Council passes sex offender residency ordinance

The city council unanimously approved on second and final reading last night an ordinance designed to discourage certain sex offenders from moving to Kyle by restricting where they may live.

The ordinance would prohibit certain sex offenders considering relocating here from establishing a permanent or temporary residence, or to be a recurring visitor at a residence located within 1,000 feet of premises where children commonly gather.

“The ordinance would not apply to (any current Kyle) homeowners or those with a rental/lease agreement in effect before the ordinance’s passing; or to individuals that were required to register as a sex offender as a minor but were not convicted as an adult; or to individuals living in a medical facility such as hospitals or inpatient facilities,” the city said today in a formal statement announcing the council’s vote.

“This ordinance wasn’t written to be punitive toward any part of our population,” the city’s statement quoted Kyle Chief of Police Jeff Barnett as saying.

The ordinance does, however, make it unlawful for certain sex offenders, including those already residing in the city, to leave decorations or exterior porch lights on or otherwise invite trick-or-treaters to their homes on Halloween.

Areas where certain individuals who are listed on the state’s sex offender database may live if they desire to move to Kyle sometime in the future are marked in blue on the map found on this website.

The item was part of Tuesday’s Consent Agenda and, as a result, was adopted on its second reading without comment or debate.

A challenge to Kyle City Council members: Persuade the “persuadables”

 I’ve received considerable feedback from readers concerning the article I wrote and published just prior to this one. I can’t say for sure, but I’m going to assume the feedback was negative. I don’t know if it really was because all that feedback was sent anonymously and I never open e-mail sent to me anonymously. But I assume it’s negative because I learned 45 years ago, when, for some reason still beyond my comprehension, a graduate student at Texas A&M decided to make me and my supposed influence on the culture of North Central Texas the subject of her master thesis. Her research showed that overwhelming majority of those who write letters to social critics are those who adamantly oppose and reject the opinions of said critics and are inflamed enough to take the time to author this correspondence. Those who agree, just nod their heads and go on about their lives.

So let me give all those letter writers and potential correspondents a tip: Don’t waste your time! I know I’m right about this. I have the facts, the irrefutable logic and the ethical standards to support my point of view. Nobody’s going to change my mind on this subject. At the same time, I am also well aware I’m not going to change the mind of anyone who supports this ordinance. People need to cling to a sense of security and it makes absolutely no difference if it is, like these ordinances. a false sense of security. These ordinances will do absolutely nothing to make today’s Kyle one bit safer; but so many people need to cling to the idea that it will, nothing is going to dissuade them from that belief, that hope, that desperate need.

In my years as a political consultant, I used to instruct my clients running for public office (and there are those on this city council that have heard me tell them this) that the political universe is divided into three groups: those who agree with you, those who don’t and those you’re not sure of. I would plead with my clients not to waste their time trying to convince those who don’t agree with you. They are never going to admit “You know, I’ve been wrong all these years.” It’s never going to happen so don’t waste your time trying. Just look at all those people who are absolutely convinced Donald Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election. No set of facts or no one is going to convince them he didn’t. I also told my clients to occasionally reinforce those who agree with you and make sure they act on those beliefs. But don’t waste all your time just talking to them. To win, you must convince those who, for one reason or another, have not yet formed an opinion. Persuade the “persuadables.”

Which brings me to the challenge I’m about to issue to the members of the Kyle City Council. If you are convinced you are doing the right thing by approving this ordinance, then persuade the “persuadables.” At the very least, have the decency to try. Sit down in the living rooms of those residents living on the streets where those who are in the state’s sex offender database and are desiring to relocate to Kyle will be required to live. Completely explain this ordinance to them and persuade them, or, at the very least, try to persuade them it’s the right thing to do. I don’t even believe the residents of these areas are actually aware of what’s transpiring, the action you’re about to take. Has the city even mailed a postcard to them like they should do if they are planning a zoning change that will affect them? I doubt it. You are passing this ordinance behind their backs. At the very least, show the rest of us you have the courage of your convictions and the common decency any human being should possess to sit down with these people and inform them completely about the action you plan to take. And then, during the discussion period before the vote on the second reading of this ordinance, describe to the rest of us the highlights and the lowlights of the conversations you had with these families. Only in that way will we know you have the leadership qualities we look for in elected officials, that you have the ethical standards that earn you the trust we want to place in our elected officials, that you possess the rock solid belief in your decision-making ability that is needed to correctly and resolutely propel this city into the future.

Our sex offenders are OK, yours are degenerates

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.” 

Kyle is missing one sex offender

Two weeks after unveiling a proposal to (1) effectively prohibit sex offenders from moving to Kyle and/or (2) creating sex offender ghettos in the city, Kyle Police Chief Jeff Barnett is returning to the City Council Tuesday asking members to pass on first reading an ordinance regulating where, or if, registered sex offenders can live within the city limits. During this two-week interim, it appears the city lost one sex offender.

In his presentation Feb. 2, Barnett presented a memorandum, dated Jan. 14, that included a table listing a dozen Central Texas communities, which one of the dozen cities had ordinances restricting where sex offenders could live, how many sex offenders lived in each community and the ratio of sex offenders to the overall population in each burg. According to that table, 68 registered sex offenders lived in Kyle.

Tuesday, Barnett will come forward with a new memo, this one dated yesterday, the first sentence of which reads: “Today, there are 67 registered sex offenders in Kyle.” I know this is a minor detail, but it bothers me: What happened to that missing sex offender? Did he/she leave on their own accord or was he/she driven out of town? Or was there a miscount? It also bothers me that the memo doesn’t address the discrepancy. I have asked the City for a clarification on the whereabouts of Sex Offender 68, and Chief Barnett replied: “I have checked with our staff to make certain that my assumption was correct. We had one move out of the city during that short time period. This is common as they move in and out of the city from time to time.”

