At the conclusion of the piece, I indicated that I had contacted some of the key players via email and would report back on my findings... I want to thank the office of State Senator Tim Grendell for responding to my inquiry.
From the Office of State Senator Tim Grendell:
This article is not completely accurate. The bill does not require notification of residents. It simply requires that nursing homes and assisted living facilities - even those that do not accept sex offenders to live in them - post a sign that says a sex offender might live here. It also requires that in the paperwork someone signs when going into a nursing home it says that there may be sex offenders living there. Again, this is not restricted to nursing homes where sex offenders live or that will sex offenders. It includes nursing homes that will not allow sex offenders to move in, it includes assisted living and long term care facilities that are not required to allow sex offenders and those that do not permit sex offenders to move in. You can review an actual copy of the bill online at: [LINK]
Ohio law already requires that the name, address, and identifying information of every sex offender be placed online and searchable. It also requires that a sex offender notify the county sheriff when he or she moves and that the sheriff notify neighbors and building managers.
Contrary to the article, Senator Grendell did not talk to Representative Combs. I talked to Representative Combs and shared with him some of these concerns that have been raised and the fact that it would take us a little time to work through them. For example, what about long term care and rehab units at hospitals? Unfortunately, because the bill took so long to pass out of the house of representatives (a year and a half), it didn't have enough time to get heard in our committee and get passed out. This is not atypical, and there is no reason that the bill cannot be introduced again.
I hope this helps to clarify. As an aside, I do not believe that any of the nursing home industry contacted our office about this bill. I know that a couple of assisted livings that do not permit sex offenders contacted us to let us know that some of their residents would be confused by the postings, because they had been told no sex offenders could live there. But as for nursing homes or the allegation that there was the "big money" of nursing homes - that is plain offensive. I believe that Senator Grendell has contacted Representative Combs to make sure he checks his facts before saying something like that again. Anyone can check the campaign finance information of any statewide elected official. And anyone who is familiar with Senator Grendell's record knows that we have done an incredible amount of work to address the policy of our state on sex offenders.
More from Sen. Grendell's Office:
[Grendell's office] piloted with the Ohio AG's office what we called "Red's Law" - after our County Sheriff Red Simmons (who has since passed away) who used county money (in Geauga) to start a sex offender notification program using an idea brought to him by a guy named Mike Cormaci out of Louisiana. That program morphed into what we now know as HB 5 - the ESORN program. Tim has been the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee for the last 2 years. During that time we worked tirelessly to pass the Adam Walsh Act - a series of bills that took a combined 22 hearings and dozens of rewrites. As a result, we became the first state to substantially enact the AWA. We have done a phenomenal job of working to protect Ohioans from sex offenders. There is still more that can be done, but it takes time and work. If we do not do a good job of writing the law, there are legal consequences that could result in offenders (sexual and otherwise) going free. We never want to see that happen.
Thus, unfortunately Rep Combs' bill was not passed out of the House committee until just before the summer recess (which started in May) and the legislature didn't meet again until November 19h. Since then, we've had 4 or 5 hearings. There simply wasn't enough time to do a good job on a bill like this.
What we appear to have here is bad journalism preceded by insufficiently thought out legislation. This is a failure of Ohio Republicans in leadership roles in both chambers of the General Assembly to get this done right and on time. The intent of the bill is clear, solid and has merit so here is hoping that it gets fixed and can make it to the governor's desk sooner rather than later.
If we received a response from State Rep. Combs or the Ohio GOP, we'll be sure to pass that along...
