You can add yet another distinction to the city of Kyle. In addition to being “The Pie Capital of Texas” and whatever honor the city plans to bestow upon itself for selling the first fajita in the entire Free World, the city, according to the police officer whose job it is to monitor such things, can now add the title of “Hotbed for sex offenders.”
And despite cautions from Mayor Travis Mitchell and council member Michael Tobias that the City Council might be trampling on the civil rights of some of its citizens, the majority of the Council voiced arguments last night I had not head in more than 60 years, back during the days when local officials were trying to pass laws prohibiting members of racial minorities from living in certain communities. “As a mother, I just don’t want one of those types of people living next door to me,” said council members Yvonne Flores-Cale and Ashlee Bradshaw.
This all came about during the City Council’s discussion of an idea from the Kyle Police Department that would essentially prohibit a person convicted of a sexual offense against a child from living anywhere in the city. They could purchase a home in Kyle, the police admitted, but they could not live in that home.
“These people do have civil rights,” Tobias said. “They did serve their time. They are paying the price for it. But they are still part of our society, still part of our city. They work. They could be business owners. They could be living a perfectly normal life.”
“But we have to feel safe in our homes,” Flores-Cale said, although she stopped short of advocating a similar ordinance against persons convicted of home invasions, rapes, or even home burglaries.
City attorney Paige Saenz said the courts have ruled such laws are constitutional as long as there are still places within the city in which a sex offender could live. Although it appears there are small pockets on the fringes of the city that would not be covered by the ordinance, it doesn’t appear any residences are located in these pockets. The proposal presented last night would bar a registered sex offender from living anywhere within 1,500 feet from “where children commonly gather.” Mayor Mitchell asked the police department to return with maps that showed what areas would be covered with that footage at various intervals between 1,000 and 1,500 feet from those areas. He did not, however, specifically ask to determine what, if any, type of housing is available in those areas that are not impacted by the ordinance.
It’s also interesting to note that Texas law allows registered sex offenders to carry guns beginning on the fifth year anniversary of being finished with that person’s sentence, including probation. In other words, five years after their sentence, registered sex offenders can drive into Kyle and shoot local citizens, but this ordinance would not allow them to live among them.
“We’re five minutes south of Austin, right next to San Marcos,” officer Dago Pates, who first came up with the idea for the ordinance, told the Council last night. “We’re a hotbed for sex offenders to want to be in. The price is right, The location is right. We’ve just had an influx of sex offenders coming in.” That “influx,” he said, totaled 68 persons living in Kyle who are registered with the state as a sex offender. The ordinance would not affect any of those 68 who are currently homeowners, but if they are leaseholders, they would be prohibited from renewing those leases. Bradshaw said she would be in favor of riding all 68 out of town on a rail.
The next step is for the Council to consider adopting such an ordinance, which could possibly take two separate votes and, one would assume, a public hearing attached at least to the first reading of the proposal. It is expected the Council will take up debate and possibly vote on a first reading at its next meeting, Feb. 16.
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