Zany Zink: Donna Zink of 109 N. Rowell Ave. Mesa WA 99343 publishes previously private list of 23,000 registrants, putting their lives in danger

In honor of the WA Sup Ct's decision in favor of Donna Zink, I've decided to share her personal info. Cheers:

Donna Zink
PO Box 263
Mesa, WA 99343
509-265-4417
dzink@centurytel.net
https://www.facebook.com/JandDZink
https://plus.google.com/107910801786883046416 (where she is posting her list)

Last Known Home Address (as of 02/16):

109 N. Rowell Ave.
Mesa, WA 99343

Donna Zink a former mayor and councilwoman of Mesa, a small "blink and you miss it" town is SE Washington state. That was a long time ago, so these days, she makes her living by abusing public records requests. She won a quarter-million-dollar lawsuit against the city for a public records request flub, so now, she is looking to make a quick buck elsewhere.

So now, she's found a way to make news again. Since Washington's Level 1 registrants are not available online, Donna Zink is looking to change that. Despite her claims to the contrary, she is abusing registry info. In short, she used this angle for money and attention.

The Tri-City Herald is noted for being somewhat of an ally to Donna Zink, posting her zany antics numerous times over the years.

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/article117320733.html

Former Mesa mayor posts 21,000 sex offender names after long legal battle
Nov 16, 2016

BY WENDY CULVERWELL
wculverwell@tricityherald.com

This fall, Donna Zink posted a spreadsheet with the names of 21,000 registered sex offenders in Washington, two-thirds of whom had not been previously identified on public registries.

Zink spent three years battling in court to release the information under Washington’s Public Records Act, during which she was frequently vilified as a would-be vigilante.

To date, the Mesa-based public records advocate has received just one phone call, and law enforcement sources say they don’t know of any incidents stemming from convicted offenders whose information was previously treated as confidential.

Sex offender lists are readily available online. The one Zink posted includes Level 1 offenders, those considered the least likely to re-offend.

Although Level 1 offenders account for well over half of all sex offenses, their names were routinely excluded from public disclosure.

Washington’s 1972 voter-approved records act mandates broad disclosure of public records with few exemptions.

The list includes 586 offenders of all levels in Benton County and 273 in Franklin County.

Zink received the database after the Washington Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in April that she had a right to the Level 1 offender information held by the Washington State Patrol, which maintains the database.

This fall, she followed through on her pledge to post the information to the Google Plus page where she documents her legal battles.

(DONNA ZINK IS ONE OF THE SIX STATE) HEROES OF OPEN GOVERNMENT.
Ramsey Ramerman, Washington Association of Public Records Officers (and a dumbass)

In addition to fighting for the release of Level 1 sex offender data, Zink is involved in several public records cases. In many of them, the nurse with psychiatric training represents herself without an attorney.

Most notable is her decade-plus battle with the city of Mesa over violations of the public records act and its companion, the Open Public Meetings Act.

Mesa was ordered to pay Zink and her husband, Jeff, a $175,000 fine for public records violations dating back to 2003. She was the town’s mayor for four years, starting in 1990.

Zink’s campaign for public records drew praise from an unusual source: Ramsey Ramerman.

Ramerman, an attorney for the city of Everett, runs the nonprofit Washington Association of Public Records Officers and periodically represents jurisdictions facing records suits, including the city of Mesa.

Despite opposing Zink in court and being regularly criticized on her blog, Ramerman named Zink one of the six “heroes of open government” in Washington.

“I’m a big fan of Donna,” he said, noting she helped expose problems with some agencies that weren’t taking the release of public documents seriously.

Fears unfounded

Zink said fears posting sex offender data online would jeopardize sex offenders appear unfounded.

Her website has attracted many visitors, but Zink has received just a single call, from a woman who unexpectedly discovered her grandchildren’s other grandfather on the list.

Zink’s caller wasn’t sure how to proceed or how to share the news with her own child before the grandfather joined the family for a holiday meal.

Zink said she advised civility.

I WANT PEOPLE TO START PAYING ATTENTION TO THEIR COURT SYSTEM. THIS IS A LOT BIGGER THAN SEX OFFENDERS. THE PUBLIC RECORDS ASPECT IS WHAT GETS ME.
Donna Zink, Mesa public records advocate

“They’re going to have to work it out,” she said. “I don’t want everyone turning against each other.”

The list is current to 2013, the date of Zink’s initial request. She has requested updated information to cover the past three years.

A spokesman for the state patrol said there have been no other requests for the entire database, and he knew of no reports of incidents resulting from making Level 1 offenders’ names public.

Franklin County Sheriff Jim Raymond said there have been no incidents reported. The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs confirmed that it too has received no feedback since Zink posted the information.

Why she fought

Zink first pressed for Level 1 offender information in 2013, when she could not find in a public sex offender database the name of someone she knew was convicted of a sex crime.

“I’ve had quite a few sexual offenses in my family, many involving children,” she explained. That’s when she learned Level 1 offenses were being excluded from public release, in her opinion, illegally.

She asked for — and received — Level 1 information from Franklin County, where she lives.

She made a similar request to Benton County in July 2013. Benton County processed a similar request a year earlier from school officials in Prosser.

The county agreed the information was public, but notified more than 400 offenders of the request first. Three “John Does” sued and received an injunction to stop the release.

Zink ultimately requested the state patrol’s statewide “Sex and Kidnapping Offender Database,”and related records.

According to court records, both the patrol and the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs intended to grant her request.

Again, offenders were notified in advance. And again, “John Does” who were classified as Level 1 offenders sued, saying the records were exempt and they feared harassment by Zink and others.

