The Village Trustees last night granted a noise variance to the Woodstock Inn so that a band performing at a wedding this weekend could play until 10:30pm.
According to The Woodstock Inn’s Werner Graef, the resort has more than 40 weddings scheduled this summer, with only a handful involving outdoor bands. The noise variance requests (there have been two and several more are pending) is due to the fact that Graef says shutting down a wedding party at 10pm is a “non-starter” in trying to get, keep and encourage wedding business for the Inn.
The discussion leading to the noise variance decision was one which revealed what can only be described kindly as “ball dropping” at many levels — on the part of the Village Trustees, on the part of Town management and on the part of the Woodstock Inn.
It was a last-minute decision approved by Trustees Trish Compton, Eric Nesbitt and Chris Miller with Trustee Bob Pear dramatically refusing to even acknowledge an abstention from voting. He said, “I will not vote due to it being an illegal action by the Board.”
For Pear and several members of the public, the issue is that procedure leading up to the vote was not followed. Neighbors of the Woodstock Inn should have been accorded a ten-day notice of requested changes in noise variance (from 10pm on a Saturday night to 10:30pm). Several Woodstock Inn neighbors were in attendance at last night’s meeting but only due to Pear having informed them that the Trustees would be taking up the topic.
To follow a timeline on the issue and the apparent “dropping of balls” and a generalized laxity of rules…It appears that three things did not happen that should have:
1. Ball Drop #1: The Woodstock Inn NOT putting in a request for a variance far in advance of their weddings. According to Mary Riley, The Woodstock Inn submitted its request in mid-May for several wedding (scheduled in June) noise variances which was not enough time for both a ten-day notice to neighbors and for the item to placed on the agenda and ruled upon at regularly scheduled Trustees meetings.
(High Street resident Gretchen Pear pointed out the Inn should have planned better, putting in its requests even sooner. She said, “This wedding wasn’t booked this week…now the Trustees are under stress to give a variance.” She added, “”I think you should follow procedure, not twist the law…the procedure is in place to protect the general public.)
2. Ball-Drop #2: According to the Village and Town of Woodstock’s Mary Riley, who handles the administration of volumes of Trustees and Selectboard paperwork, upon receipt of the mid-May requests, there didn’t seem much urgency to send out letters since these noise variances involving the Inn have been granted routinely in the past. (Meantime, The Woodstock Inn says the problem of the neighbors being notified of Saturday’s wedding has been rectified since letters were sent this week to five abutters of the Inn’s back lawn area.)
3. Ball Drop #3: The Trustees (Compton, Nesbitt and Miller with Coburn listening by phone) admitted they were not strictly following the letter of the law in approving a variance without public notice. However, citing the need to support the Woodstock Inn and be flexible with Village ordinances, Nesbitt said “Everyone wants things to be black or white, right or wrong…A lot of times life is not like that.” He maintained,”There has to be some sort of leniency, a little bit of easement….” He also read from a section of ordinance that approval of a noise variance could fall under language reading that Trustees have the “sole discretion” to grant variances if they act in good faith. (To which Bob Pear snapped, “You didn’t act in good faith. You didn’t inform the neighbors!”).
Trustee Chris Miller voted for approval of the variance this time, but said he wanted to change the noise ordinance for weekends once and for all from 10pm to 10:30pm and be done with the whole issue. He said, “Let’s do something about it. Make them (The Inn) follow the regs or change the regs; We are not giving the neighbors a chance.”
Chairman Candace Coburn, who was not at the meeting but was on the phone listening, had previously written an email on the noise variance issue which was read by Trustee Nesbitt. She wrote, “It is imperative to support business…give a little bit of leeway.” She added that she often, over many years, has heard noise from the basketball courts near her home and never complained, “I believe these are great noises. It is the cacophony of life in the Village.”
The Inn’s Graef also commented that only a few weddings out of the 42 scheduled planned bands on the back lawn of the Inn, “So I don’t think we’re asking an inordinate amount of variances.” He added, “Weddings are an important part of business, you can’t thrive without them.”
High Street resident Peggy Merrill , who lives directly across from the Inn’s back lawn and only knew of the meeting from being Trustee Pear’s neighbor , quietly commented, “My main concern is not so much the variance, it is the level of noise.” She said, “Six hours of drumming is not like a truck passing down the street. My suggestion would be to monitor the decibel level.” She noted that despite the apparent need to support the business of weddings, “Woodstock has cultivated a certain rural character. We are so small…to allow the town to become a “wedding mill” town..may be defeating the purpose (of our marketing).
The decibel level issue led to some tense words as Pear suggested hiring a noise and sound contractor (at a cost of @$800) to monitor the band at the Inn’s upcoming wedding to make sure they fall within acceptable decibel ranges. To which Graef bristled, “We don’t need a guy to sit around and monitor…” since he said the Inn has invested in its own decibel level reading machine. Pear countered, “That would be like the oil companies monitoring their own oil spills.”
Audience member Sally Miller seemed able to help diffuse that issue but saying, “If the Inn is willing to do it….it is a good solution.”
It should be noted that a noise variance to the Inn for a wedding band was granted earlier this spring via phone “meeting” that was also not noticed. Trustee Pear says he was not informed of the issue nor asked to weigh in by phone or meeting by Chair Coburn.
By the end of the discussion, after the vote, it was clear to everyone that a point had been made, that the timeliness of variance requests might be better, that notification of neighbors might be more diligently done and that Trustees should review whether they want to keep or change their weekend noise variance so as not to be presented with the same issues again.
Julia Carlisle
Woodstock Early Bird 