OAKLAND — The Town Council on Wednesday tabled a proposed “unnecessary noise” ordinance, planning to borrow a sound meter from an outside police department or manufacturer to establish better what levels of sound constitute unreasonable noise.

“The problem is you have to define when sound actually becomes noise, and it’s such a controversial situation that you have to be able to put some form of measurement on that to make it effective for the district attorney’s office,” Town Manager Gary Bowman said.

During the meeting, residents raised concern that the decibel levels in the proposed ordinance drafted by Bowman were too low and would make most citizens lawbreakers, creating a deluge of unwarranted complaints for police to investigate.

Council Chairman Mike Perkins said the public input would help the council find “a happy medium” that will enable to police to protect the town’s residents from unnecessary noise with a common-sense approach.

“What we’re trying to do is build a platform so that we can work off that, and then we’ll take it and make an ordinance,” he said of the proposal.

Bowman said he reviewed seven municipal ordinances and combined the elements of what he considered to be the best three when drafting his proposal.

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He noted that the proposal calls for police to measure noise from the site of the complaint, not source of the noise. He also said his research shows most municipal noise ordinances use the 50- and 60-decibel levels included in his proposal.

“If (the complainant) is in his bedroom and he’s hearing a sound that’s keeping him awake, then we need to check it from where he’s complaining from, and I think that’s the logical way to measure it,” Bowman said.

The proposed ordinance defines “unreasonable noise” as anything that exceeds 60 decibels between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. and anything that exceeds 50 decibels between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Industrial Noise Control Inc., which manufactures noise-control products, compares 60 decibels to the sound of a conversation in a restaurant or office setting or an air-conditioning unit at a distance of 100 feet. It compares 50 decibels to a quite suburb, a conversation at home or a large electrical transformer at a distance of 100 feet.

Police Chief Mike Tracy told the council the ordinance would require officers to go through special training to prosecute municipal ordinances, because the DA’s office does not prosecute town or city ordinances.

As of Wednesday, Tracy said, he is the only Oakland police officer to have completed the municipal ordinance prosecution class, and that training, which he completed in 1998, is out of date.

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“Any ordinance like this is going to be very difficult to enforce,” he said.

Councilman Don Borman said, while the ordinance may be difficult to prosecute for most complaints, it would give the town the power to fight major violators and “set the tone” so that people know what is expected of them in Oakland.

“I think the ones that we typically would want to make sure we’ve got some leverage on would be those companies, those businesses that are tremendously violating whatever ordinance we had, and it’s bothering a whole group of people,” he said.

According to Bowman, the proposal comes after residents on McGrath Pond Road repeatedly complained that a logging operation was waking them as early as 3 a.m.

The town previously dealt with noise complaints on an individual basis, he said, but after multiple failed attempts to resolve the dispute, a comprehensive noise ordinance may be necessary to keep nuisance noise in check.

As drafted, the ordinance would make the Oakland Police Department the enforcement agency. If convicted, violators would by guilty of a civil offense, punishable by a fine of $100 for a first offense, $250 for a second offense, $500 for a third offense and $1,000 for a fourth and all subsequent offenses.

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It would prohibit people from intentionally or recklessly causing “annoyance to others” in a public place by making “loud and unreasonable noises” after having been ordered by police to cease similar noises within the past six months.

It would make the same provision for noise coming from private places if the noise can be heard by another person in a public place or another private location.

The proposal includes several exemptions, including government activities, utility work and solid waste collection.

Residents asked Wednesday whether snow blowers and snowplows would be exempt. Bowman said he had not included exemptions for those, but the ordinance has not yet been finalized and is subject to change.

It was unclear when the ordinance would come back up for discussion by the council.

Evan Belanger — 861-9239

ebelanger@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @ebelanger


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