Written by William Hekman
Yesterday, the County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to oppose placements of all sexually violent predators in the county until local communities and jurisdictions are allowed to have a say in placement. The vote comes after sexually violent predator Douglas Badger was set to be placed in a Rancho Bernardo home. The community was outraged at the placement with many voicing concerns and the homeowners recently pulled their decision to allow Badger to stay in their house and ended their relationship with Liberty Healthcare, which contracts through the state to keep an eye on sexual criminals that have been let out on conditional release.
Despite this being a large victory for the community, one county supervisor is taking credit for stopping the placement of Badger, Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer. Lawson-Remer represents the area of Rancho Bernardo, but seemingly did not do much to fight against Badger’s placement other than a few statements and her vote. The real hero in raising awareness is Carl DeMaio, former city councilman and current radio host of “The DeMaio Report” on AM 600 KOGO. DeMaio not only talked at length about the issue on radio and with local media but also organized a town hall in Rancho Bernardo for people to voice and show their concerns. The town hall was well received and showed the media and elected officials that they did not want a sexually violent predator in their neighborhood and that changes needed to be made regarding placement policy. DeMaio even called out Lawson-Remer over her weakness on the issue, “ Just a few weeks ago Terra Lawson-Remer was saying that Sexually Violent Predators deserved privacy and she voted against public testimony in court proceedings regarding SVP placement”.
Carl got the ball rolling on this issue and organized regular people to voice their concerns and to take a stand on this issue. Without his work, this issue may not have been so quickly dealt with and there could have been some extremely negative results if a decision on this issue had been delayed.
