by Thaddeus Flint
The February Town Board meeting Tuesday night in New Lebanon was a full house. Was it the proposed noise ordinance? Was it the latest sequel of Covenant Road? Or maybe it was just February cabin fever and there was nothing else happening in town. It’s difficult to say.
The proposed noise ordinance is starting to make a lot of noise. [private]Last month it was revealed that the draft of the ordinance is looking to limit sounds that might not be all that loud. Simplified, big noises, those over 65DB(A) are off limits from 7 am to 7 pm, and less big, big noises, those over 55 DB(A) are not allowed from 7 pm to 7 am. To put that in perspective, some of the residents who voiced their views for and against the ordinance might have breached the 55 DB(A) mark. Anything over a loud discussion could do it. And that’s just the point some residents came out to make.
The most famous resident, when it comes to noise, was notably in the room. This was Howard Commander, the owner of the Lebanon Valley Speedway. Obviously if anyone is going to be impacted by a noise ordinance it’s the man whose business can sometimes be heard from Massachusetts.
Town Supervisor Mike Benson made it clear that he didn’t want to see any Town ordinance used to go after any one business.
“I’m cautioning anybody in the Town against proposing [a noise ordinance] as a target,” he said. “I don’t want to be involved in any process that targets anybody in particular in the Town.”
Commander had come prepared with a thick stack of photocopies that presumably documented his position on making big noises now and then. Unfortunately nobody got to hear his position because the proposal is in the hands of the Town’s attorney, Andy Howard, who is studying the matter further.
Howard said he is currently doing a survey of noise ordinances in other towns. “You want to have an objective standard,” he said.
Carol Roseman was one resident in favor of the ordinance. She cited a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development survey which said that “noise has been consistently ranked as a leading cause of neighborhood dissatisfaction.” The survey also showed that aircraft and traffic noise are leading factors in making people want to move. Jet powered racing cars might be seen as a combination of the two. “Approximately one-third of all the respondents who wished to move because of undesirable neighborhood conditions did so because of noise,” read Roseman, who advocated the Town bringing in the expert opinion of some consultants from New Jersey.
Resident Johanna Johnson-Smith dismissed the need for buying new noise studies when Commander had already spent a small fortune doing that himself. “If you get someone in from New Jersey,” she warned, “you know what you are going to get.”
There was a moment of silence as people pondered what they might get.
“Chris Christie?” asked somebody.
“The liberal outlook,” replied Johnson-Smith.
Do liberals hate jet cars? The matter wasn’t touched upon further but the Town’s Highway Superintendent, Jeff Weinstock, wondered how all this talk of keeping the Town quiet would have sat with the Town’s forefathers back when New Lebanon was filled with “mills and train tracks.”
Implants
That subject was expanded on by resident Mike Smith who felt that newfangled ordinances such as these are being foisted on the native New Lebanonites by newcomers. “How many people here were born and raised in this Town?” he asked.
About six people in an audience of around forty raised their hands. Three of those hands belonged to Commander and his family.
“All the rest of you are implants,” said Smith to those with their hands still in their laps. “Get out.”
Don Slovak was one of those implants, but he had come from Kinderhook to side with Smith and the others who are against the ordinance. He’s afraid if New Lebanon passes their noise ordinance then Kinderhook will follow. “I’m here to stop it from spreading,” he said. Once it starts who knows where it could end. A loud snow blower? “Am I going to have a cop standing at the end of my driveway?” he asked.
Commander turned out to be one of the least vocal of residents on the subject of noise. At least so far. “There is nothing wrong with a noise ordinance if it’s done properly,” he said quietly. “We are willing to sit down and talk with you.”
The matter is expected to return in discussion at the March meeting.
Covenant Circle
Covenant Circle is New Lebanon’s very own version of the film Ground Hog Day, where each day is pretty much the same day over and over and nothing ever changes. Residents who live on a development at Covenant Circle have been trying for over twenty years to get New Lebanon to take over their long and winding road. New Lebanon has taken a long and winding path toward doing this, with the fat project file handed off like a football from one Town Supervisor to the next. Meanwhile the road is falling apart, which makes it difficult for residents there to sell their houses or lots. Who wants to buy a house on a development with a road that needs around $60,000 of improvements?
Benson would like the Town to make a decision one way or the other. “My goal,” he said, “is once and for all just deal with it.” He gave the file to Attorney Howard for him to study, and now there just might be a way for this whole “boondoggle”, as one Covenant Circler put it, to be resolved.
If over fifty percent of the residents with property in the development agree, the area can be classified as a Special Improvement District. This is similar to a sewage district, where those residents who benefit from the project pay higher taxes. The Board also has the ability to do this with a resolution. Covenant Circlers would pay higher taxes, but the Town would then take over and fix up the road.
This might seem like a decent solution for the Board and the Covenant Circle residents, but it doesn’t sit well with the Highway Superintendent. “I don’t need another headache,” said Weinstock, “and I don’t think the Town needs another headache.”
Weinstock has always been of the opinion that the road there was poorly built from day one. Once, he said, he even got stuck on it in a four wheel drive vehicle.
Councilman Dan Evans, who is an engineer, said “Anyone can come and put four inches of gravel down and fabric on top – like lipstick on a pig.”
Pete Daniels who has lived on Covenant Circle since 2001 disagreed. “I think we have met your standards,” he said. “All we are asking is that you follow through with what you said you would do.”
Resident Mark Baumli pointed out that the Town never had any obligation to do anything. “They should have known,” he said. “Go back to the developer.”
That might seem like a sensible solution. If a developer sold something that didn’t turn out the way he said it would, sue him.
“We can’t,” said a Covenant Circler. “His ashes are up there on that hill.”
So the developer took the easy way out. What to do?
Benson proposed that Weinstock, Evans and Councilman Chuck Geraldi sit down with Covenant Circle residents Craig Trombley and Amy Fiebke to see if a Special Improvement District might work. Their results will also be discussed at the March meeting. So if you missed this one it looks like you will probably be able to watch the whole thing happen all over again next month – kind of like Groundhog Day.
One thing that hopefully will not happen again in March is a discussion of the bids for the yearly contract for fuel. The Board, Tuesday, went with the cheapest bid for fuel oil which was provided by Main-Care Energy. Benson and Board members Evans and Bruce Baldwin were for the contract. Board members Geraldi and Matt Larabee were against. Weinstock was also against. Even though local company HL Fuels provided a higher bid, Weinstock felt it was prudent to go with a company that he knew would deliver when it mattered the most – like in a snow storm, which is coming this week. The Town garage has only a 500 gallon tank for diesel fuel and once that’s empty there is no more snow plowing. “In my mind that’s a huge problem,” Weinstock said. “The lowest bid is not always the best way to go.”
Upcoming Meetings
• Tuesday, February 25, 7 pm, Town Hall, Special Meeting on the employee handbook.
• Tuesday, March 11, 7 pm, Town Hall, regular monthly meeting.[/private]