Adrian for Appleton

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Come chat with us during our listening session! *exclusively for Lawrence students*

Having a blast celebrating pride today with State Senator Kristin Dassler Alfheim and State Representative Lee Snodgrass!

Last week in Common Council we passed an update to the noise ordinances in Appleton's City Code. Looking over the minutes it's easy to miss this update from the Health Committee. Much of the City Code related to noise hadn't been updated in decades. The outdated code made it difficult to issue citations based on noise, and I realized that if we were to have any chance at lessening the excessive noise on College Ave and elsewhere then these ordinances needed an extensive re-write. I'll just point out three areas of change that I pushed for as I worked with Director Sepers of the Health Department: 1) unlawful noise is extended explicitly to revving of engines. So even if a vehicle's normal operation is within bounds, if it's revved so as to cause a disturbance then it can be cited. 2) Police are authorized to use "subjective or objective measurement." This will require training, but a vehicle can be cited without the presence of a noise meter recording the sound. This gives police latitude to cite obviously excessive noise. Finally 3) the long table of allowable decibel levels correlated with distance is eliminated in favor of simple legal noise levels for daytime and nightime. In a commercial area like College Ave this is now 70 decibels in the daytime and 55 decibels at night.

This is the start of a slow process of bringing noise under control. I am thankful for having been able to work with Director Sepers and Attorney Darrin Glad in this update to the City Code.