Prior Lake, Minnesota City Council Refuses To Address Sex Offender Issues

The City of Prior Lake in Minnesota has a huge sex offender-related problem, but it's not the sex offenders themselves that I'm talking about. A blogger and acquaintance of The Angry Offender, called "Anonymous" here for privacy purposes, wrote to the Prior Lake City Council regarding the content of an article he blogged about on Prior Lake's Council members addressing sex offender issues. Unfortunately, Anonymous was very annoyed by Council member Chad LeMair lumping all sex offenders together and referring to the collective group as "scumbags," and when a CC of the council's response reached me, I realized that at the time he was too angry with the Council to bring up the issues in a way they could address. The responding member was very dismissive of Anonymous's message, and refused to address anything Anonymous had said; based on what I saw in the original message to the Council, I can understand, and Anonymous has cooled off.

What am I getting at here? Well, the problem is that, while Anonymous's response was too angry to expect a reasonable reply from the Council, I took it upon myself to address the issues with the Council calmly, logically, and in depth. This, however, proved to become a very fruitless endeavor. The City Council of Prior Lake, Minnesota has "brushed off" my points entirely, refusing to address them anywhere other than behind closed doors, citing my anonymity as an excuse.

This is outrageous. City Council members are public servants, and they have a responsibility to be transparent in their actions. Prior Lake's City Council has instead chosen to restrict their discussion of important and complex issues to themselves, behind the closed doors of Council meetings. "Why is this really a problem? Why should I care?" Here's a few reasons to care about this:

• Prior Lake is examining the controversial sex offender residency restriction laws that have been repeatedly and urgently advised against by victims advocacy groups, sex offender treatment providers, and even the mother of Jacob Wetterling herself, who is the person that originally lobbied for the creation of sex offender registration laws. These laws increase the risk of sexual reoffense by convicted sex offenders, while ignoring the root of the problem.
  
  
• Prior Lake needs to focus on solutions for preventing new sex crimes from occurring rather than focusing on punishment after the damage is done. Despite the propaganda pumped by politicians looking for re-election, sex offenders have been proven to have an extremely low sexual reoffense rate, and conversely over 90% of NEW sex crimes are being committed by people who are (A) not convicted sex offenders and (B) well-known to the victim of the crime.
  
  
• Prior Lake's City Council is following the patterns established by politicians all over the country of exploiting the false premise of a "child predator epidemic" to appear "tough on crime" and get re-elected. While I cannot confirm that this is their intent, they are certainly towing the same line and refusing to address my points which may put a dent in this exploitation of a complex issue for votes, should they be engaging in this kind of practice.
  
  
• If these restrictions get passed in Prior Lake, boat-loads of sex offenders will be forced to move to neighboring rural areas, suburbs, and surrounding cities. That means a flood of convicted sex offenders moving from Prior Lake into Lakeville, Farmington, Savage, Shakopee, Carver, Apple Valley, Rosemount, Bloomington, Eden Prarie, New Market, New Prague, Chaska, Carver, and even further away, displaced by this new law that the Prior Lake Council refuses to publicly discuss.
  
  
• Residency restrictions are debunked with common sense: a sex offender can walk, bike, drive, or take a bus or taxi to a school to rape a child at any time, and having this law won't do anything to stop that. It will not keep sex offenders from roaming the city during the day or night. It will not keep sex offenders away, excluding one time of day: the time when they choose to go home and sleep. Prior Lake's City Council refuses to address this concern and shift the focus to real solutions, opting instead to spew forth hatred for sex offenders and put up the "tough on sex offenders" front, regardless of the increase in real risk to the citizens of both Prior Lake and its surrounding areas.
  
  
• Where is the ordinance that allows people who seek treatment for addiction to sexual deviancy without being arrested for it? Why is the Prior Lake City Council choosing to ignore the issues and instead "stay the course" even though "the course" has been proven to put your children at higher risk than ever before?
  

Are you a Prior Lake, MN citizen, or a citizen of a nearby city or township? If so, you need to call or write to the Prior Lake City Council expressing your disapproval of their refusal to discuss critical sex offender issues with the public. Ask tough questions. Ask why they are not taking measures to stop new sex crimes from happening. Ask them why they're picking on sex offenders when most of the new sex crimes are coming from first-time offenders. Ask them why they are not recognizing the opinions of numerous experts in the sex offender management field who disagree with the safety and efficacy of these laws the Council seems so eager to pass. Ask them why they do not learn from the State of Iowa, where a highly restrictive set of residency laws were enacted which have caused half of Iowa's sex offender population to not register and completely vanish from the radar screen, now totally unsupervised and nowhere to be found. Ask them if they realize that once they enact these laws, they won't be able to easily backpedal, as Iowa has discovered when their Sheriff's Department repeatedly begged the legislature to lighten up the law so they wouldn't risk losing track of hundreds more convicted sex offenders, and the pressures from outside sources prevented them from repealing the changes.

Ask the Prior Lake City Council why they don't care about the safety of your children!

Contact information for the Prior Lake City Council:

Mayor Jack G. Haugen, 4824 Adrian Circle SE, Phone: (952) 440-8200, jhaugen@cityofpriorlake.com

Deputy Mayor Chad LeMair, 5524 Highpointe Court SE, Phone: (952) 440-8506, clemair@cityofpriorlake.com

City Manager Frank Boyles, 4646 Dakota Street SE, Phone: (952) 447-9801, fboyles@cityofpriorlake.com

Councilman Warren Erickson, 3031 Spring Lake Road, Phone: (952) 440-2171, werickson@cityofpriorlake.com

Councilman Kenneth Hedberg, 6582 Harbor Beach NE, Cell Phone: (612) 382-6143, khedberg@cityofpriorlake.com

Councilman Steve Millar, 4851 Rutledge St. S.E., Phone: (952) 440-4572, smillar@cityofpriorlake.com

Here are the E-mail communications between myself and Prior Lake Council members, totally unedited for you, the informed citizen, to read:

---
From: Warren.Erickson(at)ricoh-usa.com
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 08:36:46 -0500
To: TAO (Offender(at)AngryOffender.com)
Cc: clemair(at)cityofpriorlake.com,
	fboyles(at)cityofpriorlake.com,
	jhaugen(at)cityofpriorlake.com,
	khedberg(at)cityofpriorlake.com,
	smillar(at)cityofpriorlake.com,
	werickson(at)cityofpriorlake.com
Subject: Re: Regarding the "in regards to" response by Mr. Boyles...

