Sick of Noise, Neighborhood Activists Flex Political Muscle

By Jorge Casuso

Feb. 10 -- Calling a proposed noise ordinance before the City Council Tuesday night an “abomination” that protects commercial interests, neighborhood activists are threatening to mount a campaign to unseat two council members who have expressed support for the measure.

Council members Michael Feinstein and Herb Katz, who are up for reelection in November, were among the four-member majority that tabled an ordinance last November supported by neighborhood activists.

The council majority argued that there was a dearth of data and that the ordinance’s potential impacts on businesses had not been adequately gauged. They voted to revisit the ordinance without a transitional zone between businesses and residences and with a new method of measurement.

Following council direction, staff will present a revised ordinance Tuesday night that removes the transition zone and measures the noise level from the complainant’s property, but uses the noise standards prevailing at the source, which is usually a commercial district where higher noise levels are allowed.

“It’s beyond laughable,” said Anita Holcomb, a key organizer for opponents of the ordinance. “In fact, what it does is legalize violations. People are livid about it. The only next step short of moving out of town is to change the composition of the council.”

Opponents of the ordinance -- which has been more than four years in the making -- plan to form a Political Acton Committee to target Feinstein and Katz if they run for reelection in November, according to a flyer being circulated before the council meeting.

“By Election Day 2004, at the prevailing complaint rate, there will be, at the very least, thousands & thousands of tired, cranky, sleep-deprived Santa Monica residents, fed up with being ignored by their elected officials who have flatly refused to insure & provide, for their constituents, the most basic of human necessities…a simple night’s sleep.

“This political action committee’s mission is to find each & every one of those noise complainants and make sure they are registered to vote for candidates who can hear them in the November election,” the flyer said.

Holcomb said finding the disgruntled residents would be easy. All organizers have to do is follow the map presented by staff that pinpoints the origin of the complaints.

“The complaints follow the commercial corridors by and large,” Holcomb said. “We know where they live literally, so it’s easy to find those people by simply following the map without (needing) names and addresses.”

Holcomb said that at least 50 “hard core people” would work to unseat Feinstein and Katz if they support the proposed ordinance.

In addition to eliminating the 100-foot transitional zone between residences and businesses, the proposed ordinance calls for noise measurements to “continue to be measured by applying the allowable decibel levels for the noise zone in which the sound is generated irrespective of where the sound is received.

“For example,” the staff report said, “noise generated in an industrial zone but heard in a residential zone would be measured by the industrial standard. Depending on the time of day, these standards could vary by 20 decibels.”

In another change opposed by neighborhood activists, the proposed ordinance calls for noise level measurements to be taken “at any location on the exterior of any property impacted by the noise, as selected at the discretion of the Community Noise Officer or his or her designee,” according to a draft of the ordinance.

According to staff, nearly 11,000 Santa Monicans had complained about noise during an 18-month period. The proposed ordinance, they predict, will only lead to more complaints.

“Judging by the Noise Ordinance Update draft… the only noise relief that will be granted by this City, in the foreseeable future, will be to the benefit of the noisemakers, NOT the residents,” the flyer said.

“There are so many people that are so sick of being ignored,” Holcomb said. “They have been strung along and strung along and strung along on the issue. They are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it any more.”

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