(Spencer)– The Spencer city council has decided to hire an acoustical engineer to investigate complaints of noise coming from a business.
About 80 residents presented a petition to the Spencer city council November 16th calling for the city to do something about noise coming from the Shine Brothers Corporation. Since then, the city has established a Noise Committee consisting of city officials and six residents who filed complaints. Ted Cate of Spencer is a member of that committee. He told the city council Monday he’s concerned the city does not have any type of a noise ordinance on the books. Without that, he says, it’s impossible for a business to tell what’s acceptable. Cate also said the lack of an ordinance makes it impossible for the city to do anything with complaints it gets.
Dan Wycoff, General Manager at Shine Brothers, told the council he’s upset the business isn’t represented on the Noise Committee.
Spencer businessman Dave Jacobson told the council they need to be careful not to send the wrong message if they’re going to impose new regulations on businesses.
And Toby Shine, owner and CEO of Shine Brothers Corporation, told the council it was a mistake to appoint a committee to look into the matter. He was also critical of the make-up of the committee, consisting in part of those who filed the complaints. Shine says they have preconceived ideas.
Shine added the matter could be easily handled by city staff and the council.
The city council Monday approved a recommendation from the Noise Committee to hire William Kroll, an acoustical engineer from Minnetonka, Minnesota, to take noise readings and meet with the committee. Kroll is scheduled to be in Spencer January 18th.
The council set the budget for Kroll’s services at a maximum of five thousand dollars.
(Story from Danielle Hitchings of sister station KDWD Hot 100 in Spencer.).
