The Inver Grove Heights City Council on Monday unanimously passed a permanent sex-offender ordinance, but without a contentious provision that would have allowed Level 3 offenders to live with a family member near places where children gather.
Earlier this month, 685 people signed an online petition opposing the family-member exception. Several residents also criticized the exception at Monday’s meeting.
The ordinance, which goes into effect Sunday, prohibits Level 3 offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, park, playground, church, licensed child care facility or any other place where children congregate.
The city has had an interim sex-offender ordinance — without the exception — since October. The city has no Level 3 sex offenders as residents.
Assistant City Attorney Bridget Nason said a 2016 survey showed that 20 of the 25 Minnesota cities with predatory sex-offender ordinances included a family-member exception.
Inver Grove becomes the seventh Dakota County city with sex-offender restrictions. Of those, four include a family member exception — South St. Paul, West St. Paul, Hastings and Rosemount, Nason said. Apple Valley, Farmington and now Inver Grove do not.
The belief in some cities is that not having the exception means they’re more likely to be challenged on the constitutionality of the ordinance, Nason said.
Mayor George Tourville said he is “not worried” about a lawsuit.
“No exception,” he said after the vote. “If the lawsuit comes, we’ll have to deal with it like anything else, but I think we are safer.”
Minnesota rates the likelihood of sex offenders to re-offend, upon their release; Level 3 is considered the highest risk.
Since 1991, Minnesota law requires all felony-level sex offenders to register their home address with local law enforcement. In addition, the Legislature passed the Community Notification Act in 1996, tasking local law enforcement with informing the public about sex offenders living in their community.