Some things are so crazy, coincidental, or unbelievable that it’s hard to convince people that they’re a reality. When writing about these things, readers often think the content comes from something like The Onion (a satire news outlet) rather than a site that sources its information. Having said that, I promise you that this article IS NOT
satire. This is not made up. This is reality. And I challenge you to check the facts if you doubt me.
Last Wednesday I wrote an article titled, “Bismarck’s Proposed Path Goes Through Dense Area of Sex Offenders” . In that article I explained that the City of Bismarck had obtained a $12,610 grant from AARP to build a temporary “Pop-Up Path”. Its purpose being to demonstrate the location of – and to gauge public interest in – a future permanent path for travel and recreational purposes.
As you can tell from the title of last week’s article, one of the aspects that I covered about the path was the fact that it goes through an area with a high population of sex offenders. A fact that should be troubling to citizens and taxpayers alike when the city is considering the path to draw people into the area. After all, who wants to draw people – especially young people and children – to such a place?
The population of sex offenders was illustrated by the following map:
And as I pointed out last week, the red and green markers represent the location of registered sex offenders.
T his is where things get crazy. Today the Bismarck Tribune published this picture on the front page of theirnewspaper:
As you can see, the photo features a man named Lester McGillis riding his bike on the temporary Pop-Up Path. And he looks pretty happy about it too. Well, Lester McGillis is a high risk registered sex offender living in Bismarck. Don’t believe me? Well, here you go:
As a side note– back in 2013 it appears this same Lester McGillis joined 22 other sex offenders in a lawsuit against the State of North Dakota claiming that the state mistreats sex offenders. You can read more about it here, here , and here.
Now, I don’t pretend to know Mr. McGillis’ reason for riding on the new Pop-Up Path. He may have simply been out for a joy ride on a beautiful North Dakota day– which is something he has every right in the world to do. But do you see my point of why I said this last week:
“I find that the City of Bismarck’s consideration of this project illustrates a lack of due diligence. In their angst to get the grant from AARP, not only have they entered into the preliminary steps of the project without knowing even a ballpark figure of the associated economic costs of a permanent path, but they’ve placed it in an area where we could certainly argue it puts people at risk– including children.”
The Bismarck Tribune has unknowingly illustrated my point perfectly. Is this what the citizens and taxpayers of Bismarck want their money going towards? I said it last week and I’ll say it again– no sensible person would think this is a good idea.
If the elected representatives of Bismarck had any common sense at all, they would pull the plug on the entire project– immediately. Anything else is just asking for trouble and is completely irresponsible. “Pedophile Path” needs to be shut down… before it becomes permanent.
Sources:
1. https://theminutemanblog.com/single-post/2017/09/20/Bismarcks-Proposed-Path-Goes-Through-Dense-Area-of-Sex-Offenders 2. http://www.sexoffender.nd.gov/OffenderWeb/Search/Details/f6048072-9697-4cef-97be-94e404610237
3. http://www.wahpetondailynews.com/lawsuit-accuses-nd-of-mistreating-sex-offenders/article_ca8b2a16-432d-11e3-a94d-001a4bcf887a.html 4. http://www.wahpetondailynews.com/stenehjem-says-sex-offender-lawsuit-is-not-valid/article_39f28578-6513-11e3-bc48-0019bb2963f4.html 5. https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCOURTS-ndd-3_13-cv-00003/pdf/USCOURTS-ndd-3_13-cv-00003-9.pdf
