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Official proposes creating new sex offender category

Treasure Island Commissioner Alan Bildz wants to separate those whose partners consented from those who forced themselves on others.

By NICK BIRDSONG
Published July 31, 2005

TREASURE ISLAND - City Commissioner Alan Bildz said he is pushing for a resolution that would urge state legislators to "do their job."

Bildz wants to add a third category that would separate sex offenders whose partners were willing from offenders who forced themselves on someone.

"I don't want to change the definition of the sexual predator," Bildz said. "But I think that the lesser one, the sexual offender, should be broken into two categories: those that consented and those that didn't."

In late April, commissioners voted to broadcast the names and pictures of sexual offenders living in the city on TITV-Ch.15, then pulled the broadcasts on May 3, after hearing from family and friends of the city's youngest offender, Tyler Smith.

Smith, 27, served six months in jail and is on probation for the next 15 years for having consensual sex with his then 15-year-old girlfriend. He was 19, at the time.

At a commission meeting in May, Bildz showed a local news broadcast which reported that three men were being prosecuted for having sex with women they claimed they didn't know were underage. In that case, the sex also was consensual.

"Right now, if you are not 18 you don't have the right to consent," Bildz said. "We all know that 15-, 16-, 17-year-olds don't look like what they used to."

Vice Mayor Phil Collins wants no part of Bildz's proposed resolution. It's not the role of the City Commission to determine consent, he said.

Furthermore, Collins would favor the creation of a third category for sexual offenders only if it came from the state Legislature, with certain age restrictions. He would support a law that protects 18-year-olds from being labeled sex offenders for having consensual sex with 17-year-olds, but not with 15- or 16-year-olds, he said.

"I would support that," Collins said. "But if the state Legislature decides that those people belong on that list, that is good enough for me."

Tuesday night, Collins encouraged fellow city commissioners to work to mandate the number of times law enforcement officials go door to door informing residents of the presence of sexual offenders and predators in Treasure Island. The law requires law enforcement agencies to inform residents of the presence of sexual predators. Currently, the Treasure Island Police Department notifies the fewer than 10,000 residents of sexual offenders as a courtesy, on a case-by-case basis.

Collins said that is "totally unacceptable." He wants police to go out at least three times a year to inform residents of sexual offenders in the neighborhood.

Because of the number of transients in the area, some seasonal residents may not know that a sexual offender lives near them under the current procedure, he said.

According to Treasure Island police Chief Joe Pelkington, the department is updated on the location of sexual offenders in the municipality two to three times a week. Any time one of them moves, neighbors within a two-square-block radius are notified. "This is a small community," he said. "If these people move around, people pretty much tell us."

If the sexual offenders are transients, the tracking process could be more problematic.

"If they are transients, how the hell do we know where they are?" said Pelkington, who plans to retire in August. "Unless you tattoo something on their forehead."

The broadcasts resumed three or four weeks ago, Collins said. But the city won't codify a policy on home visits to ensure the residence of offenders or predators until City Aattorney Maura Kiefer sorts out the legal ramifications.

"After they have done their penalty, there is a point where they do enjoy some rights," City Manager Ralph Stone said.

The state requires only that residents be made known of the presence of sexual predators. These are individuals who have been convicted of one first degree felony sex crime or two second degree felony sex crimes. Other than Smith, there is only one other registered sex offender living in Treasure Island. There are no sexual predators in the city.

While an effort to inform residents of sexual offenders may be feasible in the small community of Treasure Island, don't expect to see it countywide. "Oh, God," said Kelly Griffin, a deputy in the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office Sexual Predator and Offender Tracking Unit. "There are 1,200 or 1,300 sexual offenders in the county. There'd be no way we could notify everyone."

Last year, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office received a federal grant to assign deputies to track sexual offenders in Clearwater, Largo and Tarpon Springs, Sheriff's Office spokesman Mac McMullen said. After a presentation by Sheriff Jim Coats to the Board of County Commissioners, a plan that could potentially allow deputies to assume tracking sexual offenders countywide is awaiting budget approval.

[Last modified July 31, 2005, 01:31:21]