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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This is truly ridiculous. I have been reading about this for an hour or more and reading Gail’s emails has coverered it all. The ordinance is absurd and enforcing it next to impossible. All families of resistrants should boycott any business entertaining entering this pact. The stupidity runs rampant, so one has to conclude ulterior motives drive them.
Don’t just boycott the businesses. Understand that you’ve been shown who and what they are. So harm them by any means available. There are lots and lots of ways to do it and you can do it repeatedly for years. And it should not just be the millions of Registered people and their families. Advertise boycotts and other actions widely and try to involve everyone. It’s the moral thing to do.
AMEN!!!!!
These criminals are violating the civil rights of 1 million citizens off the USA every single day !!!
Yes, they are using registrants as a stepping stone for higher political ambitions. The Clay County commissioner that force my husband and me out of Clay County announced his run for Congress about a month after pushing a sex offense ordinance through our county that was NOT needed. They seem to all end up in Congress. Maybe that is why Congress is so dysfunctional today.
When ‘punishment’ is doled out with no fact or truth to back it up, we can see what we get. Politicians will ‘hitch their wagon’ to any agenda that they can get an uneducated electorate to believe. We must be patient and let our every action prove these ‘vote bating efforts’ to be nothing but the lies that they are. In life, there are times of high pressure or low pressure…but there are never times of no pressure. Our choices during these changing times tell a lot about us. We must live our lives so that when it is time for a politician ‘put up’ all he/she can do is shut up. Patience will win out over a politician’s pursuit of power and dominance.
Yup … I hadn’t noticed until now that the ONLY 3 Brevard commissioners who definitely want to pass this nasty amendment are ALL up for re-election right now. They are mostly running against Democrats, so they have an advantage, sadly, since Brevard is a mostly Republican county. If you know a Brevard voter in District 1, 3, or 5, encourage them to vote against these idiotic commissioners (Pritchett (dist 1), Tobia (dist 3), and Isnardi (dist 5)).
So all we need to do is reduce those 3 yes votes to 2, while validating the skepticism of the other two. Or hope it will be delayed til after election.
With Tobia a lost cause, it’s Commissioners Pritchett or Isnardi who need to learn what this may cost the county, and how this may make them look foolish.
It’s also conceivable that this is just pre-election posturing that will be completely forgotten about after the election, regardless of the winners.
Brevard Republican voters will have an additional chance to vote them out, in the Republican primary on August 18 (and prior to, for early voters), am I right?
That’s only the case with Tobia, since he’s running against 1 Rep, 2 Dems, and a Write-in (so, he faces two election dates – primary and general). Pritchett and Isnardi are only running against Dems (so they only have to win the general election in November).
Most voters are dumb and in smaller elections just vote for names that they recognize. It does not take a lot of “extra” effort to sway smaller elections. People who are in this county ought to organize to get criminal John Tobia tossed.
Join the campaigns of his opponent(s) and help someone else win. Leave any “sex offender” issues out of it. Find out the other ways they are attacking the criminal and help. The election might be close and it could take as little as an additional 100 yard signs to make the criminal lose. But people ought to act. I’ve done it numerous times. I helped a local mayor lose re-election by just a couple of hundred votes. It was sweet. After the election, I contacted him and told him what all I did, just because of his “sex offender” stupidity. Very satisfying. Vote out the criminals. We must dump criminals like John Tobia who love big government, can’t grow it too big, and can’t have too many “laws”.
Sadly, the Oaf Tobia won his primary challenge as a Republican. So, it’s more likely than not that he’ll be re-elected in the general election, since Brevard loves its Republicans.
Absolutely on point! Non condescending and engaging, you have challenged him to be a better person. We should all use this as a starting point to write over and over to them.
