Gardiner + Augusta Look at Restriction on Where Sex Offenders Can Live

The Gardiner councilors say they are not moving forward with new restrictions on where some sex offenders can live. The councilors said that move that should be made on a legislative level. Augusta councilors agreed to study a possible residency restriction for sex offenders and then bring it back to the council for debate.

The Gardiner councilors and Gardiner Police Chief seemed to all agree that residency restrictions likely wouldn't give the security the residents are looking for and that educating kids and the general public about the dangers of sexual predators is the way to go. The police chief made a couple of great points. If parts of Gardiner are zoned off to sex offenders then in the other parts there could be a greater population of sex offenders in a smaller area. The other point was that this deals with where sex offenders live, not where they could go. The Mayor of Gardiner did ask for some research into what other communities are doing and other types of possible restrictions, like excluding some sex offenders from going to public parks.