New Smyrna Beach trying to ban registrants under threat of lawsuit
[FAC NOTE: We must organize a group to create a vocal opposition to the proposed SORR. If you live in Volusia County, please contact membership so we can coordinate.]
There are more sex offenders moving to New Smyrna Beach and that has prompted city leaders to consider shrinking the locations where both sexual offenders and sexual predators can legally live.
There are more sex offenders moving to New Smyrna Beach and that has prompted city leaders to consider shrinking the locations where they can legally live.
If that happens, though, a civil rights group may decide to fight it.
“The ACLU has threatened to sue if we do this,” said Mayor Russ Owen when asked about the proposed ordinance Thursday in a phone interview. The mayor inferred that course of action in response to a media interview given recently by a local ACLU chapter member.
If City Commission approves the new rules, the city will restrict all sex offenders/predators from living within 2,500 feet of a child care facility, park, playground, or school, regardless of the conviction or offense date,” the police department’s report states.
While keeping children safe is a priority, commissioners are are being cautious about the change.
“Are we unintentionally going to force people into one section of town or not?” asked Commissioner Randy Hartman. “I mean, are we going to push them all up to U.S. 1? Are we going to push them all up to West Canal? So I’d like to see a map at the second reading or before then, exactly (which) areas we’re excluding.”
“These residence restrictions are not designed to protect children,” said Cary Ragsdale, a representative of the local chapter of the national civil rights organization, in a recent interview with a news station. “They’re designed to punish the registered sex offenders.”
Discover more from Florida Action Committee (FAC)
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Glad to see some of the registered citizens posting here are living in expensive homes/neighborhoods. Maybe you all can give a little more to fund FAC challenges/causes. I’ve been stuck in my $60K “starter” home for over 20 years and still owe over half of that. Please share your secrets of wealth acquisition. With a master’s degree, I can’t even get an interview, let alone a job. Thank God I was able to qualify for SS before I became unemployable. Still a couple of years away from collecting though.
I hope this is not a duplication, but I received a notice that my previous post did not go through.
I received a call yesterday from my husband’s release officer letting me know that probation in our county is saying that my husband cannot move back into our home with me. She asked if there was an assisted living facility that I wanted FDOC to send him to. (Apparently FDOC employees are not aware of the fact that such facilities will not take registrants.) I held back the tears and calmly told her “No”. I have now been told by an employee in our county probation office and from a release officer that I do not have to move, only my husband does. They always say it in a gleeful way, as though I will be relieved to hear that. These people just do not get it. They are heartless.
I got off the phone, shed a few tears, talked to God, toughened up a little bit, have a phone appointment this afternoon with my husband’s attorney, and will then make a personal visit tomorrow morning to our probation office in Green Cove Springs to see if they will give us an exemption. I say “us” because we are in this together.
I have lived in the house since 1972, and my husband has lived in it (with his name on the deed) since 2000. There are 2 homes a little over 900 feet from our home where each owner has acquired a daycare license and is keeping several children. There is a 1000-foot residency restriction in Clay County
Forcing us out of our home is going to do nothing to better protect children. We are living in one mixed-up society.
Thank you FAC members for letting me vent. I know that some of you have far worse situations than we do.
If your attorney wants to contact [email protected] we can put him in touch with some attorneys who have worked on similar issues.
I am so, so sorry, Sarah. You are doing the right things. Stay strong!
Sarah, I am so sorry you and everyone for that matter, are going thru this. I will never understand the idea of purposely setting out to make someone homeless. Or do their damn best to do so anyway. And feel free to vent any time you need.
There is a law here in Ohio that prohibits such a restriction. It states that if you lived in an occupancy before the crime was committed they cannot deny you to return to your property. Have your lawyer look into it, and keep praying. I am too.
An attorney is working on this now for me. Thank you your help.
Just got attacked at my job by two fellow employees that found out I was registered from 1997, my crime was non contact, they yelled asking if everyone knew I was a child rapist, that I molested children, I was forced to leave my job, not the first time, the registry is nothing more than a way to shame and further publicly punish registrants .
I only did two years probation, no jail time, Passed my sabib classes and
ALL 8 POLYGRAPHS …
Doesn’t matter, the registry has caused me to lose many jobs, open me to public attacks, even my daughter whom I never lost custody off has been attacked at school because of the registry, it never ends, it’s just a lifelong unconstitutional punishment and lifelong sentance.
K – are you in Florida? if so, contact [email protected]
@ K Did you file police report saying you got assaulted? I hope you are o.k. The place of work should have video tapes ……
I had something similar happen. Worked at a job for 11 years and I was honest on my application when hired. What the tip of the iceberg was when someone walked down the isle of the business hanging flyers from the registry about me. An employee who felt sorry for me came and told me he took them all down and tossed them in the trash. However a customer who saw them complained to corporate and that was it. They fired me for being a distraction to business operations and safety of guests. I called over 20 lawyers and none would take the case saying Florida was a right to work state and a sex offender is not a protected class
“protected class”…that always gets me. If we treated everyone EQUALLY there would be no need for a “protected class”.
A right to work state should or as I understood it to mean, was that they could not force you to join a union. I never took it as a right to discriminate.