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Police Chief Bolanos described the draft proposal for a Sexual Habitual Offender Program. Chief Bolanos said he had been in discussions with the Sheriffs office for over a year regarding this program, and believes it can be very successful. "It seeks a partnership grant with the police Chiefs Association to pay for a Countywide crime analyst and data bank where we would be able to locate and retrieve information on every sex registrant in our County." The proposed program would provide a regional approach and would allow the offenders to be tracked as they move from city to city. Chief Bolanos described County funding and added that city police departments "would be part of strike teams, where we would get together on a periodic basis and pay visits to these sex offender registrants to make sure they are where they reported they would be and if not then we wi!! seek warrants and apprehend them as quickly as possible." Chief Bolanos said this regional approach would be very beneficial, and would be in addition to each police department maintaining its local efforts. In response to Council questions, Chief Bolanos said that this program was not able to stop crime, but to make sure that sex offenders were where they said they were going to be. Chief Bolanos said the suspect in Bertha Valencia's stabbing was registered in Redwood City. He added that there is legislation pending that will give police more flexibility in notifYing residents when they have sex offenders living in their midst. In response to Council questions, Chief Bolanos confirmed that "Megan's Law" is a federal law which has to do with notification of neighbors without waiting for complaints, and added that there is pending state legislation which also speaks to that issue. Councilman Leipzig said this case could have been averted. "Alameda County jurisdiction failed, (or let it fall) through the cracks is what one of their spokesmen said, that this individual, (the suspect) was an i!!egal alien and that the INS was not notified and (the suspect) should have been, after his first offense, sent back to his country of origin." Police Chief Bolanos said, "That is my understanding." Mayor Hartnett said the crime could have been averted in the sense that had he been sent back he would not have been in Redwood City. Detective Sergeant Matuszak, Redwood City Police Investigation Department, described sex offender registration laws and presented a chronology of the suspect's custody status. He was arrested in 1993 for sexually assaulting a 13-year old boy, remained in custody of Alameda County until December of 1995. At that time he had served his sentence and was due for release, but the INS placed a hold on him to investigate his residency in the U.S. Under INS regulations he was entitled to bail, posted that bail, given a court day of March, 1997 and released. Alameda County did not become awro:e of his release until June of 1996. They called him in, completed the Department of Justice Notice of Registration requirement, and ordered him to register as a sex offender. On the next day, June 14, 1996 he did register with the Redwood City Police Department. A little over a month later Bertha Valencia was attacked. REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTE BOOK NO. 54 AUGUST 12, 1996 MINUTES Page No, 423 PAGE 10