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With all the Italo-Americans in Duanesbug and Schenectady County, it is hard to believe you haven't been accused of a little agita-creation yourself, Rene.  For a fuller explanation, see "what is agita" at my weblog -- http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ethicalesq/what-is-agita/

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For all you non-Italians, a definition:
heartburn, acid indigestion, an upset stomach or, by extension, a general feeling of upset. The word is Italian-American slang derived from the Italian "agitare" meaning "to agitate."

I've seen it spelled either way....agida or agita. It's pronounced, "ah-jih-ta".


I'm Italian!

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Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE
Sex-offender task force: stacked deck
Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.

   Further to my report on the Schenectady County Council to Prevent Sex Offenses, which is the official name of the task force created by the county Legislature after backing away from an ill-conceived sex-offender residency law, yes, it was a fine if belated idea to create the task force, but who’s on it and who’s not?
   The idea was to tap into the expertise of people who actually have experience and actually know something about dealing with registered sex offenders and to get some input, as they say, from other members of the community besides the 15 legislators themselves.
   That’s one of the things the legislators took heat for — not consulting anyone. They just went ahead last June and passed their pair of laws forbidding registered sex offenders from moving into any area within 2,000 feet of a school, playground, etc., and also forcing registered offenders who already live in those areas to move out.
   They didn’t consult with the supervisors of the county’s fi ve towns, who came to fear that hordes of “predators” would be driven out of the city and into their precincts. They didn’t consult with the district attorney, with the police chiefs, with the Probation Department, with the sheriff, or with the Department of Social Services.
   They also didn’t consult with the state chapter of the Association for the Treatment of Sex Offenders or with the Capital District Coalition for Sex Offender Management, which are made up of psychologists and others who deal professionally with sex offenders.
   So after taking a lot of heat, they sighed mightily and repealed the more onerous of the two laws they had passed, and then they set up the task force they should have set up in the first place to study the matter.
   And who’s on it? Well, the town supervisors, the district attorney, and various other local officials who should have been consulted originally, which is fine, and then three members of the Legislature itself, which strikes me as redundant since their purpose can only be to advise themselves, plus “three citizen representatives seeking to end child sex abuse.”
   I inquired initially why there was no slot for a representative of the Capital District Coalition for Sex Offender Management, like Richard Hamill, for example, a psychologist who has spent 20 years dealing professionally with sex offenders and who took the trouble to attend the Legislature’s public hearings and express his views on their proposed laws, and I was told he would be eligible as a “citizen representative.”
   Well, the members have now been appointed, technically by the county manager but I have no doubt actually by Susan Savage, the chairwoman of the Legislature, and guess who the “citizen representatives” are. They are:
   Jeff Parry, a resident of Scotia who led the neighborhood effort to force a registered sex offender out of the home of former Mayor Will Seyse and who has been probably the most persistent and most uncompromising of citizens, utterly impervious to reasoned discussion, despite a deceptively soft-spoken manner.
   Olivia Adams, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, who enthusiastically supported the two laws the Legislature initially passed, and who, like Parry, has no particular expertise that I’m aware of.
   Karen House, who told me by telephone that she is a Niskayuna mother who is “concerned about the dangers that predators pose to children,” who fully supports the laws the Legislature passed, and who simply spoke to Susan Savage about serving on the task force.
   No Richard Hamill or other professional who actually knows anything, nor anyone else who has any qualms or misgivings about the measures that the Legislature itself had to back away from. Keeping in mind that Susan Savage didn’t back away from them. She was one of two legislators who voted to keep them in place. Meaning she simply picked people who agree with her own hard-line position.
   As for the redundant three legislators, they are Savage herself (thanks a lot), and two others who voted in favor of the ill-conceived laws, Judy Dagostino and Philip Fields.
   No Michael Eidens, the legislator who as a former judge has actual experience in dealing with criminals and who spoke forcefully against the two laws when they were proposed, saying they would make the community more dangerous, which is what Richard Hamill also said, nor any Karen Johnson or Carolina Lazzari, who joined him in voting against them.
   In other words, a stacked deck. A bunch of fellow enthusiasts in promoting the myth of predators lurking behind trees waiting to snatch children from playgrounds. Trying to scare people out of their wits.
   That they held their first meeting shortly before Halloween was a happy coincidence, I believe. I was waiting for them to put on sheets and go, “Hooooooooooo!”
   As I mentioned before, the task force has 90 days from when the enabling legislation was passed on Aug. 23 to come up with recommendations on 14 distinct matters as intriguing as setting up a “secure housing facility” where sex offenders can be “monitored at ingress and egress.”
   By my count there are 29 members of this august body, and if you have any experience with committees, you know that’s a lot. Just to go around the table and let everyone have his introductory say would easily fill up the hour that they allotted themselves for their first meeting, in the McChesney Room of the county library.
   That so many people in such a short time can figure out how to set up a secure housing facility — a jail by another name? — and monitor the ingress and egress of anyone at all, strikes me as unlikely, though I will patiently wait and see. All I see at this point is a charade.

