WA: Domino effect starting after Kennewick sex offender housing uproar
We say it all the time. If you don’t challenge one city’s bad ordinance, the neighboring cities will pass laws too. It’s essentially a domino effect when it comes to residency restrictions. One city concocts a law to restrict people on the sex offender registry from living there, and then the cities adjacent to it has to pass a similar or more restrictive law to avoid a perceived migration of registrants. Then their neighboring cities need to do the same, and so on, until the original city is left with the now least restrictive ordinance, so they need to come up with something harsher. And the cycle continues.
After the uproar over a prospective shared housing facility that was supposed to open in Kennewick, Washington that we wrote about last month, was blocked, the neighboring city of Pasco is now trying to pass an ordinance to “prevent or restrict Less Restrictive Alternative housing for sex offenders” in their city.
Kennewick’s other neighbor, West Richland, already passed a new ordinance to only allow LRAs in industrial areas.
FAC certainly hopes that advocates in Washington will take action to oppose this new law. Meetings will take place on Wednesday, April 15 at 4:30 p.m. at Ray Reynolds Middle School, 9507 Burns Rd. On April 29 at 4:30 p.m. at McLoughlin Middle School, 2803 N. Road 88. (Note they are holding these meetings at schools – where they can ensure impacted registrants won’t be able to attend). and on May 6 at Noon at Pasco City Hall, 525 N. 3rd Ave. For the last meeting, you can attend virtually by registering here.
If you’re in Washington, remember; if you don’t do something about it, you can’t complain when it spreads to your city.
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The domino effect is not always inevitable, but no one stood up to that group of vigilante scumbags when they targeted the proposed group home. They committed acts of vandalism and made terroristic threats, and law enforcement did nothing about it.
I get it, standing up against this behavior is scary. We have too few bold activists and spread too thin. There probably are no anti-registry activists in eastern Washington State. We can’t possibly confront every scumbag. If only we had a way to embolden those in the area to stand up because I don’t think they’ll stop with a group home.
This vigilante group are like sharks that just tasted blood, now they want more.
Nimby is an epidemic!
West Richland is the civilian industrial part of Richland which makes up the third city related to the Tri-Cities of Kennewick, Richland, and Pasco (which is across the river from Kennewick). Benton County can congregate PFRs there easily enough without issue.
I keep getting people in my neighborhood wanting me to come to meetings for our neighborhood issues, I always just say “I can’t make it this week”. The real reason is, the meetings are ALWAYS at a school. They keep thinking I do not care about issues but that is not the case. Not everybody knows I am on the registry, some do but do not care, and some, if I did go to the meetings, they would rat me out and I would be arrested for being on school property.
A no win situation, but I always have an excuse for why I cannot come, like my grandma died for the third time LOL (Sorry grandma)
Distance restrictions are nothing more than a “not in my neighborhood” statement without saying it out loud.