The City’s handling of the noise ordinance: The good and the bad

By Roberta Millstein

The City’s handling of the proposed noise ordinance was good in some respects and quite bad in others.

First, the good: At Tuesday night’s meeting, led by Mayor Donna Neville, the council agreed that the noise items weren’t an ordinance clean-up item and that they deserved a true staff report and separate consideration.  The noise ordinance (Chapter 24) items were pulled from the Consent Calendar and Item 4B’s noise ordinance “clean-up” will come to the council at a later date.

I am grateful to the Council for hearing the Davis citizens who emailed and gave public comment concerning the noise ordinance.  (Previous Davisite articles about the proposed changes can be found here and here). 

Now for the bad: This should have never been on the Consent Calendar in the first place, which is for noncontroversial items that do not need discussion.  I’m not quite sure how or why it was put there, or why the Council passed it unanimously at its “first reading” (Tuesday was the “second reading”), but to me it’s a continuation of a “trust staff implicitly” mentality.  I hope that this is a sign that the Davis City Council recognizes that it (the Council), not staff, is the responsible party who we voted for and that oversight is needed.

Another concern is the way that comments emailed to Councilmembers were handled.  I received a reply from Barbara Archer, the City’s “Public Information Officer,” asserting (in essence) that the concerns I raised were not valid.  There are several problems with this:

1. I was not looking for a staff reply.  My message was to members of the City Council.  Staff can give input to Council decisions, of course, but at this point in the process, I want to hear from the City Council, not staff.  It is inappropriate and disrespectful for staff to send an email that essentially dismisses the concerns that I raised.
   
2. As far as I know, Ms. Archer is not an expert on these matters.  Indeed, the fact that the City Council thought it was worthy to revisit this issue more carefully suggests that her dismissal of my concerns was not warranted.
   
3. In a similar vein, I believe Ms. Archer’s email contained mistakes:
   
   a. For example, Ms. Archer stated, “The proposed amendments do not eliminate the City’s authority to enforce noise violations. In fact, enforcement of excessive and disruptive noise remains fully intact in the code. (Section 24.05.010).”  But this isn’t true.  The revisions would have exempted “ordinary and reasonable activities and sounds” in schools, parks, and public playgrounds; as I had mentioned in my comments, no information is given as to who determines what is “ordinary and reasonable” and how such a determination would be made.  Thus, citizens would have no recourse for excessive noises in such cases.
   
   b. Ms Archer also stated: “As outlined in the February 3, 2026, staff report to City Council, the decibel-based sections (24.02.020 and 24.02.030) have not been practically enforceable for many years. Due to increased ambient noise levels as the community has grown, isolating a specific source using a sound level meter has proven nearly impossible.”  But this is, I believe, false.  The City has continued to measure decibels and make decisions on that basis; e.g., it (eventually, after several missteps) moved the SkyTrack once it determined that the decibel level of the noise ordinance had been violated.
   
4. Finally, Ms. Archer stated, “If you would like to make additional [my emphasis] public comment, you have two other options,” and then described how to comment in person or over the phone.  Coming at the end of a long email that purported to debunk my concerns, this had the (I hope unintended, but I don’t know) implication that I should not reiterate the same concerns in-person or over the phone — which is not appropriate, since again, my comments were directed to the City Council and not to her.

In the future, I think staff should only acknowledge receipt of public comments sent to the City Council — nothing further.  Even better would be if members of the City Council acknowledged receipt, as they sometimes used to do in the past.

But again, I do want to reiterate that I am pleased — pleasantly surprised — that the noise ordinance will be getting a more detailed hearing in the future.  I look forward to that discussion.