You can’t play follow the leader when you are the leader.
Dozens of communities in Wisconsin sought information from the city of Franklin about its milestone ordinance approved late in 2006 and amended in early 2007 that restricts where sex offenders can live. Other municipalities either considered or approved Franklin-like ordinances of their own in an effort to fight back against sex predators.
Franklin’s ordinance states that no sexually violent person on supervised release may live within two thousand feet of any of the following:
a. Any facility for children which means a public or private school, a group home, a residential care center for children and youth, a shelter care facility, a foster home, a treatment foster home, a day care center licensed under, a day care program, a day care provider, or a youth center.
b. Any facility used for:
1. a public park, parkway, parkland, park facility;
2. a public swimming pool;
3. a public library;
4. a recreational trail;
5. a public playground;
6. a school for children;
7. athletic fields used by children;
8. a movie theatre;
9. a daycare center;
10. the Milwaukee County Sports Complex and grounds;
11. a ski hill open to the public;
12. any specialized school for children, including, but not
limited to a gymnastics academy, dance academy or
music school;
13. a public or private golf course or range; and
14. aquatic facilities open to the public.
No person who has been convicted of a sexually violent offense and/or a crime against children, shall be permitted to reside in the City of Franklin unless the person lived in the City of Franklin at the time of the offense resulting in the person’s most recent conviction for committing the sexually violent offense and/or crime against children.
No person who has been convicted of or has been found delinquent of or has been found not guilty by reason of disease or mental defect of a sexually violent offense and/or a crime against children shall enter or be present upon any real property upon which there exists the above mentioned areas such as schools, day care centers, etc. Exceptions are when the properties are churches, synagogues or other houses of worship, polling places, and elementary and secondary schools the offenders are reasonably required to attend for educational purposes.
Franklin alderman Steve Olson, the architect of the ordinance, spoke with me on WISN early in 2007, telling me that he and his colleagues on the Common Council consulted extensively with Franklin’s legal team. Five public hearings were conducted. In other words, the ordinance got thorough scrutiny before being approved and Olson believes it would pass constitutional muster.
What inspired the Franklin ordinance?
A few years ago, busloads of Franklin residents stormed a public hearing at State Fair Park to protest a special state committee’s thought of building a facility in Franklin to house numerous sexually violent persons. Franklin was considered an ideal location, having the most open space in Milwaukee County.
The loud and strong stand by Franklin residents couldn’t be ignored. The special panel wrapped up its business without recommending any site in Milwaukee County for a sex predator house.
A flurry of activity ensued at the state Capitol. A key piece of legislation was approved and signed into law that killed funding for the facility for sexually violent persons and also disbanded the special committee assigned to find a location for the facility. Another bill signed into law makes first degree sexual assault of a child punishable by life in prison. Both bills were authored by state Senator Mary Lazich.
After sailing through the state Senate, a bill requiring that the worst sex offenders in the state be monitored by Global Positioning System or GPS was finally approved after much wrangling in the Assembly and signed into law.
Still, city of Franklin officials worried that released sex offenders would be dumped in Franklin. Sparking that fear was the state allowing notorious offender Billy Lee Morford to travel back and forth between his northwest side Milwaukee home and Franklin for 18 months without properly notifying Franklin.
After several public hearings and a thorough legal review, the Franklin Common Council approved the current ordinance.
There are critics.
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Mel Flanagan was a member of a special Legislative Council Study Committee that worked on the placement of sex offenders. She told the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel, “If everyone in Milwaukee County adopted these ordinances, the only place that would be left for them to live would be River Hills. I don't think many can afford that."
Flanagan said every state in the country is dealing with the pressure for residency requirements. "In one community in Arizona, they set up a trailer at the end of an airport runway because that was the only spot available," Flanagan said.
Sorry, your honor. I am not sympathetic.
I prefer the sentiments of South Milwaukee Alderman Richard Radunez who worked on a similar ordinance in his community.
"My constituents are saying that it's about time,” Radunez said. “They're sick of the state putting these offenders in our city without us even knowing about it. I've heard people say, 'Put them all on an island out in the middle of the lake.' "
The Franklin Police Department used the city ordinance in 2007 to force offenders out of areas they’re not welcome.
The ordinance is now the subject of a court case. Convicted sex offender Steve Hanke purchased a home in Franklin several months after it went into effect. He refuses to move out of Franklin while he questions its constitutionality.
Jim McCarthy, a member of the City Council in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania wrote the following in a letter to the editor in the American City and County Magazine last summer. McCarthy was responding to an article that predator protection laws around the country are coming under fire. McCarthy writes:
“As one who has been trying for eight months to pass a law restricting where convicted sexual predators may reside or work in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., my research shows the majority of such laws have already passed court muster. Currently, 30 plus states, and hundreds of local communities, have passed such laws, most of them based on the “original” proposal passed by Iowa, which was upheld by the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court (see Doe vs. Miller), and Ohio's “Distance Marker” legislation, which was similarly upheld as constitutional by federal courts.
In challenges to the Iowa and Ohio laws, the courts have ruled that these laws do not infringe upon a person's rights in that they are a form of civil regulation and not a form of punishment, they are intended to protect children and are rationally related to that end, and they represent a rational argument that prohibiting sex offenders from places children congregate will advance a community's interest in protecting children. Two federal courts have upheld city actions to ban individual sex offenders from parks and recreation areas where children congregate.
There have been some isolated cases where a poorly written law was struck down by courts, but that was because the authors failed to do the research required to make their law iron-clad. It is up to us, the legislators, to make sure “they” do not have access to our little children, whose rights far outweigh the rights of someone who preys on the weakest of our society.”
Then last month, the Georgia Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a provision of a 2006 state law that prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of day care centers, schools, churches and other places where children congregate.
Meanwhile, a bill is circulating in the Wisconsin Legislature to do away with local ordinances like Franklin’s. So far, the bill appears to have little traction. Staunch, anti-predator legislators chair the committees in the state Assembly that would be assigned this legislation. It’s highly unlikely they would allow such a bill to see the light of day.
Franklin has taken the extraordinary step to protect its families and children and assist other communities that wish to implement the same measures. The city is to be commended for its outstanding public service.
THE TOP 10 FRANKLIN STORIES OF 2007
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2) ?
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5) FRANKLIN ADOPTS A MODEL SEX OFFENDER ORDINANCE
6) THE GRAND OPENING OF SENDIK’S
7) THE EMERGENCE OF THE FRANKLIN BLOGGERS
8) FRANKLIN CITY TAX LEVY GOES UP 5.7%
9) SUPERINTENDENT SZAKACS FORCED OUT
10) THE LACK OF PROGRESS AT FOUNTAINS OF FRANKLIN
