Riverside neighbors protest sex offender

Published 11:08 pm Monday, July 14, 2008

EVERETT — They came because they fear for their children. They worry about dropping property values and the loss of their neighborhood’s character.

More than 100 people crammed into a Riverside neighborhood meeting Monday night to protest the arrival of a sex offender in an old home known as the McManus mansion. Neighbors fear that dozens of sex offenders may move into the home at 2528 E. Grand Ave.

“I’m here to defend my community and to defend my family,” said Mere Naico, a financial analyst who lives near the mansion. “I have an autistic daughter who is disabled and I don’t want the problem to come to my neighborhood. They’re not welcome.”

People stood on the stairwell and in the aisles to hear because every chair in the Everett Library auditorium was filled before the meeting even began at 7 p.m.

Residents hurled accusations and demanded answers from three state Department of Corrections representatives, who sat onstage in front of the rowdy crowd. Residents accused the men of risking their children’s safety by allowing sex offenders to move in next door.

The six-bedroom house was sold in June to a former Seattle police officer who is in business with Mike Westford, a landlord who runs boarding houses for sex offenders. Some are also recovering from drug and alcohol addictions.

Westford hasn’t publicly said what’s planned at the house. He does say that even convicted sex offenders need places to live.

Westford currently rents out several homes in the 2600 block of Grand Avenue. Around 48 sex offenders, recovering drug addicts and alcoholics live in four or five of those houses, said Community Corrections supervisor Ric Rosales.

Last week, a 28-year-old high-risk sex offender moved into the McManus mansion, which was built in 1893 for the prominent banker and state Sen. J.E. McManus and has since fallen into disrepair. The new tenant was convicted as a minor for raping a younger boy and molesting two others, according to the Department of Corrections.

The offender was released from prison in July 2006 and is not allowed contact with children under the age of 18. He can’t own a gun or drink alcohol and is enrolled in sex offender treatment, his parole officer Joel Eskes said.

“It’s not that we just push them out — out of sight, out of mind,” Rosales told the crowd. “We keep messing with them and tangling with them the whole time they’re on supervision.”

Rosales and Eskes asked people in the neighborhood to watch out for anything suspicious. Anyone who sees the tenant talking to a child or drinking should call them, they said.

“You say we can call you with any problem,” resident Libby Wills shouted. “If something happens to my child, it’s already happened. By the time I call you, my son is shattered. What are you going to do about that? Put him back in prison? Well it’s too late.”

Scores of people stood to say they don’t want sex offenders moving into the mansion. Many had questions about the sort of permits and zoning needed to house multiple sex offenders in a residential neighborhood, but no one from the city of Everett was there to answer their questions.

“This is a deterioration of our community,” resident DeAnn Turnbaugh said. “This (community) will be forever changed. … I’m just praying that officials pay attention and won’t turn their backs.”

Corrections officials say stable housing can lower recidivism rates, but landlords often won’t rent to convicted sex offenders, who end up on the street, where they are harder to monitor.

There are 44 homeless sex offenders in the county, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office.

Westford has said he rents rooms for as little as $350 a month because without the cheap rooms, even more sex offenders would be on the streets. There are currently 1,620 registered sex offenders in Snohomish County, including 319 in prison or jail. The vast majority are men. They range in age from 13 to 95.

When placing sex offenders in housing, Department of Corrections officers look to make sure the homes aren’t too close to schools or registered day care centers. They also try to keep offenders away from their victims.

“They put them in a neighborhood to keep them from their former victims,” said Donna Burdick, who lives with her 14-year-old daughter two blocks from the McManus mansion. “What about their future victims?”

Herald Writer David Chircop contributed to this report.

Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.