FORT MITCHELL, Ky. – In a neighborhood of broad lawns and trees, residents wanted one of their neighbors to leave – and they seized on an unusual way to try and get the city's help to force him out.

The drama involved a local prosecutor, a sex offender, and a tiny sliver of land along Dixie Highway with a handful of benches and a doggy bag dispenser.

In the spring, a registered sex offender moved in next door to Kyle Burns, who also happened to be an assistant Commonwealth attorney for Campbell County.

Burns had an idea: Get the Fort Mitchell Park Board to put a playground in that space. That playground would change everything for everyone; It would be publicly owned – and would force the offender to move.

Kentucky law specifies that sex offenders can't live within 1,000 feet of a publicly owned playground. The sex offender would have to move within 90 days.

Burns promoted the idea with his neighbors in Facebook messages obtained by The Enquirer.

In early September Burns got a meeting with the park board to talk about why the city’s first so-called "pocket park" should go in his neighborhood, according to records obtained under a Kentucky Open Records Act request.

“I have talked to multiple city officials about converting Pauly Park (green space at the front of the neighborhood) into a playground, and they seem interested,” Burns wrote to the group on Facebook messenger. “Not only would it give our kids something to walk to (once this guy is gone that is) but it will also prevent this from happening again."

Burns declined to comment on the park or the Facebook messages when The Enquirer reached out to him.

Where can sex offenders live?

When the offender was 24, he was charged for third-degree sodomy with a 15-year-old. After violating probation, he spent five years in prison; he must register as a sex offender for 20 years.

The Enquirer could not reach the offender for comment.

Advocates for sex offender civil rights say laws specifying distance limits - from schools, parks, and so on – are sometimes abused. The Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL), a California-based group, said pocket parks “effectively keep registrants out of neighborhoods and sometimes entire towns.”

“They also break up families,” the group's executive director Janice Bellucci told The Enquirer in an email. “For example, a family may own or rent a home that a registrant is no longer able to live in due to creation of (a) pocket park. The family can’t afford to rent or buy a second home and therefore registrant becomes homeless often living in his or her car.”

It doesn't seem that Burns mentioned his neighbor during his meeting with the park board. Instead, he talked about how the playground could be good for local businesses, a way to get neighbors to spend more time together, and would “serve a purpose,” according to public meeting documents.

Residents would pay for the playground, Burns told the board, up to $50,000.

If the playground wasn't publicly owned, Burns' neighbor could stay in the Kenton County neighborhood.

Those meeting notes don’t explicitly say the playground would force the offender to move, or even mention the offender, but the Facebook messages do.

“He would have 90 days to move but hopefully he is gone soon,” Burns wrote to his neighbors who had questions about the logistics of the pocket park. “But it would prevent us from ever being in this position again.”

What Fort Mitchell officials did

In late September, the neighbors got the city more involved with their plan.

The park board held a public meeting about the pocket park on the lawn where the playground would go at the corner of Sunnymede Drive and Cornell Avenue. Thirty-two residents gathered beneath the shaded trees to share their feedback over the sounds of Dixie Highway, which sits just over a hill from the potential park.

Most comments were positive, with a few concerns about traffic, according to public records.

“The park board likes the area here because of all the work that is going on downtown,” said Parks Director Kyle Bennett in an email to a resident asking more about the park. “It is the perfect area to start having smaller pocket parks throughout the city.”

The Enquirer asked City Administrator Sharmili Reddy if the city was aware the neighbors wanted the park to compromise the offender’s current home.

She provided a statement from the park board, which did not answer that question.

The city has been exploring the broad pocket park idea for over two years, the park board said in the statement. Other cities in Kentucky have had pocket parks for decades, it added.

The Fort Mitchell park board doesn’t have a budget for pocket parks yet.

“Our goal is to look beyond individual intentions and do what is best for the community based on the feedback we get,” the park board said in a statement.

“If building a park there happens to keep registered sex offenders out … that could only increase the safety of the neighborhood and increase property values,” said Kenton County Commonwealth Attorney Rob Sanders.

Julia is the Northern Kentucky government reporter through the Report For America program. The Enquirer needs a local donor to help her grant-funded position. Email her editor Carl Weiser for more details at cweiser@cincinna.gannett.com

Do you know something she should know? Send her a note at jfair@enquirer.com and follow her on twitter at @JFair_Reports.

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