Mattawamkeag considers sex offender ordinance

MATTAWAMKEAG – The town might join Lincoln as one of the state’s few municipalities with its own sex offender ordinance barring offenders from living in certain parts of town, the town’s administrative assistant said Friday.

Upon request from the Board of Selectmen, Steve Worster is researching proposed and enacted ordinances from around the state to see if one or an adaptation of one might be workable in Mattawamkeag, he said.

“As far as I know, there are only one or two ordinances in Maine that cover that,” Worster said Friday.

The request doesn’t mean that Mattawamkeag will adopt its own ordinance, Worster said.

“There is a lot to consider, too, including whether these things stand under scrutiny,” he said. “Are they defensible? Will they withstand constitutional tests?

“We’re circling the idea,” he added.

As of Friday, five convicted sex offenders were listed as living in Mattawamkeag, according to http://sor.informe.org/sor/, the Maine Sex Offender Registry Online Search Service.

In Maine, three communities have enacted ordinances to prevent sex offenders from living near schools, day care or preschool centers, and even libraries or public parks. Lincoln passed such an ordinance on Dec. 11, joining the York County towns of Waterboro and Lyman.

Waterboro and Lyman, which border each other, enacted similar ordinances after the November election.

In Waterboro, where a child sex offender sparked protests by moving into a home 840 feet from a junior high school, the ordinance setting a minimum distance of 2,500 feet from schools and 1,000 feet from day care centers was approved by a vote of 2,206-131.

A similar ordinance in Lyman was endorsed by a 1,586-250 vote.

Millinocket’s attempt at an ordinance, upon which Lincoln’s measure was at least partially based, died when the Town Council voted 4-2 against it in September.

In Parsonsfield, residents voted unanimously in January to approve a new ordinance, which bans sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or boys or girls club. It also imposes fines against anyone who knowingly rents or sells a home to a sex offender within the 2,000-foot “buffer” zone.

In addition, the Parsonsfield ordinance requires sex offenders to wear ankle bracelets at all times.

The vote was in response to convicted sex offender Joseph Tellier, who moved to Parsonsfield last year. Tellier served a 15-year sentence for the 1989 kidnapping and assault of a 10-year-old girl in Saco.

Newfield also passed a similar law.

Such ordinances have been criticized by advocates of sexual assault victims who say that the laws don’t work, merely driving sex offenders underground and making it more difficult for them to get treatment. The legality of such laws has been questioned. State legislators have been working on a remedy to the patchwork of local ordinances occurring around the state.

Worster will report his progress to selectmen at their next meeting on Feb. 20, he said. The meeting will start at 6:30 p.m.