Commissioner John Tobia, District 3
2539 Palm Bay Road
Suite 4
Palm Bay, FL 32905
Commissioner Tobia,
I am writing once again on a subject that you have heard from me about in the past. That subject is Brevard County Ordinance 2006-31. I viewed Tuesday’s hearing on your proposal to modify that ordinance. You justified your proposal using the same old paranoia, innuendo, false information laced justification. To keep you insulated from the truth and facts, Ordinance 2006-31 kept away those who could best talk on the subject using facts from studies and real life experiences. That was actually smart on your part because it kept you from being made to look like a fool. Commissioner Lober seemed to be the only commissioner who questioned the process that was being proposed. The other commissioners seemed rather clueless on the subject. Why you choose to ignore the facts concerning ‘registered citizens’ can only be guessed at but it surely appears to be ‘vote baiting’ to attract uneducated voters who are looking for a ‘knight on a white horse’ to keep them safe from any and all danger…even danger that does not exist. I have not yet heard from you as to my request for a face to face meeting but that does not surprise me. It takes courage to try to support an ordinance and proposed change that is supported only by lies.Let’s take a look at some of the aspects of the current ordinance some of which go even beyond the bounds of the ordinance itself:
“Predator”, someone who practices plundering, pillaging, or rapine. In Florida many have this designation but few meet the qualification.
“Pedophile”, an abnormal physiological condition in which an adult has a sexual desire for children. In Florida that term is used in all cases of child molestation which is a misuse of the term.
“Sex offense”, any action that involves the sex organs of a male or female and can range anywhere from rape to consensual sex between two underage participants to public urination. Any of these events and many more can ruin one’s life…and family…in Florida.
That you or any of your cohorts on the commission can still support 2006-31 is beyond comprehension. You need to have the courage to say this ordinance is wrong and serves no positive purpose. However, from what I’ve seen from many politicians they are cowards to support that which is right if non-support helps them ‘pull the wool over the eyes of an ignorant public”. It takes courage to do what is right. Few politicians have this courage.
I trust you will consider what I have written but I do not really expect that you will. It will take you out of your comfort zone and that is only to be expected.
Sincerely,
Charles Munsey Jr.
Capt USN Ret
321-636-3958
“The time is always right to do what is right” Martin Luther King Jr.
Copies to:
Rita Pritchett, Commissioner District 1
Bryan Lober, Commissioner District 2
Curt Smith, Commissioner District 4
Kristine Isnardi, Commissioner District 5
Thank you, Bob. I am in the process of sending letters (snail mail) to all the county commissioners. The ignorance displayed was shocking. We have a growing number of people in this country in leadership/decision-making positions who lack any knowledge. They speak as if they know what they are talking about when they know nothing. My letters will be addressing all the misinformation they put out there. I cannot even think of anything that most of them said that was actually correct.
We are actually a group that is large in numbers. These commissioners and local news media need to hear from all of us.
To think that they held a meeting to pass such a harmful ordinance to 867 of their county citizens, holding it in a place where registrants are not even allowed to attend without looking at up to 60 days in jail because of a nearby playground.
For those who have not heard what the Brevard Commissioners had to say, start listening around 2 hours 13 minutes.
http://brevardfl.granicus.com/player/clip/100?view_id=1
Will either the county or the business be liable, the first time a child is sexually abused within a business that is a County Certified Child Safety Zone? If not, why not?
If I trust a business due to its county certification, and my child is nevertheless harmed, will either the business that was certified, or the county that certified it, reimburse me for my child’s subsequent counseling session and other harms? If so, how?
I am asking these questions recognizing that most abuse incidents statistically will be perpetrated by someone not affected by the new ordinance. Are they even good questions to ask? If so, feel free to use them. I’m not sure what to do with them. Email them to the commissioners?
(Revised to re-post under the correct discussion).
FAC, now that the proposal is being advertised, would it help to issue a mass mailing focused on Brevard’s thousand or so registrants? If we’re even equipped to do so. If so, then I’ll drop something into the General Fund for postage (I’d seal envelopes, too, but I may be in the wrong part of the state).
Idk, I’m just splashing around for ideas, but overall, if there’s something we think would be helpful at this phase that would also cost the General Fund, I’ll put something in.
Only thing that will get Commissioner Tobia to back down at this point would be a fear of looking foolish in front of his colleagues and constituents, am I right?
I would recommend so – Check in with Anita in membership. We should do something.