By Joe Cohen
Standard-Times staff writer
March 28, 2008 9:00 PM
NEW BEDFORD — A city ordinance barring child sex offenders from areas designated as “child safety zones” will go into effect next week after Mayor Scott W. Lang signs it.
“It gives us another tool that we need,” said Mayor Lang, to whom the ordinance will formally be sent on Monday after its passage by the City Council on Thursday night. The mayor said he intends to sign it immediately.
“It is the equivalent of a no-trespassing” rule to protect children in many public places from serious, convicted, child sex offenders, he said.
The Lang administration has portrayed the ordinance as the toughest regulation of its kind in the state aimed at keeping repeat sexual predators away from children. It was drafted after the Jan. 30 incident in the city library in which a 6-year-old boy was attacked by a registered, high-level, sex offender.
Corey Deen Saunders, 26, a convicted, child sex offender who had been released from state custody despite opposition from the District Attorney’s Office, allegedly attacked a child in the downtown library reference room while the boy’s mother worked nearby on a computer.
Mayor Lang, a former assistant district attorney who has said he wants to be as tough as possible when it comes to preventing sexual assaults on children, said the ordinance went as far as the city can go. He said he also favors tougher state laws.
The ordinance prohibits registered, child sex offenders from being in public places designated “child safety zones.” The penalty for violating the ordinance is $150 on a first offense and $300 on a second offense, with the violations also reported to sex-offender monitors.
The ordinance had been criticized by some members of the City Council as not strong enough.
City Solicitor Irene B. Schall said she wrote the ordinance anticipating it would be challenged. Making it stronger could allow it to be struck down, she said. Ms. Schall added she believes the ordinance as drafted will withstand any legal challenge.
The ordinance bars registered, child sex offenders from a range of public places including schools, libraries, parks, playgrounds, beaches, pools and adjacent areas. It does allow registered sex offenders to vote at a polling place in a school or attend a parent-teacher conference in a school.
During a City Council hearing in mid-March, Ms. Schall said the exceptions are aimed at protecting “fundamental rights” of all people, and the fact that the ordinance is “regulatory and not punitive” makes her believe it can withstand legal challenge.
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