George Rotondo is one proud papa. He can hardly wait to open his wallet and show the pictures of his two daughters, Gabriella, 2, and Amanda, 9 months, two beautiful kids all right.

They're the reason he's upset. Their safety and that of all kids has prompted Rotondo, a Revere city councilor, to urge the city to post on the local cable television government access channel all the information, including photos, that one can legally display on those local sex offenders, released from custody, who are considered most likely to be a high-risk danger.

There could be as many as nine such Level 3 offenders living and/or working in Revere, according to recent state Sex Offender Registry Board statistics, which also included eight in Chelsea, five in Everett, 27 in Lynn, and five in Malden. They are among the 772 high-risk offenders that the Salem-based board has classified.

Michael Bizanowicz, charged with the murder of a Woburn woman and her 12-year-old daughter, was a Level 3 sex offender. Those murders were one of the reasons for Rotondo's concern. Another was a Globe North column describing the 1947 murder of a Malden girl by a sex offender and suggesting that not much has changed in 57 years.

"Frankly, as a father and as a Revere City Councilor," Rotondo e-mailed this column, "I felt bewildered at how little I could legally do to keep my two girls and community safe."

Rotondo read about a Lowell city councilor's success in persuading that city to post info on Level 3 offenders on the local cable outlet and then introduced a motion to do the same in Revere. The councilors, some of whom were concerned about the legality of such a move, referred the issue to their public safety committee. Rotondo expects that committee to release its findings at tomorrow night's council meeting, and he's hoping for passage.

Mayor Tom Ambrosino says that as soon as he gets the council order, he'll contact the cable company, Comcast Corp. "We'll do whatever it takes to disseminate this information legally," he says.

There shouldn't be a problem. Boston has posted such information on that city's cable channel. Charles McDonald, spokesman for the Sex Offender Registry Board, says both the Lowell and Methuen city councils have voted to do the same in their communities.

Jennifer Khoury, a Comcast spokeswoman, says the company's job is to enable each community to provide whatever programming it chooses on local access channels. "According to federal law," she explains, "we have no editorial control over content."

It's clear, however, why local pols get confused over what they can and cannot do. "The law changes constantly," Ambrosino says. "It changes every other day, it seems."

It does seem that way. The registry was set up in 1996, but legal challenges resulted in long court battles, yet more legislation, a backlog of offenders to be classified, and a lot of confusion among law enforcement officers as to what they should, shouldn't, could, or couldn't do when it came to sharing information with the public.

A prime example has been the proposal to set up a statewide sex offender Internet database for Level 3 offenders. The state was ready to do that last May, but civil rights attorneys, worried about the impact on sex offenders trying to reform, won a court injunction to stop it. In November, the state Legislature passed a bill calling for that database. A Suffolk Superior Court judge was to rule on the legality of the database on Feb. 9, but that decision has been postponed. Whatever the ruling, the losing side is expected to appeal, so it could be a long time before anyone knows whether such a database will exist.

Confusion over that proposal has clouded judgment over whether information on high-risk sex offenders could be featured on cable television. By all accounts, it can be.

"It's absolutely legal," says McDonald, the registry board spokesman. "Whenever an offender is classified, and we're notifying police, we recommend the police seek out the local cable television station to perhaps get them to agree to put the Level 3 sex information there. The law requires the dissemination of that information with schools and with those who might come into contact with the offender, be it a day-care center or housing for the elderly. We provide a sample poster, but that doesn't mean they can't amend it. It must be posted in a public building. We also ask local police departments to ask local newspapers if they'll run the information."

Too often, the publication of that information seems to be hit-or-miss. Rotondo complains he rarely sees such postings, and he feels the risk of assault, rape, or murder warrants alerting the public.

"Even a 1-in-20 risk is too high for me," says the councilor, who's a cardiothoracic intensive care nurse at Brigham and Women's Hospital and also a trained emergency medical technician. "Just close your eyes for a second and think what if it was your kid. I've had children die at my hands, as an EMT. I still see their faces years later."

Rotondo, who used to box and do martial arts, is no softie. But he shudders at the thought of kids being killed or raped and wonders out loud why there should be any further delay in what he sees as a common-sense public service.