Nix the noise
Ketchum to reexamine noise regs
"There are certain rights that are not to be given away lightly.
The Wood River Valley is ubiquitously overwhelmed with noise six days of the week. The
evenings belong to its residents who came here to expect tranquillity."
Leonard Lapsys, Ketchum resident
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
In its ever-changing list of issues with which to wrestle as Ketchum
grows, the Ketchum City Council has decided to wage a war on overbearing and untimely
clamor.
Spurred by the noise that’s accompanying this summer’s
unprecedented north-valley construction boom, council members said on Tuesday of last week
that they’ll revisit the city’s noise ordinance to prevent noisy construction
from occurring early in the morning or late in the evening.
The city’s ordinances allow construction noise from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Monday through Saturday. Construction is not allowed on Sundays.
The issue is scheduled for the council’s Monday meeting.
Councilman Maurice Charlat brought the topic into the limelight at last
week’s meeting in response to a letter sent to the council from Ketchum resident
Leonard Lapsys.
Lapsys lives on Latigo Lane, not too far from the massive Thunder Spring
commercial project.
"There are certain rights that are not to be given away
lightly," Lapsys wrote. "The Wood River Valley is ubiquitously overwhelmed with
noise six days of the week. The evenings belong to its residents who came here to expect
tranquillity."
In an interview, Lapsys expounded: "I’ve earned the right to
have a peaceful evening."
Council members, after discovering that they didn’t even know that
construction is allowed to continue until 9 p.m., said the issue needs to be revisited.
According to Ketchum city administrator Jim Jaquet, the city’s noise
ordinance was adopted in 1980. He said that in response to a request from builders who
argued that the building season is extremely short in central Idaho, the council set 9
p.m. as the cutoff for construction noise.
Judging by their remarks last Tuesday, council members apparently have
decided that is too late in the evening.
According to Ketchum’s noise ordinance, it is unlawful for any person
to make "loud or unnecessary noise, which either annoys, disturbs, injures or
endangers the comfort…peace or safety" of Ketchum residents.
