WI: Sun Prairie alders eye sex offender residency ordinance changes after lawsuit threats

R H
[hngnews.com]

Convicted sex offenders are threatening to file lawsuits over an ordinance that restricts where they can live in the City of Sun Prairie.

City officials plan to head off litigation by considering changes to the city ordinance next week.

It’s something other Wisconsin municipalities dealt with this year after a federal court ruled that ordinances restricting where convicted sex offenders could live were unconstitutional.

Registered sex offenders aren’t allowed to live or loiter within 1,500 feet of a school, daycare center, park, playground, church, and other places where children under the age of 16 might be, according to the City of Sun Prairie ordinance.

They also can’t attend holiday parties where children under 18 of age will be present, distribute candy on Halloween, or wear a Santa Claus or Easter Bunny costume at events. There are exceptions if the children are related to the registered sex offender.

There are 36 convicted sex offenders living in the City of Sun Prairie, according to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections Sex Offender Registry. There’s 939 listed in Dane County.

Sun Prairie City Attorney Mark Leonard said there have been several inquiries from attorneys on the ordinance and that the city has had appeals. He said alders plan to review the ordinance next week.

Read more

 

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

City officials plan to head off litigation by considering changes to the city ordinance next week.
—–
How refreshing to see they’re starting to tuck their tails and run at just the threat of lawsuit. “Back in the day,” they would fight tooth and nail saying they were in the right. The tides continue in our favor, friends.
=====
Registered sex offenders who have served their time and not on supervision are considered free citizens but must comply with all applicable sex offender registration requirements — including address changes — according to the Wisconsin Department of Community Corrections.
—–
Which is it? Free citizens are not required to comply with any sort of registration requirements, particularly address changes.

0
Reply

Go wi. keep up the pressure

0
Reply