In a little over two weeks, Boston parents will be sending their children back to school. They deserve answers today on how a registered sex offender got on the City payroll.
As the Herald reported, a registered sex offender with multiple convictions for sexually assaulting a child was a parks and recreation employee for the City of Boston until his employment with the city ended last week.
He was listed as a Level 3 sex offender on the state sex offender registry board, the most dangerous sex offender level and considered to have a high risk of reoffending and pose a high degree of danger to the public, according to the state website.
Per city payroll records, he appears to have been hired by the City of Boston last year as a heavy motor equipment operator and laborer for the city’s parks and recreation department, which oversees parks and playgrounds and family-oriented programming.
How can a Boston school parent not be concerned? And just how did this happen? Is this person an outlier, or should parents be wondering about who else is around their children?
We deserve answers, and nearly got them.
Boston City Councilor Ed Flynn ordered a hearing, scheduled for for Monday, to discuss the impact of the city’s Criminal Offender Record Information, or CORI, policy on access to employment.
It didn’t happen, scrapped after the councilor who chairs the committee set to hold the hearing cited a prior family commitment for the cancellation.
Flynn isn’t buying it, saying the decision to nix the meeting was made to avoid questions about the mayor’s hire of the Level 3 sex offender.
“Administration officials would be present at Monday’s hearing, and city councilors would have the opportunity to ask questions about CORI reform and also about any other relevant subject that’s relating to CORI,” Flynn told the Herald Friday. “I’m sure some councilors would ask about the recent hiring practices and background checks on Level 3 sex offenders.”
Boston parents would want them to ask these questions, lots of them. They deserve answers, especially with the start of school just around the corner.
Flynn said he planned to ask if a background check had been performed on the Level 3 sex offender, and if so, whether the CORI check flagged the “major” sexual assault convictions.
Parents assume this would be the drill, that such records would slam the brakes on a hire. But apparently, there are cracks through which a sex offender can slip.
The meeting is today scheduled for Sept. 22, according to Councilor Benjamin Weber, who chairs the Labor, Workforce and Economic Development Committee. Children will have already been in school, taking buses, running around playgrounds. Wouldn’t it be in families’ best interests to address CORI concerns before school starts? To begin the school year with peace of mind?
Delay is the enemy of transparency.
Flynn said he felt the meeting delay was a political decision. It’s rescheduled date is after the Sept. 9 mayoral and city council preliminary elections.
Whatever the reason, a bad move, and a very bad look.
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