Posted on 04/14/2009 9:34:09 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
They say good fences make good neighbors, but at Olympia Elementary School, a fence was not nearly enough.
Late last month, police issued Principal Terri LeBleu a citation for violation of the Universal City noise ordinance after a neighbor who has long complained about commotion at the school called again during its Family Fitness Day.
Officials with both Judson Independent School District and the Universal City Police Department say the district has taken several steps to try to restore relations with Butch Armstrong.
“They’ve built a 7-foot fence at the back of the school,” LeBleu said. “They’ve put special backing on the basketball hoops because he doesn’t like hearing the basketball hit, and they’ve even taken out the loudspeakers that allowed me to make announcements to the kids who are outside, so now I’m not able not do that.”
Finally, police said, they had no choice but to issue a citation.
Armstrong said the fence has helped to buffer the sound between the school and his home on Ulysses, a short street running behind the schoolyard, but noise is still a problem. He would like the district to change a traffic pattern that has a long line of cars dropping off and retrieving children at the rear of the school and to monitor the property so community members do not use the school grounds on nights and weekends.
“Each morning and afternoon there’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 208 cars that pass our bed,” Armstrong said.
He said the school was initially a pleasant neighbor but has grown in recent years, adding portable classrooms and more buses to accommodate extra students. Olympia has an enrollment of about 700 students, 200 of them added in the past five years, according to state data.
During the March 20 fitness event, parents were invited to walk the track with their children.
“We had some music playing, and that’s probably what started some of his concerns,” said LeBleu, who also said she’s had no complaints about noise except Armstrong’s.
But neighbor Bob Brown, whose house is also on Ulysses, said noise has been an increasing problem at the school. Brown praised Superintendent Willis Mackey for his willingness to work with residents, including building the fence between the schoolyard and a row of nine houses.
Still, on the day of the fitness event, Brown said, he could feel the ground vibrate.
“Like I was standing in the middle of the mosh pit at a rock concert and Ozzy Osbourne was up there,” he said.
Another neighbor on the block said she notices school traffic — less so since the fence was installed — but is not particularly bothered by the noise.
“I guess I’ve just gotten acclimated to it,” Janie Sanchez said.
According to a Universal City police report, Armstrong told an officer that “police, fire, ambulances and the USAF training jets are not unreasonable, but the noise coming from the elementary school was.”
The officer wrote: “In my experience as a police officer and being of normal and ordinary sensibilities, I felt the noise was not unreasonable and is common for an elementary school.”
Assistant Chief of Police Bill Gabbard said his officers have no way of monitoring the decibel level of noise at the school.
LeBleu has rallied supporters to press the City Council for changes to the noise ordinance that would make schools exempt from it.
Parent-Teacher Organization president Michael Colwell attended the Family Fitness Day and is one those supporters.
“I don’t see where someone gets off buying a house next to a school and expects it to be 100 percent quiet 100 percent of the time. I think it’s a stupid idea,” said Colwell, a parent of two Olympia students.
A court date on the noise citation is set for May 12.
Just freaking hilarious.
Read the comments from the article
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Waiting to see if we have any grumpy ol’ FReepers that agree with Butch....
this article is chock full of morons.
The “victim” doesn’t know how lucky he is. Around here the schools use Emminet Domain and just take your house for a price THEY deem acceptable.
Mom....They made me do it.
The police just can't get out of their own way sometimes. This is like a guy who buys a house next to an airport and complains to the cops about the "big noisy white thingies", and the cops then issue a citation to the air traffic controllers.
Butch bought a house next to a school and is complaining about the noise of drop off and pick up and kids playing. This is the kind of putz that buys a house near the airport and complains about the noise from take offs and landing.
just pure insanity.....
A porn-star name if ever there was....
That’s taking Grumpy Old Man to an extreme... the kids have to be silent and no one in the community can use the grounds outside of school hours?
Sounds like the school might need more land. Perhaps they should buy Mr Armstrong’s place, and turn it into a buffering planted zone, and he could move to a nice quiet retirement community where no one makes noise.
This sorta reminds me of those people who complain about a Naval Air Base that is noisy...but did not realize that when they built their home. It just has to make you laugh.
From what the article said, Butch has lived there a very LONG time. The noise has gotten increasingly worse. He has tried to work with the school. NO ONE has the right to play music loud enough that I can hear it thumping away behind a sound wall that is 7 feet high. I am not grumpy or old. I don’t like a lot of the so called music that some people insist on blaring at all hours. I suspect that this group is deaf on so many levels.
What's he doing, sitting by with a counter?
Angry, bitter and anal is no way to go through life, Butch.
This guy is just one of those people who love to cause problems just for the fun of it, I think he enjoys making people bow to his wishes. He bought this house a couple of years ago, I wish the city would tell him to stick it.
You buy a house next door to a school then during daytime hours you’re going to hear kids on recess, period, even an idiot knows that. I bet he doesn’t complain when it is quiet as a tomb during the night and weekends when he is trying to sleep though.
If OLD BUTCH gets to Heaven he will be hearing a lot of Rejoicing. If,as I believe, he winds up in Hell he will be hearing a lot of wailing a gnashing of teeth. Life is a BEACH then you die! SO BE IT!
I Love Jet noise.
I do too actually. It makes me think of America as strength. Are we weird??? lol.
Exactly...I've had tenants like this before. He'll keep complaining.
We lived near a high school (a block away) in South San Jose (very suburban). At first it was okay. It increasingly got worse.
Kids started parking in front of our house so they could walk to school. One year it got so bad that we tried getting the school involved. I guess the school had cut down on the number of parking spaces. We lived on a corner, and the kids would park on the corners of the street and block all visibility. I was nice and told them that they were not supposed to park on the corners and that they could be towed. I put notices on the cars for weeks. The kids were snotty and started cussing me out. Then, I started having the cars towed.
At the time, I had 3 children under 5 years old. The neighbors across the street had 2 children under 2 years old. Luckily our neighbor was also a cop.
After that year, parking was never an issue. The kids also got nicer. If they did park in a corner, we would just tell them the situation and they would apologize and move.
The other thing that I noticed about the school is that they increasingly had the PA system on during lunch time. What really bothered me is that they would play rap songs with cuss words in them. If they are going to have loud music, they should at least play nice music.
We finally moved. We needed a larger house, and my husband didn’t want to spend lots of money on that house with all the school problems.
After we moved, the school installed lights at the football field for night football games. I’m glad we’re not living in that house because I think the Friday night games will make that area loud, trafficky, and probably increase vandalism and drinking in the area.
Of course, as the areas have developed around airports, people don't bother to check flight paths before buying a home.
photos courtesy: Flikr
I am sure the complainer was an old fart who was bored sitting on his behind all day watching Murder She Wrote.
Who moves next to a school and expects it to be quiet?
Wow. This is insanity.
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