is if the sex offender visits playgrounds. She pointed out that the government recognized that playgrounds are a particular place where sex offenders look for their next victim. She agrees that this will not apply to most of the sex offender, and she is only talking about the worst of the worst. She believes that people who have been convicted of sexual assaulting a child 0 to 13 years of age cannot be reformed or fixed. She thinks they are all out there looking for their next victim. Ms. Hoy spoke about different statistics and studies in the recidivism rate of sex offenders. Most of them are tracked for 5 or 10 years. She said that the Department of Justice quotes a study that tracks sex offenders for 25 years and the recidivism rate was 52%. She pointed out that the more time goes by after they have been released, the greater the chance they going to reoffend. She spoke of a mother she had met a couple weeks ago at a park that told her there was a child molester who comes to that park and sits and watches the children almost every day. He doesn’t come when there are a lot of men on the basket ball court. She ran some statistics on www.familywatchdog.us which is the one that shows the maps where all the sex offenders live. She pointed out that Second Street Park has 2 sex offenders, Coe Park has 3 sex offenders, Hayford Park has 4 sex offenders, Stillwater Park and playground has 1 sex offenders, Williams Playground has 2 sex offenders, and Brown Woods has one sex offender. She also ran statistics for sex offenders living within ½ mile from schools and found that; Penobscot Christian School has 2 sex offenders, Downeast School has 2, William S. Cohen has 10, Bangor High has 2, and Mary Snow has 3. She said that within 1,000 feet John Bapst has 24, Hilltop school has 2, Vine Street has 3, James Doughty has 4, Fairmount School as 2, Abraham Lincoln and Chapin Park has 5, and Fruit Street School has 7. As a comparison, town around Bangor have the following sex offenders living within ½ mile; Old Town Elementary has 0, Calvary Christian in Orrington has 0, and Hermon Elementary School and Hermon Creative Playground has 0. The following sex offenders living within 1,000 feet are; North Star Christian School has 0, Weatherbee School in Hampden has 0, Pendleton Street School in Brewer has 0, Brewer High School has 0, Brewer Middle school has 0, Washington Street in Brewer has 0, Capri Street School in Brewer has 0, Adams School in Orono has 0, Orono Middle School 0. She feels that this is disproportionate and Bangor has been unfairly burdened with sex offenders. She feels that anything the City can do to make the City less sex offender friendly would benefit every good hardworking resident in Bangor and make it safer for our children. She said that the citizens of Bangor do not want convicted child molesters watching the children play, hunting them and possibly even befriending one of them. Allowing a child molester to live next to a park or school is like letting a bank robber spend the night in a bank or an alcoholic live in a liquor store. She said that there are a variety of different interests, businesses, and individuals and even government entities that would oppose such an Ordinance. She is asking the Committee to keep in the back of their minds that some of these people may have a financial interest in do so. Parents in Bangor do not have any financial interest in this, whatsoever, they just want their children protected. She pointed out that it takes a village to raise a child and because parents are busy it is the responsibility of the community to help. She said that even if only one child is prevented from going through, what her family went through all of this will have been worth it. Wheeler commended Ms. Hoy for the research she has done and asked her if she could recommend specific means by which Bangor could be made to be more unfriendly to sex offenders. She replied saying that sex offenders can come to Bangor and get free food and housing, which is an invitation. The fact that they can live anywhere in the City is another invitation. She does not think that there is anything that can done about the homeless needing food and shelter, but she thinks dissuading them from moving here by saying “no you can’t live just anywhere, such as a park or a school”. This would be a deterrent and could possibly lower the number of sex offenders that are coming to Bangor. Wheeler than asked if she is convinced that if this Ordinance is passed it will increase the protection for children, specifically under the age of 14. She said she does believe this because she has done a lot of research over the years due to her families’ involvement with this subject. She said that sex offenders do not drive by someone’s house and grab a kid off the front yard. They drive by house 25, 50, 75 times. They hunt for their prey and find a specific child and methodically watch the child. Weston excused himself from the meeting and thanked everyone for taking this first step and supports it. Dennis Marble, resident of Bangor and Executive Director of the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, said he was struck by the coincidence of those serving time for a variety of offenses and the fact that they had first been victims. He is not saying that every victim will become a perpetrator, but what he is saying is that this is about public safety collectively. He admits that it is a difficult and a complicated issue. He would also encourage the Committee to try and give consideration to arrange a lot of expert advice in the process, especially if this goes beyond the statute. He said to look closely at the municipality with State systems because there is a downstream effect. The Homeless Shelter does house a number of sex offenders and tries to use common sense criteria about their own ability to supervise taking into consideration whether or not they are on probation, etc. He said there are no guarantees. Dave Rogers spoke about the false sense of security he has had for about 10 years. He thought there were protections out there for the children. He says that if the number of sex offenders is too high for the police department to control, he feels that there should be a limit of those offenders within the City. He admits that he does not know the laws but is giving his ideas. He does not agree with the fact that not every park can be covered in this Ordinance and it surprises him that daycare facilities are not covered. He noted that some daycare facilities have apartments above them. He said that the potential victims’ rights need to trump the rights of the criminals. Jill Tucker, Resident of Hancock Street and mother of two, wanted to bring up the fact that Portland has double the population than Bangor, yet Bangor has more sex offenders. That really bothers her and convinces her that the community needs to take this step to stop inviting more sex offenders to come live in Bangor. Blanchette stated that she has served 8 years on State Criminal Justice in Augusta and dealt everyday with sex offender issues. She stated that just like Marble said that it is important how things are phrased. Not everyone on the sex offender list is a predator or a pedophile. She thinks that as a City and a governing body, there are many measures that can be taken. One example is offering classes for our pool lifeguards and young adults that are working in the parks to recognize people that should not be there. She would rather not do this in hurry and thinks that the second meeting in August would give people time to compile information. She wants to make sure this Ordinance can be enforced. A motion was made and seconded that this be referred to the Council for First Reading th and back to this Committee on the 4 Tuesday. Heitmann, after looking at the calendar, discovered the meeting will take place on th August 10. Wheeler asked for a vote and it was 3 in favor and 0 opposed. Meeting adjourned at 6:20 p.m.