Senate OKs sex offender bill

Unanimously approved measure keeps school property off-limits
Betsy Z. Russell Staff writerMarch 29, 2006

BOISE – Registered sex offenders would have to stay away from Idaho schools under a bill the state Senate passed unanimously Tuesday.
"I think anything we can do to protect children from exposure to sex offenders is a good thing," said Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d'Alene. "And certainly creating statutory limits for their access on school grounds will diminish their exposure."
HB 713 has been amended twice – first by the House, to add an emergency clause so it'll take effect right away, then by the Senate to add some exceptions and make it clear that school districts can adopt more stringent rules of their own.
The push for the bill started in North Idaho, but Goedde, who co-sponsored it in the Senate with Sen. Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, said, "Senators, this is not a North Idaho problem alone."
He suggested senators look at the Web site http://www.familywatchdog.us/, which provides maps of where sex offenders live. "The maps that I've seen are pretty scary," he said.
Goedde said last April he was approached by parents from Post Falls whose children's elementary school teacher's husband was a sex offender and volunteering in the classroom.
"The school district didn't know that, but we had nothing to stop that in the statute," Goedde said. "That's what first got me interested. Subsequent to that, we've had other high-publicity cases involving sex offenders in North Idaho. So we started down this road trying to keep sex offenders away from schools."
The Coeur d'Alene School Board passed a resolution on the issue that was adopted by the Idaho State School Boards Association and led to the bill.
Sen. Kate Kelly, D-Boise, an attorney, drafted the Senate amendments, and several senators praised them during the debate. They make exceptions for parents who attend a parent-teacher conference or a supervised school event in which their child is participating, and for mail or food delivery people who simply make a delivery to a school and leave.
Still, sex offenders who work for landscaping companies or contractors couldn't be on school grounds when kids are present, she said, because they'd be spending time near children, not just quickly coming and going.
The bill also bans sex offenders from living within 500 feet of a school, although it doesn't force those already living there to move.
Kelly said the bill isn't perfect. "To my frustration, one of the things this bill doesn't do is divide sex offenders into any kind of categories, and the reason the bill doesn't do it is because our law doesn't do it."
Idaho law classifies registered sex offenders into two groups: violent sexual predators, and everyone else. There are just over 30 designated violent sexual predators, but more than 2,000 sex offenders.
Jorgenson said, "A lesser offender is still required to abide by these laws."
Goedde had hoped to propose legislation this year to create more categories of sex offenders, but with all the bills this year to crack down on sex crimes, "that fell through the cracks," he said.
"It's something that's not going to get done this year, but it's on my list."
HB 713 now goes back to the House for concurrence in the Senate amendments, before the governor can sign it into law.