Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending and restating in its entirety Chapter 9.66 regarding residency restrictions for sex offenders, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
33. Communication from City Attorney Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code regarding residency restrictions for sex offenders. Read for the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading Citywide. There's a motion in a second. Can I get a second, please? Any public comment on the item? Seen no public comment. Councilman Price. Thank you. I have a question regarding the process by which California Department of Corrections will be doing their case by case analysis. How does that process unfold? Mayor remembers the Council on Councilmember Price. The currently there's not much of a process in place. They are currently not enforcing the blanket applications for the residency restrictions. And what we're told and how they indicate they will look at it is based upon the conviction what the person was convicted for. On whether that would be a candidate in which they would have an enforcement or a restriction other than, you know, they could go anywhere on the clustering. So let's say we have somebody that has a conviction that they deem, for whatever reason, to be worthy of a second look. Do they then do we know if their process involves ascertaining where that individual plans to reside and then talking with the local municipality regarding the dynamics of that particular neighborhood or any issues that might be relevant to their analysis. How do they know, for example, that that person's going to pose that person's going to fall under the criteria where they wouldn't? That they would be they would have some sort of a an exemption from how everyone else is treated. And I do not have an answer for you this evening. We could certainly contact them and ask them how they plan to enforce that particular question. Is this going to come back for another reading? Yes, it will come back for a second reading. Is that reasonable for us to get that information? We will. Certainly attempt to get that information by that. Time. Okay. Because I think that's really important. If there is going to be a case by case analysis, what's the criteria and how is the municipality invited or allowed to participate in that analysis before a decision is made us to a particular to 90 registrants? Don't think we. Will do. That. Councilman Austin. Do you have a good. Yes. And I want to do a follow up. I think Councilmember Price asked the I think a very pertinent question in light of us not having that information. I'm curious as to whether or not we are are compelled to vote on this this evening without having that that information. Mayor's member. The council councilmember. Excuse me, Austin. The. We would request that you take action tonight. We are currently in litigation on this. Our ordinance is currently not compliant with the Supreme Court decision and the actions currently and the opinion of the attorney general. The the information that's being sought is information that we can bring back to you after we've amended the ordinance. And based upon our research, there's nothing we can do to the Department of Corrections that we can control how they do their you know, how they determine the restrictions based on the individual circumstances. The city's without that authority. Well, this is one of those those moments that I'd like to invoke or local control to the best degree possible. I have some real reservations just about this. And there are some obvious political realities to to to to supporting this action. Are you. And so I guess I need more more direction from from you, Mr. City Attorney. Can you explain to us the nature of the litigation and what would happen if, for example, this this council were to not approve this this this this item? We we are currently and being sued for violation of civil rights. We will be found to be liable for that with damages and attorney fees. The the issue arose in when the California Supreme Court held that a portion of Jessica's Law prohibiting registered sex offenders from living within 2000 feet of schools parks was unconstitutional, as applied across the board to all registered parolees in San Diego County. Based on that case, the attorney general has advised that the restrictions would be deemed unconstitutional in all counties. We still have that restriction in place, and so we are on notice of that. And so we're amending our ordinance to comply with the Supreme Court opinion and the attorney general's opinion. The Department of Corrections, based upon the Supreme Court opinion and the Attorney General, is not enforcing their requirement on the blanket application registry. Resident Residency restrictions, I'm sorry. And so what we're asking the council to adopt tonight puts us in complete what we do believe to be in compliance with what the state law requires and removes the provision in our ordnance, which the Supreme Court, California Supreme Court has deemed unconstitutional. And we are amending at the same time to what we believe clarifies the clustering prohibitions of allowing registered offenders to reside in any multiple registrants to reside in the same unit. So I'm not sure if you answered the second part of my question regarding. What sort of. This legal posturing, we will position what we we put ourselves in as a council. If we were to do to not support the side of. We would be opening and exposing ourselves to additional litigation and expenses incurred by by not complying with the the law as determined by the California Supreme Court. And we will be unable to enforce this ordinance. We would not be able to maintain those restrictions. And yet the county do not place people within that buffer area that we currently have. We have in our ordinance now, they're not they're not listening or following our ordinance right now. And we have no authority to compel them to do that, since Supreme Court says that the what we wanted to do was unconstitutional. So I'm curious to know what other if other municipalities are dealing with the same issue and how they are dealing with the. Multiple cities up and down the state have amended their code very similar to the way we're amending or some cities have repealed it altogether. I could certainly provide you with a list of cities that have amended their ordinance. I don't have that with me, but I can provide that. Thank you. Okay. Any public comment? None. Can someone please second? In terms of the police, the motion. Okay. Members, but he's going to catch the votes. Councilmember Richardson. Motion carries. Kleenex item.