Draft of ordinance send back to protection committee for further review
By Kellen Olshefski
Editor
The Village of Fontana voted in favor of sending a draft ordinance to impose a sex offender residency restriction back to the village’s protection committee for further review at its Feb. 2 meeting.
Village Attorney Dale Thorpe submitted the draft ordinance at the Feb. 2 meeting. According to preliminary minutes from the meeting, the draft ordinance looks to impose a sex offender residency restriction ordinance, much like other area communities have enacted.
According to the minutes, Thorpe included his research on similar ordinances adopted by surrounding municipalities and said he used those as a reference, as well as a baseline ordinance to establish a non-zoning police power type ordinance provided by Village of Fontana Police Chief Steve Olson.
The minutes said while many communities are adopting these types of ordinance, Thorpe said he was concerned with the lack of case law specifically on distances imposed from public spaces.
With the village not being able to completely ban sex offender residency and the village being such a small community, the minutes said restrictions need to be looked at more closely and Thorpe said he should discuss zoning districts further with the Building Inspector and Zoning Administrator Ron Nyman. Furthermore, the minutes said Thorpe questioned the definition of public spaces and whether they are strictly designated for school areas, as an example, or only government owned property.
Village President Arvid Petersen said he did not want Fontana to be the only Geneva Lake community not in compliance, according to the minutes.
The vote to table the ordinance and send it back to the committee level was unanimous.
Elkhorn’s ordinance
The City of Elkhorn Common Council voted in favor of passing a similar sexual offender residency restriction ordinance last fall, making it more difficult for convicted sex offenders to move into the Elkhorn area.
The city had been working on the ordinance for nearly two years. The ordinance prohibits convicted sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools, daycare centers, parks and other specified facilities considered “child safety zones.”
The ordinance exempts persons living within the distance prior to the effective date of the ordinance as well as minors or wards under guardianship. Additionally, the ordinance allows for an appeals process in which the City Committee of the Whole could grant or deny an exemption.
The vote on the ordinance was split amongst councilmembers, with Elkhorn’s mayor, Brian Olson, casting the deciding vote.
Alderman Scott McClory, Captain of the Walworth County Patrol Division and in opposition of the ordinance, said restrictions and stipulations as to where sex offenders can live, who they can live with and whether or not they can be around children are already built into the Department of Corrections supervision model. McClory noted restrictions also depend on the case, who they offended with and the level of offense it was.
McClory also said restricting sex offenders from moving into the area could be disastrous as they could be without a home and harder to monitor for law enforcement.
The main issue Olson said he thought the city was facing at the time was a volume issue, having to do with the transient population, the sex offenders who are in the city between one to seven days, not the ones who are returning to family in the area. This fluctuating population, he said, gives the city a bad image