A lower court agreed with the John Does, but Zink and the state patrol appealed.

In its decision in John Does v. Washington State Patrol and Donna Zink, the court recalled it had previously interpreted the records act to imply a general personal privacy exemption.

The ruling was promptly overruled by the state Legislature, which amended state code to strengthen the act. It explicitly linked releasing sex offender data to public safety.

The court ruled in favor of disclosing the database, but denied Zink’s request for attorney fees and penalties.

“Nothing in (state law) indicates a legislative intent to protect Level I sex offenders or their victims,” the court said in an opinion.

Zink, who is married with four grown children, said she will be watching if the 2017 Legislature attempts to restrict public records.

“I want people to start paying attention to their court system. This is a lot bigger than sex offenders. The public records aspect is what gets me,” she said.

Jessica Lessley of Birmingham is violating Alabama harassment law, but is getting a free pass by the police

The Alabama sex offender website states the following:

THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THIS SITE IS INTENDED FOR COMMUNITY SAFETY PURPOSES ONLY AND SHOULD NOT BE USED TO THREATEN, INTIMIDATE, OR HARASS.  MISUSE OF THIS INFORMATION MAY RESULT IN CRIMINAL PROSECUTION.

Yet, the police is not going after Jesica Lassley of 400 10th St. Birmingham AL 35217-1433. She That is an injustice. This is why the registry needs to be taken offline.

Now, before  lets look at Jessica Lessley's Facebook page. Upon seeing the posts on her Facebook page, I find it hard to believe that she didn't start this war. 

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2016/11/sex_offender_billboard_raised.html

Sex offender billboard raised in 'Hatfield and McCoy' neighborhood feud

By Carol Robinson | crobinson@al.com 

Email the author | Follow on Twitter 

on November 10, 2016 at 2:53 PM, updated November 10, 2016 at 3:01 PM

A feud worthy of the Hatfields and McCoys is brewing in one Jefferson County neighborhood, where a giant billboard now stands as the latest volley in a battle between a mother of six and a convicted sex offender who lives across the street.

On one side of 10th Street in Robinwood is Jessica Lessley, her husband Jeb and their half dozen children who range in age from 14 years old to just 2 weeks. Across the way, and one house over, is 27-year-old Raymond Kyle Martin. who lives with his mother, Tammy McCullers.

On Wednesday, Lessley and her husband erected the banner in their yard, on the side of the house that faces Martin's. It bears his photo, his address and notes his 2013 convictions for the second-degree rape and second-degree sodomy of a 15-year-old girl.

The Lessleys have lived in their home for 11 years, and said they had no problems until Martin moved in across the street about a year ago. Since then, they've said, Martin has terrorized the neighborhood children and their parents, threatening to call the cops, call DHR and even skin their cat. "It's just a nightmare,'' Lessley said.

Martin's mother, however, said they're not the problem. Their neighbors are the ones stirring the pot, all in an effort to get them to leave Robinwood. "They want us to move so bad,'' McCullers said. "I will see them mother (expletives) in hell before I move."

The Jefferson County sheriff's office was called to 10th Street Thursday morning. McCullers said someone flattened the tire on her car, and she complained about the billboard. "It's shouldn't be there,'' she said. "Robinwood has 50 sex offenders and my son is the only one they put up a sign for."

Martin was arrested in 2012, then 24, and accused of having sex with a 15-year-old girl. His mother said the sex was consensual and that the girl told her son she was 18. "He was set up,'' McCullers said.

In 2013, he pleaded guilty to the charges and received a 10-year suspended sentence in each case. It's not his only brushes with the law. Court records show he has other convictions for criminal trespass, harassing communications, probation violation, violation of the state's sex offender notification laws, domestic violence and multiple counts of cruelty to animals. In one of those cases, authorities noted, he left one of his dogs without food and water, and the dog ended up hanging herself and dying while she was trying to get to her puppies.

A warrant for his arrest was issued Oct. 6 after Lessley filed a harassment charge against him. In that complaint, she said her neighbor yells nasty things to her when she walks her kids to the bus stop, threatens to burn down her house and kill her pets. She said she's found hotdogs in her yard that she fears have been poisoned and meant to harm her three dogs.

"I'm not the only family with kids he's messing with,'' she said. "It's an ongoing battle. We've talked to the landlord. We've offered to buy that house. I've put up a camera system and I can't let my kids play in the yard unless we're outside with them. I do a perimeter check when they do go out, and they know not to go close to the gate."

"We're trying to do everything we can the legal way,'' she said. "We don't know what else to do."

McCullers said deputies told her the billboard with her son's photo on it is legal because it's public information. She said she is furious about it. There are nine convicted sex offenders living in the neighborhood, and she said her son is the only one being singled out. "It's wrong for it to be broadcast like that,'' she said. "I want to get all of the sex offenders together and march to City Hall."

She said she's ready to take matters into her own hands. "I'll spray paint that son of a (expletive) sign even if it means I'll go to jail,'' she said. "We're having problems. Somebody's going to get hurt."

Both Tarrant police and sheriff's deputies are familiar with the problem. "We have responded to 23 calls related to Martin this year from different complainants, including one where he threatened his own family member,'' said Jefferson County sheriff's Chief Deputy Randy Christian. "It seems that other convicted sex offenders in the area have no issues so it's hard to buy that he is being singled out for that."

"It sounds more like he is purposely acting out, being a menace and provoking his neighbors,'' Christian said. "Hopefully when he gets to court on this latest arrest the judge will note that."