A North Albany resident criticized Linn County Tuesday for not posting information about predatory sex offenders living in the county on the Internet.

Tom Cordier, a retired manager at Wah Chang, told the Board of Commissioners that other Oregon counties list sex offenders on www.sexcriminals.com. He urged Linn to do the same.

The counties that cooperate with this site are Benton, Clackamas, Coos, Lincoln, Marion, Multnomah, Polk, Tillamook and Yamhill. Cottage Grove also has a link on the site.

The counties format their pages differently and some give current addresses for the offenders while others do not. Benton County has the pictures of 13 offenders on its Web site and provides background information on each. The site does not list their addresses.

Marion County lists 41 offenders, with pictures, background information and addresses.

Cordier said posting this information is clearly legal and should be done for the safety of the community.

He said he was motivated to bring it up after watching news coverage from Florida of a young girl who was kidnapped, assaulted and killed. The primary suspect in that case is a registered sex offender. Cordier said another factor was a Linn County case in which a man about to be convicted of rape skipped court and fled.

Both Sheriff Dave Burright and the Board of Commissioners said the county is no longer in a position to post this information online.

Linn County used to oversee parole and probation services, but last year turned that responsibility back over to the state. The county took this action after contending for years that the state was not meeting its financial obligations to fund these services.

Commissioner Roger Nyquist said the county did this because it takes the the issue so seriously.

"We were supposed to oversee sex offenders, but they didn't give us the resources we needed," Nyquist said. "It was, and is, an incredible responsibility because of the nature of the people they supervise and the tendency to reoffend. We shouldn't represent to the state or the citizens that we can adequately do this job when we can't."

Any decision about posting this information would have to be made by the local parole and probation office, now part of the Oregon Department of Corrections.

Burright also defended his past decision, when his office did oversee parole and probation, to not post the information. He said the Internet is one avenue of providing information, but it isn't necessarily the best.

"Just because we post a sex offender's name on a Web site, does not mean people will be checking that Web site," Burright said. "It's not an efficient way to get the word out."

Burright also noted that some of the information posted on the sex criminals site appears to be out of date. He said that was a big factor in his decision.

"Someone's got to keep these things up or you can get in a lot of trouble," Burright said.

Cordier said this answer was not good enough. He said if staff time to maintain the site is the the major issue, then priorities need to be rearranged or more creative solutions should be sought. He suggested approaching Linn-Benton Community College to see if criminal justice students at the school could help maintain the site.

Ric Bergey, director of the Linn County Parole and Probation office, said the office has available a book with current information on sex offenders in the county. Anyone can stop in the parole and probation office downtown, and look at this material.

Not many people do this, however.

"Probably a handful in the last five years," Bergey said. "We get a lot more calls about information than actual visits."

There are 215 sex offenders on active supervision in Linn County. Not all are classified as predatory.