The City Council once again postponed action last night on a proposed sex offender ordinance so that the city attorney could add language that would exempt offenders currently living in the city. In addition, it did not seem council members were close to a consensus about exactly what the restrictions should be.
As initially proposed by the Police Department, the ordinance would prohibit a registered sex offender from residing “within 1,500 feet of any premises where children commonly gather.” The ordinance defines such premises as “a public park, private or public school (excluding in-home schools), day-care center, or private recreational facility, including a park, water park, pool, playground, skate park, arcade or youth athletic field owned by a residential property owners association, or for which an entrance, admission, or rental fee is charged.”
Interestingly, the proposed ordinance would not prohibit sex offenders from going to any of these “premises,” or even “hanging out” at a pool or an arcade or a park. They just couldn’t live within 1,500 feet of them.
According to Police Department data, some 60 registered sex offenders currently live in Kyle and Council members apparently were concerned that passage of this ordinance would force at least some of them to relocate, quite possibly out of the city entirely. That concern was intensified when the wife and 9-year-old child of a registered sex offender living in Kyle spoke during the citizen comments portion of last night’s meeting.
The council’s feeling appeared to be that (1) those Kyle homeowners currently registered in the state’s sex offender database should be “grandfathered” from the provisions of the ordinance and (2) those Kyle renters in the database should also be protected when they are required to renew their leases. City Attorney Paige Saenz was asked to draft language for the ordinance to meet these requirements and enough council members said they wanted to actually read that language before they voted on a first reading that consideration of the item was postponed until the March 16 meeting. Saenz warned the Council that granting exemptions to the ordinance could make it more liable to legal challenges.
To put it simply, the ordinance, if passed with the new language, would only require registered sex offenders who wish to relocate to Kyle after the ordinance goes into effect to live in one of the city’s sex offender ghettos, but those already residing here would not be affected in any way.
How large those ghettos will be is also still undecided. Mayor Travis Mitchell favored the 500-foot restriction, arguing that offenders should not live “in the line of sight” of any area where children might congregate, but pushing them further away was too punitive. Council person Ashley Bradshaw, who is coming across as the most extreme hardliner on this issue, appeared to favor a 2,000-foot restriction, which, for all practical purposes, would prohibit anyone in the database from relocating to Kyle. And Council member Yvonne Flores-Cale said she was willing to split the difference, and approve a 1,000-foot barrier.
Council member Dex Ellison was successful in forcing the removal of one clause in the ordinance that said “WHEREAS, the City Council finds from evidence and statistical reports reveal that the recidivism rate for released sex offenders alarmingly high, especially for those who commit their crimes against children;” arguing that, in fact, the Council had never been presented with any such “evidence and statistical reports.”
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