Back to the conventional style of writing. No more all caps for my blogs. It's hard to read.
I received a call from a citizen asking about the noise ordinance that is currently being drafted by city attorney Dave McCauley. The citizen asked if the noise ordinance would cover noisy neighbors and I explained that the ordinance under consideration would focus on the use of engine (Jake) brakes on large trucks. Noise ordinances that reference a level of noise are almost impossible to enforce as there must be a clear method to monitor and record the offending noise level.
The citizen explained that a long standing noise issue exists with a neighbor who happens to enjoy a noisy hobby. While I empathized with the citizen that noise can be very irritating, the only actions a member of council or the Buckhannon police can take is request the neighbor with the noisy hobby to be considerate to those around and limit the noise to certain times. At this time we cannot legislate what hobbies are acceptable nor should we.
Sometimes getting along just requires us to be more neighborly and that's often difficult as our individual wants might take second place over what is truly the right course of action. In the case of the noisy neighbor issue, I hope they can find a common ground to resolve their differences.
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I agree. Loud noises are like ugly homes. Are they just loud and ugly to me or to everyone else as well. What is loud and what is ugly? Trying to monitor either, will prove impossible.
ReplyDeleteI am one of the people who appealed to you about this issue. If you had to live beside this neighbor, you would realize that there is no common ground with people who are routinely inconsiderate. This is not limited to noisy racing lawn mowers. In the case of the lawn mowers, there is also a problem due to these individuals riding them in the streets without helmets at fast speeds (something that is not allowed if you are riding on a 4 wheeler, but seems to be OK if it's a racing lawn mower). The loud noise is created by putting a straight pipe on the exhaust system, so the exhaust created could be considered problematic by law, as with cars. There have also been up to 7 lawn mowers at that neighbor's house at one time - is he running a business in a residential area? If there is a separate ordinance for 4 wheelers and jake brakes, surely there could be an ordinance written for this!
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