A compromise between an Ohio University Student Senate group and Athens Police could lead to possible changes to the city’s noise ordinance.
Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle introduced the proposed changes to the ordinance at Monday night’s Athens City Council meeting. The changes were the result of a compromise with his department and members of the Know Noise Task Force.
The task force is currently collecting signatures to get its proposed ordinance on the ballot for November’s election. If city council passes the compromise between the department and the task force, its ordinance initiative would not appear on the ballot.
Pyle and the task force proposed a change to the time officers are able to act without a complaint to midnight every day, which would transition from the current ordinance’s rule of 10 p.m. on weekdays and midnight on weekends.
The compromise proposes a change to the ordinance’s citation and warning system, which John Calhoun, the task force’s executive director, said is an improvement over its original ballot initiative language.
The current ordinance stipulates that cited first offenders are fined $100 and second or repeat offenders, if the violation occurs within 180 days of the first, are fined $250 and could spend up to 30 days in jail.
The proposed initiative includes a mandatory warning before any citations can be issued. If a citation were issued within 30 days of a warning, there would be a $50 to $75 fine. The second and all subsequent citations would carry minor misdemeanor charges.
Instead, the compromise would allow first citations to act as a warning, and the fine could be waived with the signatures of all offending property residents. If there were a second offense within 90 days of the first, a non-waivable fine would be issued.
A third offense would lead to a minor misdemeanor charge and a fourth-degree misdemeanor charge, Calhoun said.
These changes would make it easier to track offenders and enforce the ordinance, Pyle said.
Council has not yet come to a decision about the new changes or if the ordinance will be on the ballot in the fall, said Councilman Elahu Gosney, D-At Large.
“I think if (the ballot initiative) passes, a battle would take place…and would drive a wedge between different groups in our community,” Gosney said.
Calhoun said he would prefer council pass the amended language, but the task force will continue collecting signatures for its petition.
“I actually like the language of the compromise better than what we put on the ballot initiative,” he said.
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