Original Article From the Los Angeles Times Riverside County OKs Limits for Sex Offenders The ordinance requires that the state provide Riverside County 60 days' notice before the release of any felony sex offenders in the county. By Susannah Rosenblatt Times Staff Writer May 25, 2005 After weeks of protests from Mead Valley residents living near a high-risk paroled sex offender, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an ordinance Tuesday that tightens restrictions on where paroled offenders can live. The ordinance was written by Supervisor Jeff Stone this month after convicted rapist David Allyn Dokich, 52, was placed in a Mead Valley neighborhood, near Perris. Dokich was convicted of the 1982 rape of a 15-year-old girl in his Dana Point apartment and of the kidnapping and rape of a 16-year-old Riverside County girl in 1985 while he was on parole. The ordinance requires that the state provide Riverside County 60 days' notice before the release of any felony sex offenders in the county. It prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 1 miles of schools, libraries, parks or recreational centers where minors gather. The ordinance also requires offenders to wear a tamper-proof satellite tracking device at all times. California law mandates that the state give counties 45 days' notice when violent felons are paroled and prohibits sex offender parolees from living within a quarter-mile of elementary and junior high schools. County Counsel William Katzenstein expressed reservations about the county ordinance, arguing that Riverside County had no jurisdiction over California's parole guidelines. State legislators "control this area of the law 100%," he told the supervisors Tuesday. The ordinance went into effect immediately but was adopted "conditional to and subject to review by the California state attorney general," Katzenstein said. Although the attorney general could issue a legal opinion on the ordinance, the office does not yet have an official stance on the county's legislation, said agency spokeswoman Mariam Bedrosian. State parole officials will not alter their monitoring or housing of Dokich without direction from state corrections officials, said Jeff Fagot, an acting regional parole administrator for the state Parole Operations Division 4 in Diamond Bar. Despite community outrage, state parole officials believe that Dokich's residence on Old Elsinore Road is the best location for him. "This is a sparsely populated community," Fagot said. There are no immediate plans to transfer Dokich, he said. Dokich is classified as a high-risk sex offender, because he has two or more convictions for certain sex crimes. The ordinance was passed after angry comments from several of the nearly 30 Mead Valley residents who attended the board meeting, many with their young and teenage children in tow. Dokich is "just a threat and a danger to our children," Deanna Pia, mother of four, told the board. "We will do whatever we have to do to get him removed," said Cindy Ramirez, a Mead Valley mother of three. The board's action Tuesday gave area parents "a little bit of hope," Ramirez said. Dokich is restricted to the house 24 hours a day and must wear an electronic monitoring device, Fagot said. He lives with five other parolees, two of whom are also sex offenders. State parole agents have been stationed at the house at night for several weeks, Fagot said, and the agency is expecting the county's help in obtaining a global positioning device for Dokich soon. Stone criticized what he characterized as the state's permissive attitude toward paroled sex offenders and the state parole board's last-minute notification of Mead Valley residents. "The state is not fulfilling their obligation to monitor these sexual deviants," Stone said. "I don't want any more Samantha Runnions in the county of Riverside." Five-year-old Runnion was abducted from outside her Stanton home, sexually assaulted and murdered in 2002 by Alejandro Avila of Lake Elsinore. An Orange County jury last week voted to sentence Avila to death. Stone is working with local officials to organize a statewide ballot initiative drive to toughen laws governing California's roughly 85,000 registered sex offenders. Riverside County has at least 2,291 registered sex offenders, according to the attorney general's Megan's Law website. The Riverside County Sheriff's Department is collaborating with Stone on the initiative, since Tuesday's ordinance was largely symbolic, said Sheriff Bob Doyle. Legislators "need to tighten the system up a little bit," said Doyle, who added that extra sheriff's deputies were patrolling the area around Dokich's home. "We're doing everything we can to keep an eye on the guy and make sure that he knows that," Doyle said. California officials "don't have the tools in terms of the laws to deal with the sexual predators the way they should," said Supervisor John F. Tavaglione. Copyright 2005, The Los Angeles Times