Downtown noise forces homeowner to leave on weekends

To the editor:

All I wanted for Mother's Day was to sit outside on my back porch with my family. It would be the perfect Mother's Day. The family was on the back porch for all of 10 minutes when the banging and pounding began. It was the same loud noise that had caused us to flee the house a week earlier: another silence-shattering, ear-busting, wall-shaking, loud event downtown.

I have lost the right to use my porch, yard and house on weekends. Anywhere I go, inside or outside, I can hear and feel the pounding noise. It makes my heart race. It makes me jittery. It makes me agitated. It makes me mad. I don't care who or what is making the noise downtown. I want it to stop but it goes on hour after hour, weekend after weekend.

So today, instead of a quiet outdoor picnic under fresh blooms of blue wisteria, we piled into the car and drove. With nowhere to go, we drove in search of some place to wait until the end of the banging and pounding. If it is a typical weekend, we face a whopping 10 hours of being homeless homeowners. There's been no violent earthquake or devastating flood, but we are refugees, chased from our home so that other people can party.

I am worn out and worn down by the constant, unending noise from downtown events. I am writing to publicly beg the City of Woodburn to make the noise stop. The noise is ruining my health, ruining my mental health, and ruining my home. Something is profoundly wrong when someone's need to party is more important than residents' right to peace and quiet. If the noise downtown was saving lives or curing cancer, I would happily make the sacrifice for it, but I endure the roar from downtown so that there can be a party. Can't the City of Woodburn see that there is something terribly wrong with forcing its residents to suffer health and mental health damage so that others may party loudly?

I publicly request the City of Woodburn immediately stop issuing permits. I ask the city to move the events you have already approved to different parts of town instead of always having them downtown. You must immediately lower the volume. If the noise makes both hands and walls tremble, it is too loud! You must forbid all day events because you can not reasonably expect downtown residents to maintain their health and sanity living under conditions that more closely approximate a nearby metal rock concert than a neighborhood. This is Woodburn, not Woodstock. You must give neighbors a say over what happens in their neighborhood. Require event organizers to compensate neighboring residents for the lost use of their homes. Organizers should be required to post a bond to cover claims of health and mental health damage from hour after hour of noise so loud that you can feel it in your bones.

Please note that I do support people staging events downtown and elsewhere. I just don't want to lose the use of my home weekend after weekend for an incredible 10 hours at a time so that others can have fun. Why can't these events go to a variety of places in town, and the discomfort and damage be shared throughout the city rather than targeting only downtown residents?

If you are a downtown resident and feel that your life or health has been damaged by the constant blast of weekend events, there is a new group of neighbors that is forming. The Historic Woodburn Neighborhoods group is just now starting to tackle livability issues. The group's Web site is www.settlemierhouse.com/historic. The next meeting is at the Settlemier House on June 2. Although the letter represents just my opinion, not that of the group, I am hoping that this group will work with people like me to get the City of Woodburn to lower the volume downtown. If you also can't work, sleep, eat, garden or have Mother's Day at home because you can't function in the noise war zone that is downtown Woodburn, be sure to attend the June 2 meeting.