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I
I am certain the Savage administration will be clamouring for your services.

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CAPITOL REGION
Sex offenders ordered to stay home Halloween
BY STEVEN COOK Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Steven Cook at 395-3122 or scook@dailygazette.net

   One group of people this Halloween may have the scariest costumes of all: going as themselves.
   Even so, they’re being told to stay home and find something else to do.
   For more than 1,800 registered sex offenders under the supervision of the state Division of Parole, next Wednesday will be spent at home, by order of Parole.
   Beginning at 3 p.m. that day, or after work, all sex offender parolees are to remain at home until 6 a.m. the next morning, parole officials said.
   They also cannot participate in any Halloween activity, can’t wear any costume, mask or disguise, and can’t open the door to minors trick or treating.
   The effort is part of the Division of Parole’s annual Operation Halloween: Zero Tolerance, a program aimed at keeping children safe.
   “They’re all being informed well ahead of time that they’re not supposed to open doors to trick-ortreaters,” said Parole spokesman Mark Johnson. “This is a proactive approach to make sure children are safe.”
   Parole officers will contact each parolee by phone. Officers will also make curfew checks. They also will check for inappropriate CDs and DVDs.
   Last year, parole officers made at least one home visit to each of the more than 1,900 registered sex offenders under supervision, Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 offenders.
   For the most part, the offenders were compliant, Johnson said. Some violations were issued last year for offenders being out past curfew. No instances were found of parolee offenders giving out candy, he said.
   The parole-supervised offenders, however, are a fraction of the more than 25,000 sex offenders in the state registry database, most of whom are no longer on parole or who may not ever have been on parole.
   Schenectady Police spokesman Lt. Brian Kilcullen said he was not aware of any regulations prohibiting those on the registry from answering the door that night. But, he recommended they do not.
   There were 206 registered sex offenders listed for Schenectady County as of Monday, according to the state.
   Kilcullen also suggested parents accompany their children and check the registry for the area where they will be visiting.
   Officials with the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, which administers the registry, made a similar recommendation.
   Parents should accompany their children or know the route their children are taking and check the registry, division spokeswoman Janine Kava said.
   “It’s really important for them to know that this is a resource out there to access,” she said of the registry.
   Residents can check the registry online at http://criminaljustice. state.ny.us/ or by phone at 800-262-3257. The two highest risk levels of offenders, 2 and 3, can be checked online. Information on individual Level 1 offenders, the lowest level, is available by phone.  

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The Halloween Killer’s case gives us two important reminders for Halloween safety: (1) his victim, although only 9 years old, was trick-or-treating alone, and went to the home of a stranger; and (2) Turner had no prior record and thus would not have been subjected to the Halloween restrictions being applied to those on parole. Again, then, parents must not be lulled into a false sense of security by the much-publicized efforts tonight against sex offenders.

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Former priest
ordered to serve
prison time
   RIVERHEAD — A former Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to molesting a 6-year-old boy began a two-year prison sentence Monday after a judge ordered him returned from a Missouri hospice.
   Suffolk County Court Judge Ralph Gazzillo previously postponed jail for Barry Ryan, who pleaded guilty three years ago, because the ex-priest has terminal liver cancer. But Gazzillo issued an arrest warrant in August, after prosecutors suggested the one-time cleric was using his illness as an excuse to avoid incarceration.
   Ryan, 58, was arrested in Missouri and returned to New York last week, said Assistant District Attorney Rosamaria Abbate. The former priest appeared in court Monday before Gazzillo, who signed papers sending Ryan to an upstate prison.
   “Even the doctors say he has survived longer than expected,” Abbate said.
   Ryan will be held in protective custody and under a suicide watch, and will receive cancer treatment while in prison.
   When he pleaded guilty in October 2004 to sexual conduct against a child, prosecutors and the boy’s family agreed on a two-year sentence, expecting Ryan might not live long enough to serve the full term.
   The victim’s mother, who described Ryan as a close family friend who took advantage of her son, has since said she would not have agreed to the two-term if she thought the ex-priest would have lived this long.

