Flagler County adds new restrictions on where sexual offenders can reside
The Flagler County Commission has enacted new restrictions on where sexual offenders or predators may reside, increasing safety buffers around places where children are known to gather.
The commission voted 5-0 in favor of the new regulations during its June 7 meeting after Sheriff Rick Staly spoke in favor of the additional limits.
The county’s existing ordinance had barred sexual predators from residing within 1,000 feet of schools, daycare centers, parks or playgrounds. The commission’s June 7 vote adds school bus stops, libraries, churches and subdivisions’ private recreational open spaces and facilities to the list and increases the buffer from 1,000 feet to 2,500 feet, or just under half a mile.
“Maybe if we make it legally difficult, they’ll move to a different county,” Staly said. “I’d just as soon they not be here at all, but unfortunately I can’t control that.”
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So far I cannot get the Palm Coast Observer to post any of my comments, but I am reading of many places including libraries in their residency restriction ordinance.
In 2012, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that a policy in Albuquerque, New Mexico that banned people on the sex offense registry from entering the city’s public libraries was unconstitutional. Governments cannot ban people (including those with a sex offense) from going to a library. The court reasoned that the policy violated the fundamental right to receive information under the First Amendment of the Constitution and that denying access to public libraries to some is an infringement on this right.
I know that we are not under the tenth circuit, but according to a Gainesville attorney, this ruling has been used in some way to have libraries removed from the 2500-foot residency restrictions in Gainesville, FL. But, as always, it takes someone threatening the municipality with a lawsuit.
Flagler also has an ordinance that’s even more vulgar than that of Seminole county that prohibits being in or even passing through a 1000 ft radius from a school, park, etc. I wonder if that distance is also being increased to 2500 ft.
Sounds like punishment to me
Well, seeing how dirty their existing law is, I don’t expect any understanding:
“….at the end of the then current rental term (in the case of a lease), the sexual offender or sexual predator shall be required to abandon that permanent residence and establish a new permanent residence…”
Nobody has challenged this in the 15 years since this became law?
WTF, that is the textbook definition of banishment already!
https://library.municode.com/fl/flagler_county/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=FLCOCOOR_CH20MIPROF_ARTVIIISEOFSEPR_S20-377PRRESEOFSEPR