Clinton rescinds sex-offender law

CLINTON — In a unanimous vote, the Clinton City Council Tuesday rescinded its new law banning sex offenders from parks before officials actually started enforcing it.

The amendment, which voids the law completely, comes after a threat of a lawsuit and a decision by council members not to take on that expense — win or lose.

The decision comes after a closed meeting Thursday. The council also re-examined the law for its effectiveness and decided that there may be better ways to reach their goal of a safer city, such as creating programs to educate families. One of the programs will be to rejuvenate the Neighborhood Watch program, for which the city has appropriated $5,000 in their budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Prominent civil rights attorney Brian Barnard has been threatening a lawsuit because he says that the law restricts constitutional rights of sex offenders.

Barnard originally met with Robert Beltka, a registered sex offender and Clinton resident who was concerned about the law. Beltka is glad Clinton is moving away from the park law but doesn't think the issue is over.

"I don't feel like either side, if you want to put it that way, has won," Beltka said. He believes that if Clinton wants to make a park law, they need to do it on a content-neutral basis — that is, make any crime more serious if it happens in a park, not prohibit a type of criminal from being in the park.

"I feel good that they're repealing it, but I don't think that it's over yet," Beltka said.

Council member Paul Ray is adamant that the law would benefit Clinton. He believes that the city would win a lawsuit but said he doesn't want to take the chance of presenting taxpayers with a large bill — city attorneys expected costs could exceed $30,000 if the case went as far as the Supreme Court.

The law would have banned registered sex offenders from coming within 100 feet of any city property when children are gathered. The law was specifically designed for parks and play areas, city manager Dennis Cluff said. Offenders wanting to visit parks with their children would have had to check in with authorities. Clinton would have been the first in the nation to have such a law.

Barnard said the law wouldn't protect against first-time offenders, or in the place where most offenses happen: in the home.

According to a recent assessment by the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, 83.9 percent of sexual offenses happen in the home. There is no category for parks, though 2.9 percent occur in a field or woods.

"If you are a predator, and you are preying in children, I don't want you in parks. Don't be around children, period," Ray said.

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