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:
Discover more from Florida Action Committee (FAC)
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
A couple of these commissioners are mentally imbalanced. Their obvious desire to torture others and make their lives a living hell to satisfy a twisted desire for revenge makes that abundantly clear.
We are not dealing with sane people. We are dealing with rabid mad-dogs.
Were my county to offer my business free certification as Child Safety Zone, I’d do it.
That is, if I didn’t know what I know now about the registry.
And I don’t think I’m alone in this. Its inherent appeal is what’s so diabolical about Tobia’s creation.
I know Tobia sounds ignorant, but he’s smart enough to deploy that ignorance as a weapon.
“The sex offenders are boycotting my business!” A business owner would find the ability to say that almost as appealing as an official child safety zone certification.
Until we get the public better educated, they’re not ready to understand such a boycott.
So registrants MAY NOT SPEAK at Brevard commissioners meeting, for fear of violating the existing proximity ordinance?
I had No. Idea.
What a wonderful constitutional challenge this will be.
Absolutely, a good challenge. A reminder that in Derek Logue’s successful appeal of the restraining order that Princess Book took out against him, the 2nd DCA specifically mentioned the proximity restriction was a problem in that her place of employment was the Florida Capitol.
I for one don’t see how such an ordinance can stand against all registrants at all times if it can’t be part of a restraining order by a specific person against a specific person (who, by the way, didn’t even reside in the state).
My other take is that if this idiotic ordinance passes, start an effort to get all friends and family members of registrants to boycott any business who signs up for this registry. While many of them might be willing to do without registrant patronage, not many could do as well (or even survive, in some cases) without those affected by the SO registry despite not being registrants themselves.
I watched the commission meeting and there was only 1 speaker, who didn’t present well at all. There was nobody who spoke with any cohesive arguments.
Commissioner Tobia went back to the “They have a high risk of reoffending”. Painted all registered citizens as monsters lurking behind every tree.
No one presented any facts.
Tobia also brought up that “many of these cases are plead down so they don’t reflect the true severity of the offense”.
Believe it or not Commissioner Lober raised the issue of offender vs. predator. Said that crucifying all of them is not the answer. He actually seemed to be reluctant to throw all of us out with the trash.
There were also discussions about state statutes.
We HAVE to determine if we can attend these meetings so we can speak! The only response I get from anyone in authority when I ask about attending a Commission meeting that’s within the 1000’ buffer zone is that they can’t or won’t give an answer. We need to present FACTS AND DATA NOT HYPERBOLE!!!!
The did approve the advertisement of the proposed ordinance.
DAMN
Let’s acknowledge that the one person who spoke was the only person who stood up for his family, and for you.
If you are ready to stand up and speak out, then work on a 3 minute written statement NOW and attend the next commission meeting or send someone who will repesent you. The Membership team will have schedule a separate conference call to help you prepare.
I thought he presented very well. He showed up to speak out and get insulted by Tobias. He’s VERY brave.
I applaud his courage & willingness to stand and speak. I could hear the pain and frustration in his voice. It’s the same pain and frustration we all feel. We all know that issues like this ripple through our entire family and hurt all of us. My family is hurt more than I am because they miss out on things and endure difficulties simply because they choose to support me.
The emotional pain and frustration in the gentleman’s voice were the two things that hurt his presentation. He gave Comm. Tobia the out of saying “Gee, I feel so bad for you and you’re courageous to come speak but we have to protect our little ones. If that means driving a little further to get groceries then so be it”.
I have my notes all prepared to speak but still can’t get an answer as to whether or not I can attend the August meeting and not be in violation of the current ordinance. I’m willing to work with anybody who can help figure this out.
I’m more than willing to put my name on the record at a meeting. If I can work with someone who can go I’ll give them my letter and some prepared answers to questions that we all know will follow. They can give my full name, address and charges, hell, they can take an 8X10 picture if they want as long as it’s somebody who’ll stand toe to toe (respectfully) with John Tobia and not allow him to go unchallenged.
Finally watched the spouse speak. Wow was he powerful. Particularly for someone who is a regular citizen and not an elected official. So I must disagree with the poster who found it not well presented.
And Commissioner Tobia’s response to this citizen was so slick that it demonstrates that he probably already KNOWS the facts about registrants, given all the letters and e-mails we’ve sent him, and is simply undeterred by them. The only thing he DOESN’T know is whether this bill is as politically popular as he assumes it is. THAT’S where he and one or two of his colleagues need to be educated now. If they receive an unexpected volume of letters, calls, e-mails, and meeting appearances from people who oppose the measure, then that should be enough to sway at least one vote in what could be a 3-2. Am I right?
