Warning: City off-limits

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It's so sad this world cannot learn from others or past mistakes. I am ashamed to be a part of the human race. We've all become barbaric animals who lust after seeing others suffer. Sick!!

04/22/2007

Deltona's ordinance, in effect, keeps convicted from moving in

DELTONA -- A local law that limits where sexual offenders can live has effectively barred them from moving into metro Orlando's second-largest city.

Deltona last year joined a group of nearly 100 cities and counties that have gone beyond the state law that prohibits many sexual offenders from living within 1,000 feet of certain areas where children congregate.

Commissioners in the Volusia County city decided that registered sexual offenders and predators cannot live within 2,500 feet -- nearly a half-mile -- of schools, parks, playgrounds, day-care centers and school-bus stops.

That left only a few pieces of vacant land not off-limits to offenders considering a move to the bedroom community of more than 85,000.

The city's ordinance does not apply to sexual offenders who lived in Deltona before the new rules were passed, as long as they stay in the same house.

City officials said they did not plan to close Deltona to sexual offenders, but they are not disappointed at the result.

"I think it sends a strong message: Don't become a predator or offender," Commissioner David Santiago said.

The public, for the most part, seems to support stricter residency rules for offenders.

"When you're talking about your children, it's better to err on their side," said Ocoee Mayor Scott Vandergrift, whose city has an ordinance similar to Deltona's. "Adults can fend for themselves and, certainly, they [offenders] should not have done something to get themselves in the position to be labeled that way."

Tougher to track offenders

But some law-enforcement officials, attorneys and civil-rights activists worry that what has become a national trend will ultimately make it tougher to monitor offenders.

If these men and women have no place to live, some officials warn, they might go underground and stop checking in with police.

"We lose track of them; they then become a threat to the community," said Fred North, who oversees probation officers in the 7th Judicial Circuit, which includes Volusia.

In Miami, five offenders were living under a highway bridge because local ordinances made it difficult for them to find a home, according to the state Department of Corrections.

The agency, which requires offenders to have addresses so that they can be checked on, reluctantly allowed the men to camp under the Julia Tuttle Causeway.

The increasingly stringent rules on sexual offenders have generated disagreement about their constitutionality.

Kyle Shephard, assistant city attorney in Orlando, said it might be difficult to defend a ban on some individuals when cities are not allowed to exclude certain businesses such as adult-entertainment shops.

Orlando decided not to craft its own ordinance.

John Stickels, a University of Texas attorney and criminology professor, said he sees no legal problems with banning offenders from certain areas, even if it closes an entire city to them.

"A person who has been convicted of a felony loses some of their protections under the Constitution," he said, "and one of the rights they may lose is the right to associate with certain types of people."

Iowa's experience

While relatively new in Florida, expansive residential buffers have been controversial in Iowa for years.

In 2002, Iowa adopted a statewide 2,000-foot buffer that surrounds schools and day-care facilities -- twice as restrictive as Florida law.

Corwin Ritchie, executive director for the Iowa County Attorneys Association, said cities there then created even harsher restrictions.

The rules shut sexual offenders out of most large cities. They now stay at rest areas, truck stops and motels on the edges of town.

At some motels, Ritchie said, offenders are the only guests.

Law-enforcement officials there complain they waste a lot of time and money trying to track down banned offenders.

Ritchie's group has lobbied the Iowa legislature for the past two years to repeal the 2,000-foot law because of the unintended consequences.

But politicians do not want to appear soft on sexual offenders.

"They will admit to you privately it's ineffective and a waste of resources, but they won't vote for it [a repeal] publicly," he said.

Ritchie and others question the effectiveness of boundaries, saying many offenders prey on the children of family and friends.

Florida legislators, however, have been debating whether to expand the current statewide offender boundary.

Lawmakers and other authorities have said it may be easier to legally defend a statewide restriction than a patchwork of varying buffers among city and counties.

In Deltona, the addition of school-bus stops -- the city has nearly 1,000 of them -- is the main reason why so much of the city is off-limits.

A map provided by the Volusia County Sheriff's Office showed only a few unrestricted areas, including a section of swampland at the south of town.

Family forced out

Juan Matamoros, a registered sexual offender in Deltona recently ordered to move, knows how tough it is to find legal shelter in Volusia's most populous city.

Matamoros was convicted in Massachusetts more than 20 years ago of lewd conduct after he was caught urinating on the side of a road. He said he likely will move his wife and two sons to a neighboring town.

"It is kind of impossible to find a place around here because it's like everywhere you go, it's either a private day-care or some sort of story they come up with," he said.

While Deltona's ordinance is strict, parents such as Debra Hicks, a mother of three and Cub Scouts den leader, say they still cannot relax.

Although new sexual offenders can't move in, she worries about those who lived in Deltona before the new rules were passed.

Said Hicks, "They need to put them all on an island, as far as I'm concerned."