FL: Day care opens near transitional house with sex offenders

[actionnewsjax.com – 2/19/20]

JACKSONVILLE,, Fla. — A local day care opened in a neighborhood surrounded with registered sex offenders and predators.

An Action News Jax investigation found people convicted of sex crimes now live less than 1,000 feet from Bella Childcare, which started enrolling children in January.

A viewer, who didn’t want to give his name, reached out to Action News Jax to express concerns because he provides transitional housing for sex offenders nearby.

The transitional house is on Walnut St., which is right around the corner from Bella Childcare.

The City of Jacksonville said sex offenders are not subject to distance requirements.

Per Chapter 685 of the City Ordinance Code, sexual predators are subject to the 2,500-foot distance requirements from certain uses such as day care facilities and schools.

That’s almost triple the distance of the state’s requirement, which is 1,000 feet for offenders and predators.

The COJ said the property on Westlake Ave. has been used as a day care facility on and off since at least 2001 when the Planning Commission granted a zoning exception.

The Planning Commission granted a zoning exception and variance in April 2019, so the property could resume use as a day care facility.
According to the city, Bella Childcare filed a variance to reduce the required 2,500-foot separation down to 285.

Police find preserved human remains in jars under Florida home

Man shot, killed at hotel near JTB in Jacksonville, police say

The new trend of dip powder manicures could be putting your health at risk

The Planning Department said it had concerns and recommended denial because of the proximity of a registered sexual predator on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement registry.

However, the day care operator testified to the Planning Commission that the registered sexual predator on Peachtree Street was incarcerated and no longer lived nearby.

Read the full article

 

Related posts

Subscribe
Notify of

We welcome a lively discussion with all view points - keeping in mind...

 

  1. Submissions must be in English
  2. Your submission will be reviewed by one of our volunteer moderators. Moderating decisions may be subjective.
  3. Please keep the tone of your comment civil and courteous. This is a public forum.
  4. Swear words should be starred out such as f*k and s*t and a**
  5. Please avoid the use of derogatory labels.  Always use person-first language.
  6. Please stay on topic - both in terms of the organization in general and this post in particular.
  7. Please refrain from general political statements in (dis)favor of one of the major parties or their representatives.
  8. Please take personal conversations off this forum.
  9. We will not publish any comments advocating for violent or any illegal action.
  10. We cannot connect participants privately - feel free to leave your contact info here. You may want to create a new / free, readily available email address that are not personally identifiable.
  11. Please refrain from copying and pasting repetitive and lengthy amounts of text.
  12. Please do not post in all Caps.
  13. If you wish to link to a serious and relevant media article, legitimate advocacy group or other pertinent web site / document, please provide the full link. No abbreviated / obfuscated links. Posts that include a URL may take considerably longer to be approved.
  14. We suggest to compose lengthy comments in a desktop text editor and copy and paste them into the comment form
  15. We will not publish any posts containing any names not mentioned in the original article.
  16. Please choose a short user name that does not contain links to other web sites or identify real people.  Do not use your real name.
  17. Please do not solicit funds
  18. No discussions about weapons
  19. If you use any abbreviation such as Failure To Register (FTR), Person Forced to Register (PFR) or any others, the first time you use it in a thread, please expand it for new people to better understand.
  20. All commenters are required to provide a real email address where we can contact them.  It will not be displayed on the site.
  21. Please send any input regarding moderation or other website issues via email to moderator [at] all4consolaws [dot] org
  22. We no longer post articles about arrests or accusations, only selected convictions. If your comment contains a link to an arrest or accusation article we will not approve your comment.
  23. If addressing another commenter, please address them by exactly their full display name, do not modify their name. 
ACSOL, including but not limited to its board members and agents, does not provide legal advice on this website.  In addition, ACSOL warns that those who provide comments on this website may or may not be legal professionals on whose advice one can reasonably rely.  
 

2 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

I really hate the way people write articles to grab the attention of the readers with the importance (their perceived importance) of what they are writing.

This term in this article:
“registered sexual predator” – is used over and over again as if all registrants are “predators”.

Same way a cop in my area calls Penn “Megan’s List” Penn “Megan’s ‘Pedophile’ List” – he is classing all registrants in Penn as “pedophiles”.

Well the daycare center can advertise “That they have the safest daycare center in town as the re-offense rate of these people are among the lowest”.