News From the States
Alain Levesque, alain360@fastmail.fm
I am back at my Graduate Work and have been a bit late in getting the State Reports compiled. From those I did get to the publisher, you can see that my tardiness has little effect on the great work done by our State Organizers.
KEY: Blue indicates a Current Report in this Issue
Alabama - State Organizer: Anthony
Alaska - Neighboring State Contact: Alain
Alain is a temporary contact for Alaska. We are seeking a permanent State Organizer for this State
Arizona - State Organizer: Tina
Arkansas - State Organizer: Austin
California - Sate Organizer: Linda Gallagher
Colorado - State Organizer: Bennie
Connecticut - Neighboring State Contact: Howard and Rita
Delaware/a> - Neighboring Sate Contact: Thomas
District of Columbia - Neighboring Sate Contact: Patricia
Florida - State Organizer: Colette
Georgia - State Organizer: Kelly R Piercy
All activities in Georgia have been on hold while the website is being re-designed. October will bring a major push to contact legislators and find an ally to propose new legislation based on the REAL Law concept.
We continue our efforts to bring SB 157 back to the House in it's original form as passed by the Senate.
We are confronting legislators with the evition of persons on the registry by the Georgia Department of Transportation after being directed to set up camp in the location by Cobb County Probation Officers.
Guam - Neighboring Sate Organizer: Kelly R Piercy
I am establishing email contact with our members in Guam. More to report next month.
Hawaii - Neighboring Sate Contact: Kelly R Piercy
A contact in Hawaii put a notice up on Craig's list. The notice was taken down by Craig's list. I will establish email contact with those on the registry in that State
Idaho - Neighboring State Contact: Shelley
Illinois - State Organizer: Renate and Tonia
Renate and I had the pleasure of meeting Dennis and Donna, the Missouri RSOL state contacts, this month. They set up a meeting with some of their supporters and invited us along. We threw some ideas around, had a bite to eat and walked away feeling as if we had a few new friends.
I worked for weeks putting together information, articles and statistics regarding Romeo & Juliet laws and sent the packet of information to all of the state representatives who are in the Juvenile Justice, Criminal Law and Sex Offender committees (19 all together) asking them to incorporate the Romeo & Juliet law in Illinois. I included a disk that contained the entire 146 report titled "No Easy Answers: Sex Offender Laws in the United States." A copy of the entire packet was also sent to the our two Senators and our Governor.
I recently learned that Illinois does have a Sex Offender Management Board that meets once a month. One of our supporters, David, was able to attend the September meeting and came back with a wonderful summary of the meeting. We have several supporters who will be rotating so that each meeting has an RSOL representative in attendance.
We have obtained some wonderful help in Illinois and together we are sending out letters to all RSO’s on the registry asking for their help and support. So far, we have approximately 18 counties being worked on. Through these efforts, we hope to get more people involved, whether it is writing representatives, attending the meetings or donations for postage. I have put together a packet of information for those who wish to attend the meetings of factual statistics and information that some state representatives are either not aware of or they simply refuse to speak the truth. With this information in hand, I believe any one of us will have an answer to any question that might be brought up.
Tonia
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Indiana - State Organizer: Kimberly
Hello All!
Indiana has been full of ideas and work this month! Most all of the members have written to the state Senators and representatives and have gotten some good responses!
Moving forward, our goal is to increase the awareness of regulations and laws pertaining to restrictions and reform for SO's. Writing to the state legislature on a continual basis has brought awareness of the infartions [sic] of these laws.
As the state organizer, I would like to see the members come together and talk to one another for support and help in various needs. I am also asking the members to increase RSOL membership by talking to people in the same situations as we are and to build our alliances. We will be integrating pamplets into churches, prisons and jails.
I have begun working with a self employed carpenter/contractor in Indiana to get the SO's involved and working to meet their probation requirements for having and keeping a job. I am looking in to housing needs with a prison ministry to find affordable housing that meets the registration requirements for SO's. I will keep everyone posted as to how this endeavor is growing. Thank you to all of you for all your efforts and hard work!
Indiana - State Organizer: Kyle
Kansas - State Organizer: Michael
Kentucky - State Organizer: Jennifer
Louisiana - State Organizer: Debra
Maryland - State Organizer: Thomas
Massachusetts - State Organizer: Joel
Michigan - State Organizer: Francie
Minnesota - State Organizer: Fima
Mississippi - State Organizer: Dave
Dave is the temporary contact for Mississippi. We are seeking a State Organizer for this State.
Missouri - State Organizer: Dennis and Donna
Nissouri monthly report, September, 2009
September was a great month in Missouri. We had our very first Missouri RSOL meeting. We also invited Tonia and Renate, the Illinois organizers. We were a total of 14. It was a time of sharing some good ideas, such as a shared billboard on the Illinois/Missouri border. Many supporters have already been in contact with various politicians and had done an enormous amount of research on their own. Their input was encouraging. Of course, the amount of support for one another was tremendous. This was the first of many more meetings to come.
