October 21,2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Local Patch editions publish sex offender map as Halloween warning across the state . Do you think the Patch sites should publish these maps or leave it up to parents to look up the information?
While we do agree parents have a right to know and should know , we are not sure this is the best and most effective way to notify the public .
On several occasions the Ridgewood blog has been asked by readers to publish everything from sex offenders to property tax delinquents of the Village and we have up till know differed.  We did however publish the properties who were fined for for violations of the Stage 4 watering  because after 15 years of summer water restrictions its seemed justified on many levels . We have also been guilty of nagging non compliant winter snow sidewalk  scofflaws  as well.
We have always been been concerned about creating a “witch hunt” atmosphere in the the Village or doing significant damage due to a misidentified address.
Unlike some of our detractors we try to focus on the issues and leave the personal to the personal . Some issues however seem to straddle both realms.
What are your thoughts ?
I think it is a good idea to publish the addresses of houses kids should avoid. can’t hurt
Not sure on this if they have payed for there crime and are no harm to the community then i think not.
It could create a liability issue if you publish an inaccurate address. Other than that, no reason to not publish that list…..or a list of drug dealers as well.
Btw I missed the list of stage 4 offenders how can I view that? Thanks in advance
https://theridgewoodblog.net/summonses-issued-for-stage-iv-water-violations-in-ridgewood/
Summonses issued for Stage IV Water violations in Ridgewood
The addresses of registered sex offenders is available online.
What the Patch did was inappropriate. They were doing their own Halloween scare. As if the offenders would be grabbing kids off the streets on Halloween.
The Patch is a free online paper for a reason.
Personally, I think it is wrong to post the registry maps and property tax delinquents. To me, these are different than repeat snow offenders or people who are watering illegally. The primary difference is that both the registry and the property tax situations have lots of different people in lots of different situations.
For the registry, it is important to note that some of these people are on there for peeing in public or because when he was 18 he knocked up his 15 year old girl friend. The registry is not primarily made up of child molesters. Many of these people took guilty pleas that included time on the registry because sex crimes often have huge sentencing ranges which discourage people from going to trial.
On the tax side, people run into financial trouble for lots of different reasons. in addition, many of us pay our property taxes through our mortgage company so some of those delinquencies are actually bank errors.
I thought “Trick or Treating” was outlawed and replaced by “Trunk or Treating”.
Are you going to post the license plates of sex offenders? or the paring lots where sex crimes were committed?
Thanks for the list of summons issued. Not exactly the
Hundreds that were supposedly issued.
As 2:36 said, some of these offenders really weren’t child molesters. Too many on that list had cooperative sex with a girl a year younger, but illegal if revealed. so, my answer is not to publish.