Article in today's Journal Times

Candidate wants more restrictions on sex offenders in Racine

By Janine Anderson
Journal TimesRACINE —

Aldermanic candidate Fred Dooley wants Racine to pass an ordinance to restrict where sex offenders can live in the city, and limit which ones can move in.

The ordinance is modeled after one enacted in Franklin, a suburban Milwaukee County community. Will an ordinance designed to protect a suburb from Milwaukee’s sex offenders work in an urban area?

Dooley is running against incumbent Alderman Raymond DeHahn for the council’s 7th District seat.

Franklin’s ordinance, drafted by Alderman Steve Olson, was written to “protect us from the state,” he said. Several years ago Milwaukee County was looking to build a facility for its worst sexual offenders — mainly serial rapists and child molesters. Franklin, because of its rural nature, quickly emerged as a possible option for the halfway house.

But the community rebelled, and Olson’s ordinance grew out of their outrage. “We studied long and hard all of our ordinances, our zoning code and state statute to find ways to prevent us from getting everybody else’s offenders,” he said. “We’ll take ours, just don’t give us everybody else’s. That’s the foundation of the ordinance.”

Ordinance limits offendersThe ordinance sets up “safety zones,” 2,000-foot buffer zones surrounding schools and other places where children may be. The zones put about three-fourths of Franklin’s nearly 35 square miles off limits to offenders. The ordinance also prohibits offenders who did not live in Franklin at the time they committed their offense from moving into the city. This was the key provision to block Milwaukee from sending its sex offenders into the county’s most rural community.

Dooley thinks Racine should look into something similar.“To me it seems like common sense legislation to protect our kids from really dangerous people,” he said. “These are dangerous people thrust back into society.”

For a community like Franklin, especially given the situation, the ordinance made sense. But would it be best for a city like Racine?Urban vs. suburbanRacine has 80,000 people packed into 15.4 square miles. Most of the county’s crime, including sex crimes, take place in the city of Racine. Compare that with Franklin, where 33,000 people live on 34.6 square miles. The suburb accounts for a small portion of Milwaukee County’s crime.

The Wisconsin Department of Correction was not able to supply exact numbers of sex offenders living in Racine or Racine County Wednesday. Their online sex offender registry shows 354 sex offenders living in Racine County’s 13 primary ZIP codes. About three-fourths of them — 268 sex offenders — live in Racine’s five ZIP codes. Burlington, with 47 sex offenders in its ZIP code, has the second-highest concentration of offenders in the county. There is one sexually violent person living in Racine County, according to the Department of Health and Family Services, the state agency that handles Chapter 980 commitments said. Statewide, 17 sexually violent persons have been released into Wisconsin communities.

If Franklin’s ordinance were to be enacted here it would not have kept anyone who lived here when they committed their offense from moving back. Additionally, it may be difficult to establish similar safety zones because of the number of schools in the city.“It would prevent Racine from becoming the dumping ground like they tried to do in Franklin, I guess,” Dooley said. “It just seems like common sense. If enough communities band together, if all the advocates want to make the state look at changing things to keep people away from our kids more long-term.”

What would it do?

So far, no one has threatened to foist sex offenders from outside the city on Racine. An ordinance that keeps offenders who did not live here from moving here in the future is not likely to keep out large numbers of people. When asked about where the most appropriate places for sex offenders to go would be, Dooley gave the kind of answer that got Franklin riled up in the first place.“There’s so much more rural area out there,” he said. “People can go where there aren’t kids. Maybe that’s what we need to do.”

In Racine County, rural areas would be outside the city of Racine, in places like Caledonia, Raymond and Dover. If those communities were to pass ordinances like Racine’s, then only sex offenders who came from the sparsely populate towns could move back there.

Ultimately, Dooley’s push for this ordinance is one for an active stand to protect children, and not simply about closing Racine’s boundaries.“I think if enough communities got serious about it, there would be an effect at the state level,” Dooley said. “There are too many people being released after committing these serious crimes, and so many against kids.”

Channel 25 election forum TV schedules

A forum for the Aldermanic candidates in the upcoming April 3 election was held on Sunday in City Hall. The event was sponsored by Young Professionals of Racine and Cable Access Racine, Channel 25.Each of the forums can be seen in their entirety on CAR25, Time Warner cable channel 25 on the following dates and times:

Wednesday, 3/28 Friday, 3/30 Saturday, 3/31 Sunday, 4/1 Candidates (followed by District and Air Time)

Jeff Coe, Keith Fair,1st - 11:00 – 11:40
Michael Shields, Denise Rangel, 3rd - 11:40 – 12:20
David Maack, Ken Yorgan, 5th - 12:20 – 1:00
Raymond DeHahn, Fred Dooley, 7th - 1:00 – 1:40
Terrence McCarthy, Pete Karas, 9th - 1:40 – 2:20
Greg Helding, Gloria Rogers, 11th - 2:20 – 3:00
Robert Mozol, Wally Rendon, 15th - 3:00 – 3:40

Dooley for Alderman campaign announces initial legislative agenda

Faced with having one of the state’s most notorious sexual predators thrust upon their community, the City of Franklin passed a unique resolution which protected their children by stopping the state from placing sexual predators into their community upon their release from the Department of Corrections even though those sexual predators were not from the City of Franklin.

Since that time many other communities have passed similar resolutions.

Why should our city take the risk of having sexual predators forced upon us that are from other communities?

I believe the time has come for Racine to adopt the same resolution.

If I am fortunate enough to be elected Alderman in the 7th district I will make it my first priority to introduce this resolution in Racine. I have obtained a copy of the language from the author of this resolution, Franklin Alderman Steve Olson, and intend to introduce this resolution as my first order of business when elected.

Our children deserve this common sense protection.

