City Council raises fees for registered sex offenders

Plainly INSANE! ACLU where are you?

9-11-2013 Louisiana:

The ordinance, which took effect immediately after being approved, establishes a one-time $600 initial registration fee for sex offenders moving into the city and increases the $60 annual renewal fee to $200.

Fees have officially been raised for sex offenders registering for the first in the City of Sulphur or for those renewing their registration. The City Council agreed unanimously Monday night to the hike after holding a public hearing on the matter.

The ordinance, which took effect immediately after being approved, establishes a one-time $600 initial registration fee for sex offenders moving into the city and increases the $60 annual renewal fee to $200.

Sulphur resident Randy Hebert expressed his concerns that the increased fee was equivalent to a tax. "A fee is what it costs to offset the operating expenses," said Hebert. "Anything that we charge over and beyond what it costs the city to operate is a tax."

Councilman Stuart Moss disagreed with Hebert labeling the fee as a tax.

"This is not a tax," emphasized Moss, "The person paying it right now is strictly the offender."

Money generated from the increased fees is expected to go to the Sulphur Police Department for expenses related to the random monitoring of the city's registered sex offenders. There are 75 registered sex offenders in Sulphur, according to the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office website, www.cpso.com.

"As of last month, the Sulphur Police Department was only reactive in that we would only respond if somebody would call and say, 'sex offender X does not live at this particular address or has been living at this particular address,' and we would respond accordingly," stated SPD Chief Lewis Coats, "I feel, as Chief of Police, we dropped the ball.

I was under the impression that the Sheriff's Office had sole authority over monitoring [registered sex offenders] and that they only had to report to us. When I discovered that I had the authority to monitor them, I decided to pull the trigger on this and start my monitoring program - randomly and monthly."

Officers are expected to arrive at an offender's home on any unspecified day and time to ensure the offender is in compliance with requirements.

"I'm going to monitor these guys and ladies and make sure we don't have anymore victims," said Coats, who added, "There are studies out there that show sex offenders tend to re-offend. I think we are doing the city an injustice if we don't step forward and monitor them."

Future rate hikes, according to Councilmen Koonce and Moss, will be considered as needed.

"If we get into this and see that [the fee] needs to be more, we'll make it more," said Koonce. ..Source.. by Marilyn Monroe