OH- What threat?

11-16-2008 Ohio:

WHAT was Waterville's young mayor thinking when he promoted an ordinance to protect villagers from a threat that does not exist now and is not likely to exist in the future? Perhaps it was just youthful exuberance; but maybe it was something more.

Earlier this year, Mayor Derek Merrin, Ohio's youngest mayor when he was elected last year at the tender age of 21, proposed that the village ban sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of parks or day-care centers. This week, the village council voted 6-1 against the ordinance after hearing from an angry crowd of residents who opposed the measure. Mayor Merrin cast the only "yes" vote.

It's now a dead issue, and ought to remain so.

The mayor has said he sees protecting village residents as his most important job. Without the ordinance, he said, a sex offender could move next door to a playground, "reach over his fence, grab a child, and take that child into his house."

Villagers attending the council meeting didn't agree, but apparently that was because they were from parts of the village not covered by the ban rather than from any uneasiness over the mayor's intent. They were afraid that sex offenders would move into their neighborhoods, hurting their businesses, driving down home values, and placing their children in danger.

But what was being overlooked in all the hoopla was the fact that only one sex offender lives in Waterville, his crime was committed many years ago, and he has not offended since.

So where's the danger? Is Waterville in the path of a sex-offender migration of which we are unaware? Is the village being targeted on some offender Web site or predator chat room? Have sex offenders been seen scoping out neighborhoods, checking real estate listings for homes with fences suitable for lurking behind, or inquiring about the location of day-care centers? We doubt it.

We have no sympathy for people who sexually abuse children, and we believe that laws requiring offenders to register with local police and prohibiting them from living near where young people congregate are appropriate. But the danger in this case seems to be all in Mayor Merrin's mind, and his half-baked plan to counter a nonexistent threat makes us wonder if he harbors some strange agenda.

If so, he has gone too far. The mayor can no more legislate to keep sex offenders out of Waterville - his stated intention - than he could pass an ordinance prohibiting rapists, murderers, bank robbers, or others who have been convicted of crimes and paid their debt to society from moving to the village.

There are too many important issues facing villages such as Waterville for the mayor to waste time and resources pursuing non-issues for whatever personal reasons. ..News Source.. by Editorial Toledo Blade