I.P. group addresses issue of sex offenders

On Oct. 13, the Island Park Civic Association held a meeting with local officials to address the community's concern about sex offenders temporarily living at the Long Beach Motor Inn on Austin Boulevard. Concerns arose after the civic association learned there had been four sex offenders staying at the motel over the last few months.

Held in the auditorium of the Lincoln Orens Middle School, the meeting was led by IPCA Secretary Anne Egan, who read questions submitted by the audience of about 50 to the panel of officials. “I personally believe the people who commit these crimes should live in jail,” Legislator Jeff Toback said of sex offenders. “We don’t want to pass laws that get struck down by the court. It’s a delicate balance.”

The “delicate balance” was an important point officials tried to make: While citizens usually want stricter laws against sex offenders, officials said they can’t always oblige them. The fear they have, officials said, is that laws that are too strict can be dissolved by courts as being unconstitutional and can push sex offenders underground.

According to John Imhof, commissioner of the Department of Social Services, the county is required by state law to give temporary housing to homeless residents who request it — even sex offenders. It's up to the offender's parole officer to inform them which hotels and motels they can stay at, and the Long Beach Motor Inn is considered a legal place for sex offenders to stay. Since sex offenders are special cases, they can only stay in the same temporary housing for 28 days before they have to relocate.

“Until the law changes,” Imhof said, “we have to provide temporary housing to those who need it.”

By law, a sex offender can not live within 1,000 feet of a school, 500 feet of a park or preserve, or within 2,000 feet of their victims. However, according to the IPCA, the Long Beach Motor Inn is 650 feet from the Little Village Nursery, a nursery school on Broadway in Island Park. After officials heard that, some of them started looking at a list of schools in the county that sex offenders could not live near, and the Little Village Nursery was not one of them.