Missouri also had several supporters step up to be a part of the new Correspondence Committee for the RSOLCC. Dennis and I feel very fortunate to have so many people who are willing to do whatever they can.
Montana - Neighboring State Contact: Shelley
Shelley is the temporary contact for this State. We are currently seeking a State Organizer for this state.
Nebraska - Neighboring State Contact: Kyle
Nevada - State Organizer: Ruth
New Hampshire - State Organizer: Laurie
New Jersey - State Organizer: Terry
New Mexico - State Organizer: Alice and Lloyd
Citizens for Change New Mexico September Report
September has been an extremely busy month. Besides the usual membership, staff and SOMB meetings, we held a garage sale raising over $1,000.00,
putting us in the black for once. We met with State Judiciary represenitives, as well as a victims group and the Governor to begin the process of reform legislation, and now have commitments to introduce and write the bill to remove those convicted before registry inception. We are also laying the ground work for long term reform. We continue to educate at every opportunity, including conferences, speaking engagements, etc. We are also making progress in creating a large, pro-bono legal team to address specific issues.
New York - State Organizer: Howard and Rita
North Carolina - State Organizer: Linda and Chris
North Dakota - Neighboring State Contact: Kyle
Ohio - State Organizer: James and Dolly
Oklahoma - State Organizer: Mary
Oregon - State Organizer: Shelley
Pennsylvania - State Organizer; Frank
Puerto Rico - Neighboring State Contact: Kelly R Piercy
Rhode Island - Neighboring State Contact: Joel
South Carolina - State Organizer: Sandra
South Dakota - Neighboring State Contact: Kyle
Tennessee - State Organizer: David and Andrea
Texas - State Organizer: Mary Sue
Vermont - Neighboring State Contact: Laurie
Virginia - State Organizer: John and Mary
RSOL Virginia: September, 2009
It's been a busy month so we'll share our top 3 projects/events.
- September 16 Virginia Crime Commission Meeting (see Alex's article)
- September 17 we met with a tax lawyer to inquire what our non-profit options are as an organization that lobby's for legislation reform. Our two main reasons to become non-profit would be to provide housing across the state to RSO's with families and for a class-action type suit. We hope to know if we can use donations for these two reasons and if we can in fact become non-profit in the next few weeks. Then the massive amount of paperwork, an approval process and forming a board of directors will follow.
- Back May and June we had contacted Dr. Richard Wright and his publisher about donating copies of his book Sex Offender Laws: Failed Policies, New Directions to every member of the US Congress and Senate (550+ copies). The publisher could only give us their set discount which would have cost $12,000+.
We are realists and know we could never raise that kind of money. So we have been rethinking the book idea because we believe this book should be mandatory reading for every Legislator before another Sex Offender law is passed.
As of September 21, the book idea is back!
If we only selected the members of the critical committees to give a book to, how many books would that be?
- The Virginia Crime Commission has 14 members and 6 counsel members.
- The House Courts of Justice Committee has 21 members.
- The Senate Courts of Justice Committee has 15 members.
- There will be a new Virginia Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General in January 2010.
- The U.S Judiciary Committee in Washington, DC has 39 members.
- That leaves 7 Virginia Congressmen and 2 Virginia Senators in Washington DC
That's a total of 107 books, minus 3 to 5 because some members of the VCC are also on either the House or Senate Committees. 100 copies with a 40% discount would be $3,000 plus shipping to one location.
We have asked our supporters for assistance with achieving this goal, we've given them a deadline and our plan for distributing the books and we will keep National posted. Back to top
Washington - State Organizer: Avendora
West Virginia - Neighboring State Contact: Jennifer
Wisconsin - State Organizer: Nathan
Wyoming - Neighboring State Contact: Bennie
The RSOL Correspondence Committee, e-Magazine, Minute Men - The Editor
The RSOL Correspondence Committee
The e-Magazine is constantly on the prowl for articles and editors. We have many departments and many needs. In addition to writers and editors, there is a definite need for an Art Director to assist in locating images and animated gifs for articles and to help plan the publicaitons layout.
The Minute Men are re-emerging. A new website is ready in beta version and will include contact information for all Federal Legislators and links to State Legislators for every RSOL Affiliate that provides that information. As the site grows, it will also contain links to the laws governing persons on the registry (as each State Affiliate provides that link or information.)
Alain has made great progress in recruiting over 20 people for this project. The group is forming and assigning various responsibilities, i.e. Editor in Chief, Editors, Researchers, News and Media Monitors, Writers and Responders, and Technical Support.
As the team develops, the site will include features such as FAX capability, pre-composed 'click and send email, pre-addressed email for writers to do their own composing, and anything else we can think of to flood the media and legislators with the truth.
We will never have too many volunteers for this project. Contact Alain at alain360@fastmail.fm or Kelly at semperfidelas@gmail.com to join up (These are temporary contacts until an Editor in Chief takes over the reins.)
Alain, so far, I have received monthly reports form Virginia and New Mexico. I thought I saw something from Shelley that seemed to be a State Report, but it was not listed as such. It was among one of those reply to all messes, if you have something, can you forward it please.