San Bernardino County and the city of Victorville have settled lawsuits with a civil rights attorney challenging the constitutionality of both municipalities’ sex offender ordinances.
Victorville has agreed to revise its 8-year-old ordinance to conform with state law, which prohibits registered sex offenders from residing within 2,000 feet of a school or park and bans those on parole and whose victims were under the age of 14 from visiting public parks without the express permission of their parole agent.
San Bernardino County has until March 1 to get Board of Supervisors approval for a revised ordinance or its settlement becomes void.
Santa Maria-based civil rights attorney Janice Bellucci filed lawsuits against Victorville and the county in federal court on Aug. 14 and Oct. 15, respectively, arguing the ordinances were overly restrictive and violated the civil rights of registered sex offenders. They were similar to dozens of others the crusading civil rights attorney has contested in cities and counties throughout the state, following a ruling in January by the 4th District Court of Appeal which found that sex offender ordinances in Orange County and the city of Irvine cannot impose restrictions more stringent than state law.
In April, the state Supreme Court declined a petition by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office to review the appellate court decision, leaving it intact and establishing a new legal precedent that has prompted the many municipalities sued by Bellucci to either revise or repeal their sex offender ordinances so they are uniform with state law.
Some municipalities have capitulated to Bellucci’s demands, while others have vowed to fight her. Bellucci’s most aggressive opponent is the city of Carson, which has declared war on Bellucci in an effort to keep its ordinance intact. On Tuesday, Bellucci filed a second lawsuit against the city in federal court after the City Council rejected a settlement agreement in September. Bellucci has a third lawsuit against Carson filed in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging breach of contract and fraud in regards to the settlement, which she says was legally binding with the signatures of the city manager and city attorney.
On Dec. 16, the Victorville City Council unanimously approved a revision to its 8-year-old ordinance that placed restrictions on where sex offenders could live and prohibited them from being within 300 feet of anywhere a child may be present, including video arcades, preschools, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and day care centers.
“I think it’s worth saying that nobody on this council wants to make this motion,” Councilman Jim Kennedy said during the Dec. 16 council meeting. “We are trapped in state law and if anybody’s unhappy about this motion and this ordinance that we’re passing, what you really need to do is go take a look at your state Legislature because they’re the ones that created the state law that we’re bound to live with.”
City Manager Doug Robertson said that rather than facing the high cost of fighting Bellucci in court, the city agreed, as a condition of the settlement, to revise its ordinance and pay Bellucci $5,000 in attorney’s fees.
“We just agreed to settle the case and modify our ordinance to be in conformity with state law,” Robertson said. “I don’t think anyone was really thrilled about it. The thought was that this was an issue of local control, but obviously the courts have ruled otherwise.”
The revised ordinance goes before the council on Jan. 20 for a second reading and adoption and will take effect 30 days thereafter. Meanwhile, the city has instructed the Sheriff’s Department not to enforce its existing ordinance in the interim, Robertson said.
“We are very pleased and encouraged that the city of Victorville decided to comply with recent court decisions, including the state Supreme Court,” Bellucci said. “We got what we wanted and needed, which was to revise their ordinance, and we got paid attorney’s fees.”
San Bernardino County has taken a different approach in settling with Bellucci. It has agreed to bring the issue before the Board of Supervisors for consideration on or before March 1, but there is no guarantee the board will approve a revision to its ordinance. Bellucci is demanding that the county make its ordinance uniform with state law and that the county purge a provision of the ordinance that prohibits registered sex offenders from having their porch lights on between 5 p.m. and midnight on Halloween night, passing out candy to children or decorating their homes.
If the county does not agree to change its ordinance by March 1, the settlement agreement becomes void. That would mean Bellucci will have to file another lawsuit against the county if she wanted to continue in the litigation, as Bellucci agreed to dismiss the lawsuit per the settlement agreement, county spokesman David Wert said.
Bellucci said a second lawsuit would require a new plaintiff, which would not be an issue given that there is a pool of roughly 105,000 registered sex offenders in California, and finding one willing to join her in her civil rights battle would likely not difficult.
“Just because they settled one lawsuit doesn’t mean they can’t be sued again,” Bellucci said, adding that she will in fact sue the county again if need be. “Anybody who has to register as a sex offender in California can be a plaintiff, and there are 105,000 potential plaintiffs. ..Source.. by Joe Nelson
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