OLYMPIA -- State officials said Thursday they are not backing down from plans to set up a halfway house of sorts for sexual predators, despite strong protests from nearby residents, local officials and a candidate for governor.
The Washington Department of Social and Health Services has been quietly trying to find a transitional site for sex offenders who graduate from the state Special Commitment Center at McNeil Island.
A federal judge has threatened millions of dollars in fines if the state fails to provide adequate treatment -- including a chance to be released to less restrictive confines.
The agency selected a mobile home on six acres in a rural Thurston County neighborhood north of Lacey called Johnson Point.
The first sex predator could be placed there as soon as next month.
Neighbors and county officials who oppose the move have been trying to pressure DSHS and Gov. Gary Locke to cancel plans to open the home.
Thurston County Sheriff Gary Edwards accused DSHS of trying to sneak the home into the county. He complained that the house is too close to bus stops and schools, and police response time to the rural area is too slow if trouble breaks out.
"They never called us until the place was ready to roll," Edwards said. "This strategy was a sneak attack on the community."
Edwards was joined Thursday by John Carlson, a radio and newspaper commentator seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Locke this fall.
Carlson criticized DSHS for using a "secretive" site-selection process that left the community out of the loop. He called it an example of the agency's "ineptitude."
Locke's press office did not immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday.
DSHS officials said they are moving to comply with U.S. District Court Judge William Dwyer's order to improve treatment of offenders deemed to be "sexually violent predators" and involuntarily committed to the civil facility at McNeil Island.
"Nothing has changed. We're still proceeding with the site," DSHS spokesman Gordon Schultz said.
He acknowledged that agency officials were not aware of a day-care center in the area when they selected the site, but he said it's not close enough to cause alarm.
Schultz noted that occupants of the halfway house will be under 24-hour supervision, unlike the more than 450 registered sex offenders already living in Thurston County, including two dozen in the zip code that covers Johnson Point.
The debate comes as the Special Commitment Center reaches an important milestone.
To date, five predators have been released from the center. All five were ordered released by courts against the wishes of the center's staff.
Mitchell Allen Gaff is expected to become the first predator to earn the center's recommendation that he be moved to a less restrictive facility -- the Johnson Point home.
Gaff tied up, gagged and raped 14-year-old and 16-year-old sisters in their Everett home in 1994. He also shocked one of the girls with an electrical cord during the two-hour ordeal.
Gaff was on probation at the time.
State officials say Gaff has responded to all of the program's treatment requirements. Gaff's annual review is set for Aug. 14 in Snohomish County Superior Court.