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Council weighs extending Sunday quiet hours to 8 p.m.; debate centers on enforcement scope
Summary
Council members debated whether to extend Sunday quiet hours from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., make an interim summer-only change, or tie quiet hours to sundown; Police Chief Keith Tarase said his department will enforce whatever Council decides.
A proposal to extend Sunday quiet hours drew mixed reaction from members of the Building & Building Codes Committee at the June 17 meeting.
Committee member Joanne Krejci introduced a resident request to extend Sunday night quiet hours from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Several members said they were sympathetic to allowing later yard work but worried the ordinance covers all powered equipment—not only lawn mowers—and could permit noisy renovations later into the evening.
"This isn’t about mowing lawns, it’s everything," Economic Development Director Tom Jordan warned, after committee members discussed whether exceptions could be limited to yard equipment. Council Member Mary Gorjanc said neighborhood concerns focused on the location and timing of equipment, not opposition to business or yard work per se. Chair John Nickell said the rule should not be changed for a single complaint and favored retaining the current 6 p.m. cutoff.
Police Chief Keith Tarase told the committee the department will enforce whichever time Council adopts but said the issue is largely complaint driven and not a high-volume enforcement matter. Council members agreed to keep the topic on the agenda and gather ward-level feedback before drafting an ordinance change.
No ordinance change was adopted at the meeting.