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Calif. Sex Offenders Go Homeless
By DON THOMPSON (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
October 31, 2007 2:18 PM EDT
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Hundreds of California sex offenders who face tough new restrictions on where they can live are declaring themselves homeless - truthfully or not - and that's making it difficult for the state to track them.

Jessica's Law, approved by 70 percent of California voters a year ago, bars registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park where children gather. That leaves few places where offenders can live legally.

Some who have had trouble finding a place to live are avoiding re-arrest by reporting - falsely, in some cases - that they are homeless.

Experts say it is hard to monitor sex offenders when they lie about their address or are living day-to-day in cheap hotels, homeless shelters or on the street. It also means they may not be getting the treatment they need.

"We could potentially be making the world more dangerous rather than less dangerous," said therapist Gerry Blasingame, past chairman of the California Coalition on Sexual Offending.

Similar laws in Iowa and Florida have driven offenders underground or onto the streets.

"They drop off the registry because they don't want to admit living in a prohibited zone," said Corwin Ritchie, executive director of the association of Iowa prosecutors.

The organization tried unsuccessfully in the past two years to persuade lawmakers to repeal the state's 2,000-foot residency restriction.

"Most legislators know in their hearts that the law is no good and a waste of time, but they're afraid of the politics of it," Ritchie said.

The problem is worsening in Florida as about 100 local ordinances add restrictions to the state's 1,000-foot rule, said Florida Corrections Department spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger. Sixteen homeless offenders are now living under a Miami bridge, while another took to sleeping on a bench outside a probation office.

"As society has imposed restrictions, it becomes almost impossible for them to find places to live," Plessinger said.

Twenty-two states have distance restrictions varying from 500 feet to 2,000 feet, according to California researchers. But most impose the offender-free zones only around schools, and several apply only to child molesters, not all sex offenders.

California's law requires parolees to live in the county of their last legal residence. But in San Francisco, for example, all homes are within 2,000 feet of a school or park.

"The state is requiring parolees to find eligible housing in San Francisco, knowing full well there isn't any," said Mike Jimenez, president of the California parole officers union. "It will be impossible for parole agents to enforce Jessica's Law in certain areas, and encouraging `transient' living arrangements just allows sex offenders to avoid it altogether."

State figures show a 27 percent increase in homelessness among California's 67,000 registered sex offenders since the law took effect in November 2006. Since August, the number of offenders with no permanent address rose by 560 to 2,622.

"This is a huge surge," said Deputy Attorney General Janet Neeley, whose office maintains the database. "Any law enforcement officer would tell you we would prefer to have offenders at addresses where we can locate them."

Offenders who declare themselves homeless must tell their parole officer each day where they spent the previous night.

Those who declare themselves homeless are still legally bound by the 2,000-foot rule; they cannot stay under a bridge near where children gather, for example. But it is more difficult for parole officers to keep tabs on them.

Parole officers said some offenders are registering as homeless, then sneaking back to homes that violate the law. That's easy to do because fewer than 30 percent of transient offenders currently wear the Global Positioning System tracking devices required by Jessica's Law.

"If they tell you that they were under the American River bridge, we're going to take that at face value," said Corrections Department spokesman Bill Sessa, referring to a homeless hangout in Sacramento.

During a recent sweep in the Oakland area, parole officers discovered that two of the five offenders they checked weren't living in the temporary shelters they had reported as their new homes. Neither had been issued a GPS device.

Department spokesman Seth Unger said parole agents are starting to make the homeless a priority in issuing the GPS ankle bracelets, which are still being phased in.

R.L., a 42-year-old sex offender who lives near Disneyland in Southern California, said he registered as homeless after his parole agent told him two potential homes were too close to schools or parks.

"I finally asked, `Where do you want me to live?' He said, `You have a car, don't you?'" said R.L., who asked that his full not be used because of the stigma surrounding sex offenders.

The law was named for 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, who was kidnapped, raped and buried alive by a convicted sex offender near her Florida home in 2005.

The author of Jessica's Law, state Sen. George Runner, said "90 percent" of it is working well. But he conceded that some portions need to be fixed.

"When the voters voted for this, they decided that they didn't want a child molester to live across the street from a school," said Runner, a Republican from Lancaster in Los Angeles County's high desert. "If that means that in some areas that needs to be 1,000 feet or 1,500 feet, then I think that we still accomplish what it is the voters wanted."