Garden City aims to limit where sex offenders live

GARDEN CITY, Idaho – City leaders, worried that Garden City has a disproportionate number of sex offenders, may try to keep new offenders out by doubling the state’s law limiting where they may live.

Idaho prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 500 feet of schools. Garden City is considering an ordinance that would keep the offenders from living within 1,000 feet of places where children gather.

The city has about 12,000 residents and 61 registered sex offenders. This means roughly one of every 200 residents is an offender, according to the Ada County sheriff’s Web site. By comparison, 19 registered sex offenders live in Kuna, a town of 14,000, and 17 live in Eagle, a town of 21,000. Garden City Mayor John Evans said he thinks it’s worthwhile to limit offenders’ exposure to parks and other areas. “Take the kid out of the candy store,” Evans said.

The city’s proposal restricts sex offenders from living or loitering within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, day-care centers, the Boys and Girls Club of Ada County and the Garden City Library. The greenbelt, a public walkway that runs along the Boise River and through the center of Garden City, would be excluded from the ban.

The proposal would make much of the affordable east end of Garden City off-limits to offenders, but wouldn’t apply to those already living there.

Garden City would be the first city in Idaho to pass such a measure, Evans said. “This is plowing new ground in Idaho, but we think we’re well within the national standards that have been set forth in other areas,” he said.

Officials in Carrollton, Texas, passed a similar ordinance last year and say that it’s been effective.

“It is working very well,” said Carrollton police Sgt. Patrick Murphy. “We had (about) 106 sex offenders when we enacted the ordinance, and now we only have 86.”

Yet the Iowa County Attorneys Association, a statewide prosecutors group, is calling its residency law a failure and is pushing for another plan. Iowa began barring sex offenders who had assualted minors from living within 2,000 feet of schools and child-care centers in 2002.

But the group says Iowa’s restrictions have made it more difficult for law enforcement officials to monitor sex offenders because many became homeless, changed residences without notifying authorities, registered false addresses or disappeared. If Garden City leaders approve the restrictions, it may mean sex offenders will just move to neighboring communities. “We are one whole valley, and what one city does affects the rest of us, quite frequently,” said Nampa Mayor Tom Dale.