Legal Commentary

zanier and zanier: sex offender frenzy in Colonie, NY

By David A. Giacalone

Ultimate NIMBY: keeping sex offenders out of your backyard.

– and out of your town, too.

Paula Mahan is Town Supervisor in Colonie, NY, the most populous municipality in the New York Capital Region (nestled between Albany and Schenectady).  Supervisor Mahan has upped the sex offender NIMBY ante, and shown other politicians she won’t be outdone pandering to the public’s overblown fears of lurking strangers.  Saying her Town has become a dumping ground for predators from other jurisdictions, she has proposed a new law that would, according to an article tonight in the Albany Times Union:

” . . bar adult Level 2 and 3 sex offenders whose victims were younger than 17 from living or staying within 1,500 feet of each other, or the same distance from [15 kinds of] places where children congregate.”

……  …………….. 1500′ …………… …………………. 1500′……..

We’ve written often about the unnecessary, ineffective and un-American residency restrictions that communities have been placing on whole categories of sex offenders. See our recent post ?don?t let a bad idea go statewide? (Feb. 2, 2009), which responds to a new, high-level proposal to have statewide 1000-foot no-residence zones for sex offenders, around schools, parks and day care centers.  The Colonie SOLD approach [sex offender low-density nuisance zoning] almost makes the laws in other communities look thoughtful.    It clearly shows that Justice William Kelly was correct in Peo. v. Oberlander: Our State laws by necessity must pre-empt the additional efforts of localities, with their confusing, conflicting, and ever-escalating restrictions on where sex offenders can live (discussed in this post from Fedb. 2, 2009).

According to the TU:

“But before having the Colonie Town Board vote on the new regulations, Supervisor Paula Mahan wants to assemble a task force to examine the issue and work off of her proposal.”

Stopping to think makes good sense.  However, Mahan’s task force sounds suspiciously like the tactics of Susan Savage, Legislative Chair in Schenectady County, who appointed a commission to study sex offender safety issues, but clearly wanted them to start with her own extreme position and then add more restrictions and regulations. (see our prior post)   Perhaps someone will suggest to Ms.Mahan that she read the Oberlander decision and check out proposals and solutions on the State level, before she convinces even the most conservative judges in the State that sex offender residency cannot be left to local politicians.

p.s. On the 6 o’clock news this evening, a reporter for WTEN in Albany said they checked out the state SO registry and 5 sex offenders were apparently living at one of the low-rent motels on Central Ave in Colonie.  Go here for information from the Colonie Police Department on how to find out where sex offenders live in that Town, using the State’s sex offender search index.

afterwords (Feb. 11, 2009): I woke up this morning thinking about ways enterprising persons could cash in on Colonie’s floating 1500-feet sex offender residency ban.   A landlord in an area that didn’t have “its SO” yet, could hold an auction (or raffle off) an apartment or motel unit, or simply demand a much higher rent, knowing that both offenders and Social Service employees would pay a big premium to secure a residence in an attractive neighborhood (or, more likely, any neighborhood).  Meanwhile, a sex offender leaving town might also earn a little travel money by selling off rights to (or information about) a prime location that was opening up.

…………………………… ……………………………. 1500′

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Full post as published by f/k/a . . . on February 10, 2009 (boomark / email).