FL: Gainesville city commissioners consider changes to city’s sexual offender ordinance

Source: mycbs4.com 10/6/22

Gainesville, FL — Gainesville City Commissioners passed a motion to craft a proposed amendment to the current Sexual Offender and Sexual Predator Ordinance in place to mirror the state statute.

“I think it just makes a consistency and so it’s legally defensible. You know, that we’re not sort of afield of what is already accepted through the courts and through the upheld state practices and just creates that predictability and consistency,” City Mayor Lauren Poe said. The City of Gainesville’s ordinance adopted in 2005 is similar to the residency restriction provided in Florida Statutes, with two basic distinctions, radius distance and date.

The city’s ordinance shows a residency restriction of 2,500 foot radius while the state provides for a 1,000 foot radius.

“As far as the distance, I don’t feel comfortable changing the distance. Municipalities are allowed to have stricter requirements than the states. And I don’t know if changing that is going to be that much of an improvement for our community or a hindrance,” Commissioner Reina Saco said. She asked to see a map of the city showing the restrictions in the existing ordinance for both radius distances. “We’ll be able to see, is it really that much of an improvement or detriment to our community if we change that distance,” Saco said.

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Mayor Poe said “[i]n the absence of that, you get into trouble with something called ex post facto, which is punishing somebody after the fact....” This leaves little doubt the registry is thought of as punishment. I suspect that transcripts of legislative deliberations throughout the nation are packed with such acknowledgements. Scouring those records could provide powerful evidence of the real legislative intent.

” Municipalities are allowed to have stricter restrictions than the state…” Hmmmm someone forgot about the supremacy clause.

Where is the city’s counsel to advise them of the points made here which don’t quite fly legally?