By Adam Swift
The city council will be taking a closer look at how it issues noise ordinance violation fines.
At last week’s meeting, Ward 3 Councillor Anthony Cogliandro introduced a motion calling for a home rule petition that would allow the city, rather than the state, to collect the fines for noise violations. Cogliandro said the change would allow the city to put a lien on properties of homeowners who do not pay the fines.
The motion was moved to a future meeting of the council’s legislative affairs subcommittee.
“I’m not looking to change the noise ordinance that we have on the books in any way, I’m looking to change the way that we deal with fines,” said Cogliandro. “I believe, when we get a fine, it is under 21D right now (the state statute for non-criminal ticket disposition). It goes from the police department to the court house and we never see it again.”
Cogliandro said he would like to change the fine process so that it falls under city control.
“I would like to make this 40U (under the city ordinance) so that we have control over the process of this,” said Cogliandro. “If they don’t pay, we can lien their house. We can’t do that currently the way that we have this structured.
“For every responsible person that has a party in their backyard and plays music loud and turns it down at a reasonable hour, we have someone else who just doesn’t respect this.”
Cogliandro said he was prompted to work on the ordinance change alongside the city clerk following a recent disturbance in his ward where there were repeated noise disturbances and police requests to lower the noise were ignored.
Several councillors noted that the city and the police department also have to address how the ordinance is enforced.
Ward 2 Councillor Ira Novoselsky said he would like to see at least several police cruisers in the city equipped with decibel meters so that officers could immediately determine if an incident violated the noise ordinance.
Councillor-at-Large Juan Pablo Jaramillo said he had some questions about how the ordinance is enforced, and wanted to make sure that residents were not unfairly fined as part of disputes among neighbors.
Council President Marc Silvestri said he initially wanted the council to vote on the motion at last week’s meeting, but suggested putting it into legislative affairs to hear more about enforcement efforts from the police department.
