CURSOR:Citizens UnitedTo ReevaluateSex Offender Registries

2008-01-06: Nashua Telegraph: Veto stands on sex offender ordinance

The bill has been vetoed by outgoing mayor Bernie Streeter.

Of particular note is the fact that the current mayor, Donnalee Lozeau, is adamantly opposed to sex-offender residency restrictions for many of the reasons we have expressed, and she even said so during her campaign against Tollner—a campaign which she won. In light of this, we are fairly confident that this fight is over for the foreseeable future.

By Patrick Meighan, Telegraph staff (original article)

NASHUA — The board of aldermen on Saturday failed to override the mayor’s vetoes of a resolution calling for a referendum on the Broad Street Parkway, and an ordinance restricting where certain sex offenders could live.

In a special, hastily-called meeting, motions to override Mayor Bernie Streeter’s vetoes failed by 6–5 and 9–3 votes respectively, with one alderman arriving between the two votes.

Ten votes from the 15-member board were needed to override the vetoes.

Streeter issued the vetoes, the seventh and eighth of his two terms in office, late Wednesday afternoon, and the special meeting was scheduled at the earliest possible time.

A new board and mayor are to be sworn in today, and Saturday’s meeting was the final action of the board seated two years ago.

The timing hurt the sex-offender ordinance. Alderman-at-Large Jim Tollner proposed the ordinance and would have cast the 10th vote needed to override the veto. However, he was in South Carolina taking his high school daughter to visit a prospective college, and he said he regretted he couldn’t attend.

Ward Aldermen Dick LaRose and Greg Williams also missed the vote. Williams had supported the ordinance in December, while LaRose had not.

Aldermen-at-Large Steve Bolton and Fred Teeboom and Ward 6 Alderman Bob Dion voted against overriding the ordinance, which would have restricted certain sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of city parks, schools and day-care centers.

The ordinance would have applied only to registered sex offenders who have never lived in Nashua and whose victims were younger than 13. Supporters said the ordinance was intended to make Nashua undesirable to sex offenders who might be thinking of moving here.

On Dec. 26, the ordinance was approved by a 7–6 vote. Alderman-at-Large Brian McCarthy and Ward 5 Alderman Michael Tabacsko were absent from that meeting and voted to override the veto Saturday.

Two aldermen switched their votes between Dec. 26 and Saturday: Alderman-at-Large David Deane and Ward 3 Alderman Daniel Richardson. Also voting to override the mayor’s veto were Alderman-at-Large Dave Rootovich and ward Aldermen Mark Cookson, Marc Plamondon, Dave MacLaughlin and Dick Flynn.

Deane said he didn’t think the ordinance was a good idea, but added, “However, the process with which these rolled out of the mayor’s office is absolutely inappropriate.”

The vetoes were issued late in the afternoon of the seventh day following the board’s vote, the deadline the mayor had to issue a veto, Deane said.

Also, Tollner, the board vice president, and Rootovich, the board president, were removed from an e-mail list and didn’t find out about the vetoes until early Wednesday evening.

With the board’s term ending, there was no time to call a special meeting before Saturday, Deane said. “I just think the whole situation, the way this was handled, absolutely stinks,” Deane said. “As a matter of principle, I will support overriding his veto.”

Bolton said he felt he was in a strange place defending the mayor’s process, with which he said he disagreed. Every mayor should make his feelings known about legislation early on, including whether he would veto it, Bolton said.

“That being said, this mayor has been consistent,” Bolton said.

In every veto, Streeter waited until the afternoon of the seventh day following a vote to issue a veto, allowing time to consider public input, Bolton said.

After the meeting, Richardson said he changed his vote partly because of the principle of how the veto was issued. He also called the sex-offender ordinance a “very difficult” issue, adding, “You want to do something, but you want to do the right thing, too.”

Streeter didn’t attend the meeting. Reached by phone afterward, Streeter called Deane’s criticism of his timing “a red herring.”

“Every single veto I issued I had taken the entire seventh day,” Streeter said.

With the parkway referendum and sex-offender ordinance, Streeter said he had received e-mails urging him to issue vetoes “right up until the last minute.”

Streeter said he was pleased the vetoes were sustained.

“I think they took the right road, since both (pieces of legislation) in all likelihood would have been challenged in court,” Streeter said.

Before the vote on the sex-offender ordinance, Teeboom said police officers and officials with the state Division for Children, Youth and Families and the U.S. Justice Department told him the ordinance would be ineffective and counter-productive.