This issue is on the agenda for the council meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 4th.

I feel that is the time to address this for public debate instead of an unknown
person email.

Sincerely,
Warren Erickson 
---

Here is the complete string of messages leading up to this response:

---
From: TAO (Offender(at)AngryOffender.com)
To:  fboyles(at)cityofpriorlake.com,  clemair(at)cityofpriorlake.com, 
 werickson(at)cityofpriorlake.com,  khedberg(at)cityofpriorlake.com, 
 smillar(at)cityofpriorlake.com,  jhaugen(at)cityofpriorlake.com
Subject: Re: Regarding the "in regards to" response by Mr. Boyles...

To Prior Lake, MN, City Council members:

I have not received any form of response regarding my communication as 
seen below.  Please inform me of your thoughts on the issues raised 
below as soon as feasible.  Numerous media outlets and blogs are picking 
up this issue with increased interest, and I do not yet have answers for 
their questions.

Regards,
TAO
---

---
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 22:58:54 -0400
From: TAO (Offender(at)AngryOffender.com)
To:  fboyles(at)cityofpriorlake.com,  clemair(at)cityofpriorlake.com, 
 werickson(at)cityofpriorlake.com,  khedberg(at)cityofpriorlake.com, 
 smillar(at)cityofpriorlake.com
Subject: Regarding the "in regards to" response by Mr. Boyles...

To Prior Lake, MN, City Council members:

Despite the tone taken by persons (in this case, a blogger called "Anonymous")
bringing up issues via E-mail, I would highly encourage all of you to address
the issues that are brought to your attention rather than firing back an 
emotional and irrelevant attack, as Mr. Boyles has chosen to do in the message 
quoted below.  You never know who the person mailing you is, and you never know 
who that person knows, and you never know what may happen to your political 
career if your opponents happen to get their hands on these kinds of replies 
(smear statements such as "Frank Boyles calls anyone who opposes his views a 
hypocrite" come to mind).  The poor choice of tone in a mail message does not 
entitle you to lower yourself to the same level and attack the originator of the 
message.

Regarding the original issues that started all of this, Mr. LeMair's choice of 
words is deplorable, though not beyond understanding.  The biggest problem I see 
in what has been reported is not the word "scumbags," but rather the fact that 
support for residency restrictions is shown by some of you.  It might get you 
votes, but all of the evidence and expert advice on residency restrictions (and 
indeed, the experience of places that have had such restrictions for a 
significant amount of time now) show that the ultimate effects of restricting 
where a sex offender can live, work, and spend leisure time has an effect that 
is directly opposite of the intended results.  Iowa is a prime example.  After 
Iowa enacted hefty sex offender residency restrictions, they lost track of 
almost half of the entire state's sex offender population.

There needs to be a focus on producing solutions to preventing new sex crimes 
from happening, not more and more punishments after the harm has already been 
exacted upon a victim.  Try making an ordinance that allows people in the city 
with unacceptable sexual desires to seek treatment for their addictions (and 
yes, sexual deviancy is an ADDICTION, and tougher laws only isolate the addict, 
allowing the addiction to take a toll much quicker) without being arrested for 
it.  I guarantee you that this will be more effective in stopping new sex crimes 
than a residency restriction for sex offenders, who can't sleep within 1000 feet 
of a school but can easily walk right to it at high noon and rape a child if 
they wanted to do so.  Remember, a law is just words on paper, and enforcement 
of that law is an entirely different story.

I am not here to hammer you on your choice of policies.  However, I will issue 
you one and only one warning:  sex offenders are humans, and humans never fail 
to surprise those who attempt to predict what they will do when pressured 
sufficiently.  The last time a large group of persons were persecuted too 
unfairly, the American Revolution occurred.

I would encourage all of you to examine my website "angryoffender.com" with an 
open, non-partisan mind, and hopefully you will use the information I present 
there to form policies that truly benefit the people of your city.

My reply to the original sender who forwarded me Mr. Boyles's poorly thought out 
response was as follows, for your entertainment (and no other real reason):

---

This is what they call a non-answer.  Rather than addressing any points you have 
made, Frank Boyles is attacking *you* and *how you said it* instead.  It's a 
standard-issue cheap political trick.  Don't get too upset over it.

> Frank Boyles wrote: Subject: Re: In regards to an article about sex offenders.
> Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 08:16:07 -0500
> From: "Frank Boyles"
> To: Anonymous,
>  "Chad LeMair"
>  "Steve Millar"
> CC: "Jack Haugen" 
>  "Warren Erickson" 
>  "Ken Hedberg" 
>
> Re: In regards to an article about sex offenders.        Thanks for sharing 
your many views. You appear to be well versed about the constitution So I am 
confident you understand that freedom of speech is  a two way street. I have to 
say I am just a little perplexed about the hypocrisy of some of your views but 
that is your right and I think I will just leave well enough alone for now. I am 
responding on behalf of the city council although they may also respond to you 
individually.
>  Frank boyles
>  --------------------------
>  Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Questions? Comments? E-mail the Offender and let him know what you think!

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