I must also admit I am bothered by other numbers offered with the new ordinance, particularly numbers concerning renters. The latest memo, which is actually one written by Dago Pates, the Kyle Police officer who came up with the idea for the ordinance, to Chief Barnett, states nine of the now 67 sex offenders living in Kyle are renters and only those nine “would eventually be affected by this ordinance when their lease expires.” I am bothered by this because Pates’ memo then says “9 of 67 is 7% of the group that would eventually be affected by this ordinance.” That is simply not true. Nine of 67 is actually almost double that — it’s 13.4 percent. So that makes me suspect all of the math associated with this entire project, including the number of actual registered sex offenders living here, the maps they are offering showing where sex offenders might be allowed to pitch tents in Kyle — all of it. Simply put, I’m quickly losing trust in this whole project.

Among the “Whereas’s” in the ordinance there is one that states “the City Council finds from evidence and statistical reports reveal that the recidivism rate for released sex offenders alarmingly high.” Forget for a moment the strange wording of that whereas. The pertinent question to ask is whether that statement is accurate. Do City Council members actually have in their possession “evidence and statistical reports (that) reveal that the recidivism rate for released sex offenders (is) alarmingly high”?  And, if they do, why don’t they share that evidence with the rest of us so that, for no other reason, some of us who might feel skeptical can feel more reassured about the justification for this action? What do you suppose would happen if you approached your city council representative and asked that person to show you those “statistical reports”? 

What this essentially means is that of the total number of sex offenders living in Kyle today — whether that number be 67 or 68 or even another number entirely — at least 58 or 59 of them, depending on which memo you read, would not be affected by the ordinance because they are homeowners. The ordinance would, once the ordinance goes into effect, simply prohibit anyone listed on the state’s sex offender database from moving to Kyle and establishing “a permanent residence, establish a temporary residence or to be a recurring visitor at a residence, located within 1,500 feet (or 1,000 feet or maybe 500 feet) of any premises where children commonly gather.” The ordinance defines a “premise where children commonly gather” as “all improved and unimproved lots where the following are located or planned to be located: 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.”

The reason I added the 1,000 and 500 feet designations is because Barnett has included in his presentation maps that illustrates how much of the city would be declared “off-limits” if the ordinance contained a 1,500-, a 1,000- or a 500-foot restriction. The Police Department is pushing for the 1,500-foot restriction, which, according to its map of that restriction, would essentially create a couple of sex offender districts in Kyle — in the apartment complex on Marketplace Boulevard, parts of the Trails subdivision, parts of the Post Oak subdivision, along Quail Ridge Drive, and an area under development on Opal Lane. Another alternative for registered sex offenders would be to create lofts out of the spaces in the new business parks in North Central Kyle.

Interestingly, there is no public hearing attached to this agenda item, Item No. 24, so anyone from the public wishing to speak on the issue would have to use the Citizen Comment period at the beginning of Tuesday’s meeting. Anyone wishing to speak virtually at the meeting may register to do so by clicking here.

Kyle police call city “hotbed for sex offenders”

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.

Chief Barnett to propose zones to keep out sex offenders

 Kyle Police Chief Jeff Barnett plans to introduce a proposed ordinance Tuesday that would create “child safety zones” in the city to protect children against sex offenders.

“Study shows specifically child molesters are more likely than any other type of offender to be arrested for a sex crime against a child following release from prison,” according to a memo Barnett will present to the City Council at its next meeting. The memo also states one out of every 830 Kyle residents is a registered sex offender, the largest such ratio for any city surveyed except Seguin and New Braunfels. Sixty of the 68 sex offenders living here, according to Barnett, can be classified as a child sex offender.

Under the terms of Barnett’s proposal “It shall be unlawful for a child sex offender to establish a permanent residence, establish a temporary residence or to be a recurring visitor at a residence, located within 1,500 feet of any premises where children commonly gather.” It would also declare it to be “unlawful to let or rent any place, structure or part thereof, manufactured home, trailer, or other conveyance, with the knowledge that it will be used as a permanent residence, temporary residence by any person” known to be a child sex offender if that residence is located “within 1,500 feet of any premises where children commonly gather.”

It also states that on Halloween “A child sex offender shall not … leave an exterior porch light on or otherwise invite trick-or-treaters to the premises.”

Barnett said his staff researched similar ordinances in other Central Texas cities and that his proposed ordinance was largely copied from one in effect in Cedar Park with language also added from a Pflugerville law.

The chief wants the City Council to go on the record in saying “repeat sexual offenders, sexual offenders who use physical violence and sexual offenders who prey on children are sexual predators who present an extreme threat to the health, safety and welfare of children. Sexual offenders are extremely likely to use physical violence and to repeat their offense and most sexual offenders commit many offenses, have many more victims than are ever reported, and are prosecuted for only a fraction of their crimes. This makes the cost of sexual offender victimization to society at large, while incalculable, clearly exorbitant.”

He also maintained his proposed ordinance serves “the city's compelling interest to promote, protect and improve the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of the city by creating areas around locations where children regularly congregate in concentrated numbers wherein certain sexual offenders and sexual predators are prohibited from establishing temporary or permanent residences.”

Barnett said his department’s research shows that out of the 12 Central Texas cities surveyed, Kyle is one of four that doesn’t currently have any form of a ordinance designed to protect children from registered sex offenders. The other three are Seguin, New Braunfels and San Marcos. In addition to the aforementioned Pflugerville and Cedar Park, where Barnett lifted language for his proposal, the other cities the Police Department surveyed with ordinances are Leander, West Lake Hills, Cibolo, League City, Giddings and Fate.