Proposed .5% Sales Tax Increase

The County Board has approved an advisory referendum to the April 3 ballot to add a half of a percent increase to our sales tax.

The board wants this money designated for cultural things like the zoo and the parks.

Let me make myself perfectly clear on this.

I AM OPPOSED TO THIS TAX INCREASE IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY.

This is the new way of getting through tax increases, making them for something everyone loves, like parks.

Then you can take the park budget out of the regular budget and spend that money on other things. In short, find a new way to fund the parks then gobble up all that money on other things.

In reality it is just another tax increase. But this allows tax increase proponents to say things like what do you have against the zoo or good parks.

Absolutely nothing. They all go to quality of life, we have good ones now and being opposed to shadow tax increase does not mean you are opposed to parks or zoos.

We need economic development in this region, the absolute worst way to promote that is by adding to our already too high tax burden.

We need to find creative ways to lower taxes, not creative ways to raise them.

Dooley for Alderman Campaign Kick-off

Please join us to celebrate the entry of Fred Dooley into the

race for Alderman in Racine’s 7th District.
Pizza and soft drinks will be served. (cash bar available)

Thursday, February 1, 2007
6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Suggested donation: $25.00

Please RSVP to Dooleyforalderman@yahoo.com
or 262-681-9372 by 1-30-07

Location: DeRango’s Pizza Palace
3840 Douglas Avenue
Racine, WI 53402
(Douglas Avenue, just south of 3 Mile Rd.)

So, what happens when the blogger
becomes the candidate?
Come and find out!

Authorized and paid for by: Dooley for Alderman,
Fred Dooley, Treasurer

PLEASE JOIN US!!!!

Mayor Becker suggests the time may be right to move COP houses.

This from the Journal Times today.

Racine mayor: Time to consider moving C.O.P. houses

By Brent Killackey
Journal Times

Racine Mayor Gary Becker says it’s time to consider changing the locations of Community Oriented Policing houses.

“When they went in, they weren’t supposed to stay forever,” Becker said in an interview.The Community Oriented Policing houses – or C.O.P. houses as they’re called – essentially create police substations in troubled neighborhoods, sometimes renovating boarded-up homes for use.

They’re designed to help fight crime and rebuild the neighborhood.

But they’re not supposed to be permanent fixtures.“You haven’t been successful if you can’t move it,” Becker said.

If decisions are made to move C.O.P. houses, it won’t be an overnight process. If a C.O.P. house will be relocated, a three-year timetable will be established. During that time, agencies from public works to housing would work together to make sure the area was re-energized, Becker said.

I thank the Mayor for this idea, does it really have to take three years though?

Neighborhoods have to be involved in the crime problem if we are to get a handle on it.

The Education Issue

The following question in from Brenda: (Disclosure, this is Brenda of the Racine’s Report Card blog, a passionate advocate for Racine public schools, this is from her blog description; An unbiased and perspective of the issues surrounding education in Racine, WI. I advocate for both excellent schools AND the responsible use of taxpayer dollars. I believe educational issues should always be non-partisan and never about politics, but I am also not naive to think that some will make it all about politics.)

Fred,

You mentioned the under-performing school district Racine as one of the many challenges the city faces.

What, if any, role should city or municipal government play in guiding the leadership of our school district?

Also, should the city (or surrounding villages) have a say in new buildings, school closings, etc?

Thanks for this important question

Brenda.

I consulted with a number of people before deciding to run for Alderman. All of them told me to avoid this issue as no matter what I said I was bound to anger too many people. I appreciate the advice, but frankly avoiding a controversial issue because it may be politically expedient is not my style.

This community needs to grow in order to add to its tax base. In order to accomplish that we need to make the community an attractive place to do business, live, work and raise children.

A good public school system is a vital component of that over-all plan. A number of people in this community get all defensive playing the blame game whenever anyone dares to criticize our public schools. Ask yourself this question, when was the last time you met someone who moved to the area in order for their children to go to Racine Unified Schools.

If the answer to that question is "gee I can't recall", we have work to do.

I am a realist, I understand the challenges here are enormous and I will not pretend to have all the answers, frankly I would defer to Brenda’s expertise on this issue. However, what I see is a disconnect between City Hall and the Unified Central Office.

Everyone knows that city administration has very little to do with education policy, they just collect the money from our ever-growing tax bills. What City Hall can offer is rhetoric and leadership. We need to make improving our schools a top priority, we should take it personally when we see how badly our schools rank in comparison to the rest of the state. We need to make this a primary focus in every thing we do.

Every idea should be seriously considered and we should try to make it fun for our kids. I can tell you one thing about kids, they love to compete, they love to have fun and they love to win. Something as simple as an academic competition between two schools with a pizza party and a traveling trophy to the winner would promote school pride, teach students to work together towards a common goal and create excitement about learning.

Now, imagine that excitement on a district wide basis, or even our whole district competing against Kenosha! Trust me on this, the community would step up and pay for rewards and incentives to winning and losing schools if they felt any excitement or improvement in the learning environment. Heck, I’d be the first one in line to donate.

That is just one idea from one guy in his home office on New Years Day, imagine if we got the entire community focused on improving education like that, the energy in the very thought of that excites me!

We need to talk about education; we need to make it a priority in everything we do, every day.

We need to create an environment of excellence; we will not do that by deferring to Central Office as that is “their area”.

As to the second part of your question, should the city (or surrounding villages) have a say in new buildings, school closings, etc?

If any changes in buildings or closings will have an effect on the city or surrounding villages in terms of quality of life or city provided services, they should be consulted and their concerns be evaluated as part of any decision making process. Ultimately though those decisions do and should rest with the duly elected members of the school board.

Brenda, thank you for your passion and concern about education in the Racine area, I do appreciate it.