Agenda - Planning Commission - 04/07/2016

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Zoning Bulletin March 10, 2016 I Volume 10 I Issue 5 state and local government in this area suggest that both sides have a stake in the matter of sex offender residency." Thus, the court concluded that the issue of sex offender residency implicates both state and local interests. Consequently, the court agreed with the federal district court that this was an issue of mixed state and local concern. Next, the court needed to determine whether the Ordinance conflicted with state law. It found that it did not. Specifically, the court found "nothing in Colorado's sex offender registry regime that prevents home -rule cities from banning sex offenders from residing within city limits." It also found nothing "that suggests that sex offenders are permitted to live anywhere they wish." Significantly, the court pointed to the one statutory provision that explicitly concerned sex offender residency, and noted that provision only required state officers to ap- prove sex offenders' new residences. (See Standards and Guidelines § 5.620(K).) Accordingly, the court concluded that since the Ordinance did not conflict with state law, it was not pre-empted by state law. See also: Webb v. City of Black Hawk, 2013 CO 9, 295 P.3d 480 (Colo. 2013). See also: City ofNorthglenn v. Ibarra, 62 P.3d 151 (Colo. 2003). Case Note: The Supreme Court of Colorado determined that the federal district court, in reaching an opposite conclusion, had `found a conflict by reading require- ments into the statutory scheme that [were] simply not there." The Supreme Court of Colorado found that the district court had inferred that, because the statutory scheme generally favored individualized assessments with regard to treatment of sex offenders, any local law lacking such individualized assess- ments conflicted with state.law. But the Supreme Court noted that nothing in the provisions cited by the district court suggested that a home -rule city must individually assess each sex offender seeking to reside within the city. The court pointed to the provision of the CSORA that provides that local officers are "not required to accept [a sex offender's] registration if it includes a residence. . .that would violate. . .[a] local ordinance." (CSORA § 16-22- 108(1)(a)(I)) The state Supreme Court concluded that, contrary to the district court's conclusion, the fact that the state scheme favored individual assess- ments in general did not paean that a local law that lacked them conflicted with state law. ©2016 Thomson Reuters