Growing concern: Discussion continues over where to put registered sex offenders

MILWAUKEE --  The Milwaukee's Public Safety Committee will meet Thursday morning, January 7th to discuss an ordinance regarding residency restrictions for sex offenders. It's been a hot-button issue -- especially for residents.

Last year, Milwaukee lawmakers said the city was becoming a dumping ground for outside sex offenders.

It all came to a head recently when the Department of Human Services tried to put a sex offender in a Milwaukee house in Alderman Tony Zielinski's district -- where two other violent offenders reside. A judge agreed with complaints that was one too many.

The Department of Health Services (DHS) got permission to place this sex offender in a home in Fond du Lac County, but the town of Eldorado quickly passed an ordinance that only sex offenders who were residents at time of offense could reside there.

Alderman Tony Zielinski authored a recent ordinance limiting placement of sex offenders in Milwaukee -- something many other communities in the county had already done.

Currently, a designated offender may reside at family members home if they've lived there for a least two years.

This ordinance amends that length of time from at least two years to one year.

This ordinance also creates a new exception to the 2,000-foot residency restriction and says no person who has been convicted of a sexually violent crime against a child will be allowed to live in the city -- unless that person lived there at the time of the offense.

This amendment will be brought to the Public Safety Committee Thursday morning at City Hall.