Mobile home park to evict sex offenders

PALM RIVER -- A mobile home park owner plans to evict the sex offenders there whose presence has stirred outrage from residents and county commissioners, a county official said.

And the woman who runs the program that put them there concedes the park was the wrong place for sex offenders.

Inspectors cited mobile home park owner Mike Braccia for allowing a "group home" without proper zoning, although Jim Blinck, the county's code enforcement supervisor, conceded that it was unclear whether the park qualified as a group home.

"His intention is to have those people relocated," Blinck said. "He wants to be a better neighbor than that to the community."

Rather than contest the citation, Braccia said he would work to move the sex offenders elsewhere, Blinck said.

A Pinellas County nonprofit group called Florida Justice Transitions began moving sex offenders into the park a few months ago. Neighbors told Hillsborough County commissioners they wanted the men removed.

"We're going to work with him and give him a little more time, give him a chance to resolve this," Blinck said.

Nancy Morais, who runs Transitions, said she hasn't heard from Braccia on the subject.

She said her organization is not a group home and that the men she placed at the park were leasing their homes directly from Braccia.

Still, she agreed the property would not work as housing for sex offenders, and that she should have offered more supervision of the offenders. "What I've learned is you have to have the right property," she said, "and it doesn't work without a program."

-- S.I. Rosenbaum, Times staff writer

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