Posted on 08/12/2003 8:42:58 AM PDT by Clint Williams
South Seattle residents expressed outrage yesterday to state social welfare officials who are weighing whether to put new sex offender housing in their neighborhood, while City Council members asked the state for more time to consider the effect.
Last month, officials from the Department of Social and Health Services announced that a remodeled warehouse at 132 S. Spokane St. was the fourth King County location being considered for the site.
If selected, the brick building, in an industrial neighborhood near the Spokane Street viaduct, would serve as transitional, community-based housing for up to 12 sex offenders who have completed treatment at the Special Commitment Center at McNeil Island.
"We are not going to act as a dumping ground," said City Councilman Jim Compton, who called for the delay.
The state has had two years to choose a site in King County, he said, and other cities have had six months or more to evaluate the effects of housing sex offenders in their communities.
The City Council wants the state to delay the decision until the end of the year, instead of choosing the site next month.
Compton said a few weeks isn't enough time to evaluate concerns about the South Seattle site and its proximity to businesses, public transportation, freeway onramps and a child care center.
Tim Brown, an assistant secretary with DSHS, said yesterday that delaying a decision "would be very difficult to do."
The three other sites being considered are near Federal Way, Kent and North Bend.
Last evening's meeting, held at Mercer Middle School, was the first Seattle event set up by DSHS for officials to hear concerns from the surrounding community.
And there were plenty.
Frank Coluccio, a West Seattle resident, said that DSHS "cannot guarantee safety of surrounding residents. ... It's another case where the courts and the state are putting the rights of criminals and deviants in front of the rights of regular citizens."
Michael Richman of Beacon Hill said: "The fix is in, as far as I'm concerned. ... I accuse DSHS of not notifying our neighborhood until the last minute."
To the open derision of the crowd, several North Bend citizens came to the meeting to contend that the Seattle site would be the best and safest choice.
City and King County representatives emphasized the proposed location's proximity to hundreds of thousands of workers and residents.
In a statement read by Patricia McInturff, director of Seattle's human services department, Mayor Greg Nickels said the state has not "done an adequate job researching this site" and apparently didn't know a day care center and a youth center were nearby.
U.S. District Judge William Dwyer mandated in 1997 that the state build more community housing for recently released sex offenders. Two years later, he cited DSHS with contempt of court, in large part because the agency had no clear plan for how to deal with the commitment center's graduates. The state could be hit with millions of dollars in fines if it does not provide the housing.
The Legislature in 2001 mandated that the first new halfway home be in King County because most of the offenders at the center come from there.
Residents and officials from the areas around the three other possible sites in King County have formed opposition groups and in some cases have filed lawsuits to stop their cities from being chosen.
The city of North Bend has even threatened to cancel its $1 million contract with King County to provide police services if DSHS picks the nearby site known as Grouse Ridge.
The three sites in addition to the Spokane Street building that are being considered include a vacant plot on South 336th Street in Peasley Canyon, between Federal Way and Auburn; a two-story house on Orillia Road between SeaTac and Kent; and a wooded area near the State Patrol Fire Training Academy on Grouse Ridge near North Bend.
No matter where they are placed, the home's residents will be constantly monitored, through the use of cameras and alarmed doors on the house, as well as with Global Positioning System tracking bracelets each of the residents will wear. Residents will be escorted whenever they leave the house for work, therapy or school.
City Council President Peter Steinbrueck said housing sex offenders in an industrial area pre-empts the city's zoning laws.
The final South Seattle community meeting will also be at Mercer Middle School, 1600 S. Columbian Way, on Aug. 21, from 7 to 9 p.m. DSHS staffers will be available to answer questions at 6:30 p.m.
P-I reporter Sam Skolnik can be reached at 206-448-8176 or samskolnik@seattlepi.com
I'm beginning to wonder if we brought this on ourselves. Although there's always been the problem with convicts in halfway houses reoffending, we've always let them out when (and if) their time is up. But I don't think there was ever this kind of protest over halfway-house siting until we tried to create ones with high concentrations of sex offenders. Nobody (quite reasonably!) wants it in their back yard. It's too toxic.
IMHO we're going down the wrong path by bending and twisting the law after the fact. Execute them upon conviction or sentence them to life, that's all according to law. Go for it. But I find these post-sentence measures that seem to circumvent the law to be worrisome, threatening further erosions of our rights.
Case in point. In this state some offender has put up a website with names, addresses, etc. of police and state (prison?) employees. The courts have said that's okay. The U.S. Supreme Court said it was okay to publish sex-offender names, addresses, etc. because there was no privacy right involved (!) and this situation seems to grow right from that decision.
And while I don't want to see these guys get out, and I really hope they are getting real treatment since some are getting out...... but I remain nervous about "civil committment" laws and other potential erosions of my rights. Remember Reagan denouncing the Soviets for locking up their enemies in so-called "mental hospitals?" Now think of precedents handed to a President Hillary.
I think we need to think it out again.
Given that, I suspect the problem is about 1% danger and 99% gross-out. Those guys (virtually never are women involved) are watched like hawks.
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