Teeboom said he promised to help craft an anti-loitering ordinance that police said would more effective in protecting children.

No one spoke before the 6–5 vote to override the resolution that would have called a nonbinding May 6 vote on the Broad Street Parkway proposal.

MacLaughlin arrived late and missed the vote.

The resolution for the referendum had passed by 10–3 in December.

Voting against overriding the veto on Saturday were McCarthy, Bolton, Rootovich, Tabacsko and Plamondon. McCarthy and Tabacsko had missed the December vote.

After the meeting, Rootovich said he had become confused and erred when he voted. He said he had intended to vote to override the veto. His error didn’t make a difference, as the veto still would have been sustained had he voted the way he meant to.

2007-12-13: Personnel/Administrative Affairs Committee meeting

• Meeting agenda — See O-07-136 on page two.
• Sex Offenders and Residency Restrictions: An In-Depth Analysis — A presentation prepared by Laurie Peterson. Also available as a PowerPoint presentation.

The bill was watered down significantly, and ultimately passed out of Committee, by a vote of 4–2. Aldermen Dion and Teeboom voted against; Tollner, Deane, Williams, and MacLaughlin voted for it.

Laurie was able to travel down to Nashua in order to fight this for us. In total, six members of the general public attended the meeting in order to oppose the bill, three of whom gave testimony against it—even the Nashua Police Department had a representative in attendance who testified against it. The Nashua Telegraph had also sent a reporter to cover the meeting.

Beth Raymond of Nashua spoke against the bill as a private citizen, reiterating the statistics and research that we have already made people aware of: who is molesting whom, that the “stranger danger” is not the real danger, &c.. Then Lisa Kristi of the Nashua Soup Kitchen testified against it, as she was strongly concerned that this legislation would have the unintended consequence of increasing the homeless population in Nashua. She gave examples of what other communities and states have had to deal with as a result of similar legislation. Finally, Laurie testified, and the combined testimony convinced the aldermen to significantly amend the legislation.

They amended it to only cover people who committed offenses against a victim under thirteen, down from eighteen, in an attempt to exclude from the ordinance statutory rape situations: sex that would have been consensual, but for the age of one of the partners. (Nashua’s aldermen seem to understand that there are different classes of sex crimes—why not Manchester’s Pepino?) They also amended it to grandfather in residents in their current homes in Nashua, and to allow current Nashua residents to move without falling under the ordinance, if the move was out of financial necessity.

It was then passed, 4–2.

This is certainly an improvement over the senseless, blanket ordinances proposed and passed in other cities, but it loses sight of the most important factor in deciding sex-offender legislation: It will not protect children, regardless of how fine-tuned it is. And, if a law can’t even do what it is intended to do, why should it even be passed?

2007-09-28: AP: Nashua considering sex offender residency restrictions

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) — Nashua is the latest New Hampshire community considering banning sex offenders from living near schools, parks and day-care centers.

The ordinance, introduced by Alderman James Tollner, would prevent registered sex offenders who have been convicted of a crime against a person under the age of 18 from living within 1,000 feet of the facilities.

The proposal would not force sex offenders to move if they already live in a restricted area, or if a school, park or day care is built in their neighborhood.

Sex offenders also would be prohibited from entering a school or day-care center without authorization.

“We have drug-free zones around the schools. We should have sex offender–free zones around the schools as well,” said Tollner, who is running for mayor.

Tollner is running against Donnalee Lozeau, the former deputy speaker of the state House of Representatives. [Tollner lost. —Ed.]

She said it’s difficult to restrict where sexual predators live because of the number of schools and day-care centers and homes in the city, she said.

The proposed city ordinance could drive sexual predators underground to avoid registering, she said.

“That would be significantly more dangerous,” Lozeau said.

Tollner said he doesn’t buy the argument that restricting where sex offenders live will cause them not to register or update their addresses.

“They have to register. If they don’t register, they’re breaking the law,” Tollner said.

The ordinance had its first reading Tuesday. After being debated in committee, it will be brought back to the aldermen for a vote, long after the November election.

While well intended, the ordinance might be over-restrictive and unconstitutional, Alderman-at-Large Fred Teeboom said.

In a memo to the board, Teeboom wrote, “For me, the 1,000-feet restriction has questionable justification, is anecdotally unproven to prevent the danger it purports to protect against, stands on very dubious legal and constitutional foundation, and opens the city to potential lawsuits.”

Teeboom has asked the city’s deputy corporation counsel for an opinion about the viability of the ordinance.