Retired couple spent nearly $600K to stop Tri-Cities sex offender home
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Retired couple paid $590,000 to buy Kennewick house and stop LRA placement.
- Community protests and officials vow to pursue state law changes on placement.
- Local leaders say state law doesn’t allow them to block the homes.
A retired couple funded the purchase of a Kennewick house, stopping it from becoming a transitional home for sexually violent predators.
The proposal ignited outrage in the neighborhood and broader community and sparked protests outside the house and angry exchanges at public meetings.
As the pressure grew, Anthony and Karen Sabino decided to contribute more than to the picketing.
They worked with a real estate broker to contact the two Bellevue-area owners with an offer. After a month of back and forth, they settled on a price.
The couple, who lived a few blocks away, bought 5304 W. Eighth Ave. for $590,000 in a deal that closed last week, according to the Benton County Assessor’s Office. That is about what the women paid for the home to use as an LRA.
“This was done as a neighborhood effort,” Anthony Sabino told the Tri-City Herald. “We’ve been very blessed, and we saw a need to try and stop this LRA (less restrictive alternative).”
They have been regular part of the protests by Save Our Children - Tri-Cities, a nonprofit organization made up of Tri-Cities community members dedicated to stopping the Kennewick LRA site.
The local group was pushing back on placing the home in that neighborhood since the announcement in January that it would house sex offenders being released from a state special commitment center on McNeil Island.
The Pierce County facility houses Level 3 offenders after they have served their prison terms but who have a history of sexually violent crimes and an underlying personality disorder that makes them more likely than not to commit another crime.
After time at McNeil Island, state officials and a judge determine it is safe for the resident to leave, the offenders can either be released without conditions, or be sent to either a state facility or a less restrictive alternative home.
Joe Field, who runs a similar program in Walla Walla, had worked for about a year to find a location that met state guidelines before working with the women in Bellevue to buy the home on Eighth Avenue, off Edison Street.
The Sabinos, like many others in the community, were shocked by the news about the plans for the four-bedroom split-level home. And real estate broker Kira Sutherland helped them contact the homeowners.
The Tri-Cities neighbors upset with the plan took their protests to the homes of the two women before the Sabinos purchased the home back.
“I am so proud of Kennewick,” Mayor Jason McShane said in a news release. “The end of this facility in our community is a victory achieved through the combined efforts of our citizens, city staff and elected officials.”
What happens next?
The community is coming together to fix up the vandalized house, then Anthony Sabino said he wants to sell it to a family.
Neighbors are helping to take care of the lawn and making other repairs, he said. Sherwin Williams has donated paint, A&A roofing has donated materials and Columbia River Inspections donated their services to conduct an inspection.
But the shadow of less restrictive alternative homes continue to hang over Tri-Cities communities. Pasco and Richland have moved forward with attempts to stop them from opening.
Kennewick said in its news release that state law doesn’t allow cities or counties to prevent this type of facility, and it doesn’t require the provider to notify cities or neighborhoods about the locations.
Protesters have previously called for the homes to be restricted to light industrial zones.
“We are still going to have to stop this from happening statewide,” Sabino said. “We need to make it so it can’t go into certain places.”
State laws are pushing to spread the placement of former McNeil Island center residents across the state. Presently, most of the transition homes are clustered in King and Pierce counties.
There are five people from Benton County presently at McNeil Island. The state law calls for each of the counties to have their “fair share” based on the number of residents they have in the facility.
City officials and state legislators promised to work to clarify the process and restrict the placement of the homes.
District 8 legislators Sen. Matt Boehnke and Reps April Connors and Stephanie Barnard said they would continue to work to change state law.
“This proposal was unacceptable from the state,” they said in a joint statement. “The fact that state law allows sexually violent predators to be placed in residential neighborhoods should alarm every community in Washington.”
Most of the efforts to change laws didn’t receive a hearing in the last session. One measure did get a hearing, but didn’t move forward.
City Manager Erin Erdman pledged to work with state legislators to build a coalition of cities, counties and school districts in an effort to change the laws.
“The safety of our community is our (number one) priority,” Erdman said in the city’s press release. “It’s not over for us and communities throughout our state. Hearing the call of our community voices — we will not stop working on this.”
This story was originally published March 31, 2026 at 2:46 PM.