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Updated: Jun 19th, 2005 - 20:05:13 |
OVIEDO -- With fanfare that included a phone call from the father of slain
9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, Oviedo gave final approval Monday night to rules
keeping sex offenders with young victims almost a half-mile away from places
kids congregate.
One subject that didn't get much talk was whether it
will have much effect right away.
The last sentence of the ordinance says
it will apply to people convicted of sex crimes against youngsters on or after
Oct. 1, 2004. That may include a lot of sex offenders 10 or 20 years from now,
but right now it wouldn't include many.
"It's probably not likely there
are too many out there who would fit into this at this point," police Chief
Charles Drago said before Monday night's meeting.
City Attorney William
Colbert disagreed, saying other language in the ordinance makes reference to
crimes committed since 1995. "I would argue the city could enforce it back to
1995," Colbert said.
City Council Chairman Dominic Persampiere made brief
reference to the time frame, and Colbert told him the ordinance could always be
changed.
"We will probably come back within a month or two and ask you to
tweak it," Colbert said.
After the ordinance was adopted, council members
signed a copy of it for television cameras and the crowd of residents, young and
old, who had gathered to watch. Mark Lunsford, Jessica's father, called the
council to congratulate city officials on the new rules.
"This is what we
need to do in every city," he said. "We've got to do more to protect our
kids."
Convicted sex offenders were charged in the slaying of Lunsford's
daughter and the murder of 13-year-old Sarah Michelle Lunde in Ruskin. The
publicity about their murders has spurred cities to create the buffers, with
Miami Beach starting the trend. Other Central Florida cities have expressed
interest in following Oviedo's lead.
Similar to many in South Florida,
Oviedo's new ordinance forbids sex offenders with young victims from living
within 2,500 feet of day-care centers, parks, churches, schools, playgrounds and
libraries. The council decided to go back to its original proposal and remove
harsher language inserted last month that would have forbidden sex offenders
from living within two miles of schools. Council members said they were
concerned the two-mile buffer would be harder to defend in court.
The
language about the 2004 enforcement date also makes the ordinance easier to
defend in court, city officials said. It was inserted to mirror state statutes
regarding existing 1,000-foot buffer zones for certain sex offenders. While the
state statute makes reference to an Oct. 1, 2004, enforcement date, it also
makes reference to crimes committed on or after Oct. 1, 1995.
The
language is similar to a provision Miami Beach originally had in its ordinance
but later took out after doing more research. Other cities have kept it
in.
Also on Monday, the Marion County Sheriff's Office launched Central
Florida's most comprehensive sex-offender Web site, the latest example of
efforts to focus public attention on residents convicted of sex
crimes.
Profiles of Marion County offenders include the type of car they
drive and their occupation.
Some entries have explicit warnings telling
parents to "make their children aware of his presence."
Marion's site
includes a map locating the residences of the county's 460 sex offenders,
posting details gathered by the sex-offenders task force and offering advice to
parents.
"We try to make it a little more comprehensive than FDLE
[Florida Department of Law Enforcement]," said Dennis Strow, spokesman for the
Sheriff's Office. "We're dealing with 500; they're dealing with thousands."
Seminole County Watch.com
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