After a meeting tonight, I was leaving Farview Park when I noticed a few kids gathered around a poster, studying it rather carefully. A staff person was encouraging them to take a good look and remember the faces. I went to take a look myself, and saw that this was a list of TWENTY-FOUR LEVEL THREE SEX OFFENDERS living in close enough proximity to a park that someone in charge needed to put this poster up.
I asked if any other parks in Minneapolis had to do this, and if so, to the same degree, and the staff person was not aware of another such poster at any park in the city. When we got on the topic of the high concentration of L3SO's in NoMi and how there is a state law forbidding it, but yet it remains unenforced, he said I must have been about the fourth or fifth person to bring that topic up while looking at this poster.
I've stayed away from the L3SO issue because I tend to think the hyperbole and rhetoric don't quite match the true level of risk posed. That being said, the research done on JNS about this has convinced me that the imbalanced concentration here is a significant issue that needs to be addressed.
And it bears repeating: Our park has a poster with TWENTY-FOUR L3SO'S that our kids have to be on the lookout for. Recognize a few of them? We've got Edgar Earl Lenear and Peter Rickmyer for starters.
TWENTY-FOUR. Ugh.
What's up with the Halloween mask next to Lenear's mug shot? Creepy.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean when you say board positions approved unanimously by acclimation? Was there a vote, or did they get the position by adjusting to the climate? I've never heard that method of voting.
ReplyDeleteSlight typo on the tweet. It should have read "acclamation" with an a in the middle, not an i.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of the JACC board elections, there were more seats available than there were applicants to fill them. In cases like this, the voting body can vote on each member individually or vote by acclamation (sometimes called voting by unanimous consent, which was how John Hoff was elected to the Hawthorne board under similar circumstances).
A vote by acclamation is also typically (I'd have to check Roberts Rules of Order to see if this is true in all cases) done with little or no discussion. The idea is that if everyone's going to be elected anyway, let's just get it done quickly.
If any person present feels that one or more of the candidates is so unqualified that that person should not even be on the board, then they can vote and try to persuade others against a vote by acclamation.
I.I., yeah the pedo-pumpkin kind of freaks me out too.
ReplyDeleteSad to say this is actually PROGRESS. The board at Farview Park used to have just one or two random offenders up there.
ReplyDelete