St. Cloud Council Assigns Working Group To Draft Sex Offender Restriction Ordinance

(KNSI) – St. Cloud City Council agreed Monday to form a working group that could add restrictions on where registered sex offenders would be able to live.

Member Karen Larson is spearheading the potential changes. She emails KNSI News that it only applies to Level Three offenders, or those with the highest likelihood of recidivism. Even before her election, residents of Larson’s district had raised concerns to the council about notification procedures in place for neighbors. The tipping point came when two Level 3 offenders moved in next to a school in under a month.

Larson writes that the group has to weigh restrictions that could push offenders into only a handful of neighborhoods in the city with the desire to protect children. “The concern brought forth last night about the undesirable effect that an ordinance might have on “clustering” of Level 3 offender residences in one area is valid, but counterbalanced by the greater concern of the potential “clustering” of such residences in close proximity to schools.”

Larson wants to use an Apple Valley law as the baseline locally, with some potential tweaks. “The map that was attached to last evening’s packet was maximally restrictive. It included not just schools, but also parks and religious locations that children might be frequenting. As I indicated, my personal view of a potential ordinance for St. Cloud would include schools only. Also, at a previous Council study session discussion, several different distance possibilities were brought up. Fifteen-hundred feet was the greatest of those. A lesser distance might be considered.”

There is currently no timeline for when the working group would be ready to propose a potential ordinance to the council.

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