As town officials continue to examine ways to control Colonie’s growing sex-offender population, the number of registered sex offenders in the town has doubled over the past 18 months.
We’ve gone from having an average of 50 to 60 [sex offenders] to 120 in the last year and a half, said Colonie Police Chief Steven Heider.
Residents fear motel owners in Colonie are looking to expand and make a business out of housing sex offenders at their establishments.
Mary Anne Kowalski is the captain of St. Clare’s Neighborhood Watch Group. She and her neighbors live on the western end of town, right off Central Avenue. Kowalski said she and her neighbors have noticed changes to several of the motels that house sex offenders near her home.
`If you drive by on Central Avenue, [an area motel owner] bought the land next to his property and he began clearing it without proper permit, and the rumor is that he’s planning on building another motel,` she said.
According to Town Supervisor Paula Mahan, the owner of the motel in question, who could not be reached, did complete the proper permitting for clearing his own land, though he has not yet filed with the town’s Building Department a notice of intent for what he plans to do on that land.
Kowalski said she fears that if the owner is able to add on to the existing motel, or build a new motel, they will be able to house more sex offenders.
However, if the owner does decide to build another motel on the land, Mahan said, there is not much the town could do.
`I’m not in support of adding on to that type of a building,` Mahan said. `But I think, obviously, if they’re within their rights and they’re within their zones, what could we do?`
Heider said the highest concentration of sex offenders is on Central Avenue, west of Route 155, though he said another motel in Latham is now allowing sex offenders to live in its facility. The issue of an over-concentration of sex offenders on that portion of Central Avenue is one that has increasingly come to the town’s attention over the last few years.
The reasons why the sex offenders are flocking to these motels is also somewhat complex, he said.
Heider said the motels receive funds from state and county government to take these people in.
Another factor is the strict residency rules that prevent sex offenders from virtually living anywhere in surrounding counties that have adopted laws to create farther distances a sex offender can live from a school, playground, daycare or other place where children are.
The Town of Colonie currently follows the Albany County laws, which create a 1,000-foot restriction of how close a sex offender can live to an area where there are children. Heider said the motels that some residents are concerned with are within the regulations.
Heider said if one were to look at the sex offender registry, many of those who have committed offenses did not do so in the Town of Colonie, but they were pushed into Colonie because they had no place left to go.
`That’s part of the problem we’re having here in this town,` he said. `They were never part of the Town of Colonie, didn’t commit crimes in the Town of Colonie. They’re being placed here from counties that don’t even border the town.`
But according to Heider, while a stricter residency law could help the problem, it will not make it go away.
`When you’re talking about the effectiveness of residency laws, it doesn’t really prevent crimes against people,` he said. `It doesn’t matter where they live.`
Albany County Legislator Christine Benedict, R-Colonie, has been working on the county level to increase Albany County’s distance restriction, in hopes that the county can stop the growing population of sex offenders in Colonie.
`It is sad that the Town of Colonie is becoming a dumping ground for these kinds of people,` she said. `No other motel owners will take them, they pay high, very high.`
Benedict also watches the registries and has found fault in it, in that certain levels of sex offenders’ residences do not remain on the list. As she explained, Level 1 offenders have been convicted of a sex crime, Level 2 offenders are less likely to repeat the crime and Level 3 is the most likely to repeat the crime.
`I don’t believe [Level 1], their listing is permanent,` she said.
Heider, Benedict, Mahan and other town and county officials are currently involved with several taskforces that are looking into the most effective way of dealing with the sex offender situation in Colonie.
Mahan said one option, which she said she is currently in discussion with Albany County Executive Michael Breslin, is creating a new facility, exclusively designed to house sex offenders in the county.
`[Breslin is] in agreement with me and our members of the taskforce that we need to keep working towards an effective solution,` said Mahan.
Whether or not the solution includes a new facility, Mahan said she is hoping something will happen so that Central Avenue will see the dawn of a new day.
`My preference, if I had a wish list, it would be to have those areas revitalized,` she said. `Central Avenue is a great area for commercial activity.`
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