Even if “high risk of reoffending” is true, these types of exclusions are worse than worthless. And no one should ever pretend that big government has even the tiniest clue about who is likely to offend and who isn’t. As a collective whole, big government is dumber than a grade school child.
The facts are that ANYONE could be at a Chuck E Cheese or wherever. If you are there, you are going to have to act like the world’s most prolific child molester is also there. If you don’t, then you aren’t actually protecting anyone. If you think it will make any difference in your risk if big government TRIES to keep out a tiny handful of people, then you are an idiot and you and your family are likely always in danger.
This distinction of “offender vs. predator” is nonsense as well. This type of extra-judicial, after-the-fact harassment has no place for anyone. People have to stop thinking that “this shouldn’t apply to me” but it should to some other person. If you think that then it should apply to you. We know big government can’t be trusted to say who is an “offender” and who is a “predator”. Don’t ever believe they could get that right.
Do you have the results of the commissioners meeting today? The minutes are not posted yet. It took me about 10 minutes of clicking around the Brevard County government site to find the agenda and then the agenda reference was a vague notation about an amendment to Section 74-102. They did not even have the courage to give a more definitive description of the amendment. Only by using an eagle eye and digging did the intent become apparent. Thank you FAC for bringing this to light.
The reality is that the criminals who need to be monitored are the criminal legislators and other government “officials” who work in/for these out-of-control, huge, nanny big governments. They need to be monitored every day to ensure that they are not trying to commit yet more crimes based on and promoted by their Registry Hit Lists. Criminals like John Tobia are a danger to all Americans. They are serial, incessant recidivists. Career criminals. Must be monitored closely.
The commissioners agreed, by vote, to further discuss moving forward on the amendment. It’s not being voted on yet. You can see the video at http://brevardfl.granicus.com/player/clip/100?view_id=1 — the discussion starts at 2 hours and 13 minutes and lasts until 2 hours and 47 minutes. John Tobia was a complete oaf and the District 1 commissioner Pritchett and District 5 Commissioner Isnardi were annoying as well. The chairman, Mr. Lober, stood up to Tobia, but not 100 percent. Still, he was much more supportive of those required to register as offenders.
Thanks, RayO, for being the first to break today’s suspense. I’d watch the video myself but am afraid it would inflame my hypertension. I’ll ask my doctor first. Annoying oafs in positions of power can create real-life problems.
In the meantime, the good news is we have more time to work on this, and more insight into what each commissioner is thinking.
Yeah … the District 4 guy, Curt Smith, asked only one simple, but good, question. He asked Tobia whether some recent criminal incident was inspiring Tobia to act on this. Tobia answered, defensively, that a registrant in Brevard had been complaining about how tough Brevard was on registrants. Tobia then said that, after researching Brevard ordinances and state law (which he sounded like a true idiot while talking about it), he saw this loophole that allowed registrants to be near places like Chuck E Cheese. Sounds like maybe his real motivation is some kind of revenge on his Brevard constituent making the complaints. Commissioners Pritchett and Isnardi sound like very ‘right’eous ladies who are ready to pass this amendment no matter how harsh it is. Curt Smith sounds like a guy who’d rather not be wasting time with this (though he didn’t make that clear). Commissioner Lober, the chairman, stated that he would vote for the amendment only if it applied to those who register as ‘predators’, but would likely not vote for it unless it at least excluded “romeo and juliet” cases or situations where the offense could have been accidental or not so serious. I think he’d like to see those registered as ‘offenders’ excluded, just to be safe. They discussed how easy it would be for romeo and juliet offenders to just go to court and get off the list (they are mostly a poorly informed and naive crowd of rule makers). Sadly, it looks like it would be 3-2 vote in favor of the amendment, at best, if the vote were to happen soon.
I can only hope that I was the Brevard registrant that Tobia was complaining about. I’ll gladly be a burr under his saddle.
We all know who he was referring to!
I will prepare my response to the commissioners this afternoon. I have a Christian brothers meeting to attend this morning…I’m sure to the surprise of the commissioners.
Ok.
I have sent a carefully worded email to all 5 officials. I pointed to the ACLU wins in Michigan and the wins in California by Janice Bellucci and her team at ACSOL.
I reminded them that litigation could be expensive for them.