UPDATED CALL TO ACTION: Brevard County. Oppose proposed ordinance
[FAC NOTE: This is turning on absurd. Now businesses will be able to order persons forced to register can’t go within 1000 feet of their business?!?!]
As it stands, any person convicted of sex offenses involving minors cannot live within 1,000 feet of a school, child care facility, park or playground. The county’s current ordinance only states offenders cannot be within 1,000 feet from a school, daycare or playground. According to this article, County Commissioner John Tobias is hopeful that list will soon include some local businesses. “It’s an ordinance at the county level. State has a buffer and we’ve expanded that,” he said.
“It would give law enforcement the ability to arrest one of these offenders or predators who are within that 1,000 foot buffer from the business,” Tobias said. [The new ordinance would create a] new voluntary registry, certifying their business is a place where children regularly congregate, which would restrict sexual offenders and sexual predators from coming within 1,000 feet of the business. Opting in is free for a business.
[FAC NOTE: Please take action]
UPDATED: If you are near Brevard and would like to attend the meeting tomorrow, July 21, 2020, it will take place at 9:00 AM at the Brevard County Government Center,2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way (at Stadium Parkway),Viera, FL 32940
For those of you who have the time between now and Tuesday morning, please send an email to the commissioners listed below (or one email to all) stating your opposition to this proposed ordinance:
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Today I discussed a meeting place for FAC members at the Warbird Museum in Titusville at the airport. I have known the commander for some time so we had a good talk. He had nothing good to say about the Brevard County commissioners. In his opinion their only goal is to move forward their political careers with justice not in the equation. He said a lawsuit is about the only thing that will get their attention.
ANOTHER PROXIMITY LAW/ORDINANCE ATTEMPTING TO CIRCUMVENT AND EXPAND BEYOND THE SCOPE OF LEGISLATORS INTENT
(948.30(1)(b)), “a prohibition on living within 1,000 feet of a school, child care facility, park, playground, or other place where children regularly congregate, as prescribed by the court.
Ok, so it seems a lot of people are missing his 2 objectives here. At least, from what i’ve read and know about political duckery.
This ordinance is nearly identical to the 1,000ft portion part of the statute, except to incorporate private businesses into the fold of enabling police to make arbitrary arrests.
And obviously, he made that clear, this ordinance is to
“… give law enforcement the ability to arrest…”.
Not Protect anyone, to MAKE ARRESTS.
He merely wants to rearrest law abiding offenders. Though he’d have better luck picking on DWLS offenders, since their recidivisms are much higher than sex offenders.
So its intent, [ HIS Intent ] is not to protect businesses … NOR even children for that matter… its to:
{Arrest Sex Offenders for merely EXISTING in the vicinity of private businesses… for no more reason then, because}.
And if i’m reading between the lines correctly here, in that he held the meeting where the target subjects cant attend & therefore provide Professional, factual feedback on the matter. IMO, for that it should fail. His intent is malicious, deceitful and when you hide behind invisible boundaries to attack a class of people, every nation in the world calls that man, Cowardly.
In reflection of events, seems all he cares about is being able to say,
“I redundantly expanded on an already existing law to arrest sex offenders for existing near any business”.
Which will literally be all he can say. I couldn’t imagine any moral person with a measure of integrity wanting that attached to their legacy.
Though I speculate he thought long and hard about how to circumvent the existing thousand foot statute so that even more of Brevard County would be inaccessible and uninhabitable to sex offenders. Isn’t it about 70% currently?
His short term goal here, seems to be to increase recidivism rates of sex offenders from less than 1% to MAYBE 2% in the county, at exorbitant cost of resources to the cities & county, at taxpayer expense.
If passed, It’ll give people a false sense of security ( like the statute ) And this commissioner will BRIEFLY be perceived as “tough on sex offenders”. Which in these times, with statistical data already obliterating the effectiveness of these statutes, just isn’t impressive.
In light of all that is, the ordinance will be as effective as the statute itself ( Just a taxpayer fiscal burden that even law enforcement is sick and tired of dealing with nationwide )
Which is basically a bunch of restrictions that do Nothing but COST TAXPAYERS and was enacted on the very same false premises in 2002/2004 this commissioner affirms in his innocuous statements.
Does this mean I cannot accept a job if my office will be in the zone?
Other observations from the commissioners meeting:
Commissioner Tobia got Commissioner Lober to agree to support the proposal, so long as selected offenses were exempt. The exemptions would be offense-based, not risk based.
Kind of a political victory for Tobia, as it put Lober in the difficult position of having to pick and choose offenses that would be exempt.
Commissioner Isnardi, in expressing her support for the proposal, indicated she would have gone even further.
Commissioner Tobia showed that he understands the political calculus, put as “the needs of the 60,000 who have chosen not to offend, outweigh the needs of the 847 who HAVE offended,” as if both populations don’t share common interests.
Commissioner Smith was not present?
Overall I observed more enthusiasm here than I observed in Clay County, which voted 5-0 anyway, but trying to remain optimistic.
The following may be useful:
Vagrancy is a crime that is frequently regulated by lawmakers despite difficulties that have been encountered in defining it. Vagrancy laws are often drafted in such a way as to encompass ordinarily innocent activity. In one case the Supreme Court struck down an ordinance that prohibited “loafing,” “strolling,” or “wandering around from place to place” because such activity comprises an innocuous part of nearly everyone’s life (Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 92 S. Ct. 839, 31 L. Ed. 2d 110 [1972]). The Court concluded that the ordinance did not provide society with adequate warning as to what type of conduct might be subject to prosecution.
Second, the void for vagueness doctrine curbs the Arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement of criminal statutes. Penal laws must be understood not only by those persons who are required to obey them but by those persons who are charged with the duty of enforcing them. Statutes that do not carefully outline detailed procedures by which police officers may perform an investigation, conduct a search, or make an arrest confer wide discretion upon each officer to act as he or she sees fit. Precisely worded statutes are intended to confine an officer’s activities to the letter of the law.