Posting #127 – The Time to Take a Stand is NOW!   URGENT

By: RSOL of Virginia

September 3, 2009
The Time to Take a Stand Is Now!

We have received the agenda for the September 16 VCC meeting and public comments have been pushed off.

The RSOL of Virginia will arrive to the Richmond General Assembly Room Senate Room A one hour before the 10:00 AM meeting begins.

We need you to come up to us and introduce yourself, your family members and friends.

You will be able to select one of our many visuals to hold during the meeting. We will need you to return the visual before you leave so that we can reuse them at another time.

We look forward to meeting you in Richmond on September 16, 2009!

August 18, 2009
The Time to Take a Stand Is Now!

Virginia Supporters,

There are MANY of you that have contacted us and then there are those of you who just check our web-site but have not written directly to us and we now need all of you to take a stand, now!

There was NO New Registered Sex Offender Legislation that passed during the 2009 Virginia General Assembly. This was a first, EVER!

We truly believe it’s because we spoke out against the proposed legislation with valid arguments and actual facts and statistics that prove the Virginia Registry is failing and because of that there are no new restrictions or regulations for you to submit to this year.

This was accomplished with just two of us speaking, stating facts, and making logical arguments. There are thousands of you on the Virginia Sex Offender Registry and an insurmountable quantity of those indirectly affected who need to step up and be seen.

When the 2010 General Assembly convenes next January we will keep watch on the sub-committee and committee meetings and we will be at each and every one of those meetings to speak out against any proposed legislation that would make any of our lives more unbearable than they are today. We will continue to try to help YOU. We hope that many of you will attend these 2010 G.A. meetings and either make a statement or just stand up and make the simple statement “I do not support this legislation”.

Unfortunately the General Assembly meetings are scheduled with very little notice, sometimes with less than 24 hours and you must monitor the schedule on-line. We know most of you will not be able to schedule a trip to Richmond on such short notice, but we do hope you will try. The Legislators interpret no statement of opposition as encouragement to pass whatever bill is before them. The State has full time employees whose job is to talk about the benefits of the proposed bill, and they are quite good at doing so.

The RSO Bills that did not advance this year have been sent to the Virginia Crime Commission for review this summer and could be resubmitted at the 2010 General Assembly.

RSOL of Virginia attended both the May and June 2009 Virginia Crime Commission meetings. We believe the mere fact that we were present created a small debate amongst the Legislators that we had previously met with and those that we had not. This prevented any real conclusions to be met about how to go forward.

An actual quote from the co-chairman to the State of Virginia officials regarding the Sexually Violent Predator Act was “When you sold us on this bill you had us convinced that 70 percent of those convicted would re-offend, now we come to find out that its more like 30 percent of those evaluated to be the most dangerous of this group”. Please see http://www.rsolvirginia.org/blog_106.html where Civil Commitment, the Violent Sexual Predator Act and the Static 99 Assessment Tool were discussed, at these meetings public opinion was not allowed.

At the September 16, 2009 Virginia Crime Commission meeting they will be discussing the S.O. bills that did not advance during the 2009 G.A.

Now, we need YOUR help.

We need you to attend this upcoming meeting in September.

We need a presence to be made while showing we are professional and knowledgeable. We want you to bring your spouse, your significant other, your children, your parents, your neighbors, your clergy person. It is of vital importance that the Legislators see just who they are hurting. We need the members of the Virginia Crime Commission to see that Registered Sex Offenders are human beings, who deserve to be treated so and given the opportunities that everyone else has been given.

The Virginia Legislators find it quite easy to harshly punish those they cannot see, those they think they know, they live in denial that the punishment affects not only those on the Registry, but anyone and everyone whom they love. They believe this does not hurt the wives, the finances, the mothers and the children of those who are forced to register. They think that we are uneducated and are ill behaved.  We need to make a presence not a spectacle. We have a time where our voice will be heard and we can plan ahead for this date and time unlike with the Virginia General Assembly.

Please rearrange your schedules, find the time and the finances to cover the cost of fuel and stand with us in Richmond at the September 16, 2009 Crime Commission Meeting.

Bring your family, your friends and any children that have been harmed by these laws.

We now need your help; you must stand up to be seen and to be heard. You may think that your presence is unnecessary, but this is your ONE chance.

Believe us when we say the State of Virginia knows what our mission is and they know our web-site. They will be aware of this call to action and they will expect that this call will fail and if it does the Virginia Legislators will see it as a sign of anything goes with new S.O. Legislation, we cannot and will not let this happen. We need to step things up as our State is not going to let us any of us live on quietly as good contributing citizens.
We WILL make a difference and this is only our first step. Even if it starts small, it’s a big step and one that we are sure will grow.

Join us on September 16, 2009 at 10:00 AM at the General Assembly Building on Broad Street, Richmond VA behind the State Capitol in Senate Room A on the First Floor.

The General Assembly Bldg is on Capitol Square, at 9th and Broad Streets (building address is 910 Capitol St.) Entrance is from Capitol Square, kind of facing a big statue.

From the West:
· Take 64 East
· Near Richmond, 64-East merges with 95-South
· Stay on 64-East/95-South to exit 75—the 3rd St./Coliseum exit
· The exit ramp puts you on 3rd Street
· Cross Broad St., cross Grace St., turn left on Franklin
· There is a parking lot at Franklin and 7th, on the right.
· If you can park there (if the lot isn’t full), walk down Franklin (same direction you had been driving) two blocks to 9th (dead end at a light). Turn left on 9th and walk up a couple blocks to the entrance to Capitol Square, on the right.
If the lot at 7th St. is full, there are other lots in that area, so take what you can find. [One possibility, though it often fills up early, is: From 7th and Franklin, continue on Franklin to 9th-(a dead end at a light) turn left on 9th, turn left on Grace, and there’s an underground lot on the left, under St. Paul’s church].

From north, south, and east (copied from the General Assembly Website) I-95 North Exit 74 C onto Broad Street going west. Turn left at 10th Street, cross Broad St. and look for parking.

I -95 South Exit 74 C onto Broad Street going west. Turn left at 10th Street, cross Broad Street and look for parking I-64 West Exit 190 onto 5th Street. Turn left onto Marshall Street. Turn right onto 10th Street, cross Broad Street and look for parking.

I-195 (RMA Downtown Expressway) Exit 7th Street-9th Street. Turn left onto 9th Street. Turn right onto Broad Street. Turn right onto 10th Street and look for parking.