Despite an onslaught of e-mails directed at members of the Westlake City Council, and the city manager, a new, stricter sexual predator ordinance was codified on its second reading at a Tuesday, July 16 special meeting called for just that purpose.
The ordinance passed 4-0 on its first reading Tuesday, July 2. However, once the ordinance was publicized in the media, opposition rolled in mostly via e-mail from around Palm Beach County, throughout Florida and as far away as Colorado.
However, council members quickly voted 3-0 to pass the ordinance on the one-item agenda. Vice Mayor Greg Langowski and Councilman Julian Martinez were not in attendance.
“We got tons of e-mail from people not living in the area,” said Langowski, noting that some of it appeared to be from advocacy groups supporting fewer restrictions for post-incarceration offenders.
While not physically present at the meeting, Langowski said he was engaged and supportive of the ordinance.
“I can’t say for sure that it was organized,” Mayor JohnPaul O’Connor said after the meeting. “But many of the e-mails had the same or very similar language in them.”
O’Connor said that his interactions with Westlake residents assured him that they are overwhelmingly in favor of the new ordinance.
The change in the existing ordinance mainly extends from 1,000 feet to 2,500 feet the prohibition against people listed as sexual offenders or predators living near parks, playgrounds, daycare centers or “any other place where children regularly congregate,” such as bus stops and the Westlake Adventure Park.
The only change at the second reading was that libraries were dropped from the list of restricted locations, based on court rulings that have struck down such limits, O’Connor said.
“This is an important issue for our community, and we moved forward to keep our kids safe,” Councilwoman Charlotte Leonard said.
Sexual offenders are required to register their residential location with local law enforcement agencies. It was recently discovered that two men living in the city’s Cresswind development are listed on the U.S. Department of Justice sex offender public web site and in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement sexual offenders and predators database.
According to Palm Beach County Property Appraiser records, neither man is the owner of the three-bedroom, $726,000 house. It is owned by a Fort Pierce resident.
City Attorney Donald Doody, City Manager Kenneth Cassel, O’Connor and others have gone out of their way to state that the new ordinance is not specifically directed at the two Cresswind residents, and that, in fact, it cannot be applied to them retroactively.
Councilman Gary Werner and Langowski had expressed concerns as to whether the ordinance would hold up in court. Doody assured them it would, noting that Wellington, Palm Beach Gardens and Loxahatchee Groves, among several other county municipalities, use the 2,500-foot standard.
With Westlake less than 10 years old, Langowski said, “We’re learning from what other municipalities are doing… We’re doing this as a city ordinance, and that’s all we can do.”
Now, it is up to the Cresswind development’s homeowners’ association to determine if neighborhood covenants were violated in the purchase or use of the property that is listed as the “permanent residence” for two registered offenders, Cassel said.
