From West Danville Community Club member, Rita Foley:

Most of you have probably read or heard about Saturday's front page story in the Caledonian Record describing some of the interactions and the outcome of last Thursday's Selectboard Meeting. Many of us in the village of West Danville, homeowners and business people, are disappointed and even appalled by the decision of the Selectboard. We feel our complaints were disregarded in favor of the agenda of someone who is camping at InjunJoe's for the summer.

We of the West Danville Community Club spent years raising money to insure that the beach would be a safe, comfortable, attractive, and an enduring place that would be accessible for free to the public. Local people, some of whom live on the pond, donated time and labor to plan and build a pavilion that would shelter people from the sun and rain and would eventually be filled with picnic tables. Unfortunately, our club cannot afford but two tables at this time.

Tom Campbell, the camper, saw the pavilion as a great setting for an open mic venue. He went on the internet and issued an open invitation for people to bring equipment and instruments to Joe' Pond Beach. People showed up from everywhere but here with a generator (there is no electricity) and six speakers and have turned the village of West Danville into a loud rock concert for up to six hours every Sunday in July. (Today is Sunday, and we, like other neighbors, are planning to get out of town so we don't have to endure the noise of today's jam session.) Sunday for we townies is no longer the quietest day of the week.

We are appealing our case to the Selectboard. We are on the docket for the meeting on Thursday, August 5th at 5 p.m. We were advised that the selectboard might respond to a large turn out of people concerned about the noise and/or the wishes of taxpayers being outweighed by those of people who do not live or work in Danville. Please, if this issue concerns you, could you come and stand with us for 15 or 20 minutes in the back room of the Town Hall in Danville at the 5 p.m. Selectboard meeting on Thursday, August 5th. It should be interesting.

(The towns of Cabot, Walden, and Peacham each contribute $500 annually toward the maintenance of the beach, so it's their beach too.)

Thank you for your attention.

Rita Foley

For those of you who missed the article in the Caledonian Record, here's a brief account of what they printed:

The article in the Caledonian Record is headlined, “Complaints Target Loud Music At Joe’s Pond Beach.”

According to the article, these complaints triggered a special selectmen’s meeting on Thursday night with the intention of “negotiating a compromise on hours and noise” with musician Tom Campbell. According to the newspaper, Campbell went to Town Administrator, Mert Leonard, before going ahead with their concert plans at the new pavilion at Joe’s Pond’s public beach in West Danville.

The musicians have brought in a generator because there is no electricity at the pavilion for their amplifiers—standard equipment with many bands. The band has played four times, starting on July 3^rd but then changed to Sunday “from 2 or 3 p.m. to 7-7:30 p.m.” Campbell offered, “If it’s too long, or if it’s too loud we want to know, but with a live band there’s going to be noise.”

Jill Kelleher, a member of the West Danville Community Club that takes care of the beach, is quoted in the newspaper as saying five people have complained about the noise and said she had requested the music not be so loud at each ensuing concert, but the noise level didn’t seem to change. Rita Foley, another member of the WDCC, said that having the music on the Fourth of July weekend was fun, and Kelleher agreed, but said now it is an issue of volume and length of concerts.

Campbell asserts the music is “good for business,” but local general store owner, Garey Larrabee, has emphatically asked Kelleher to do something about it. Kelleher said the WDCC is not responsible for setting rules at the beach.

One select board member suggested a beach ordinance with rules that would prohibit loud music and bands at the beach and limit to two hours the use of the entire pavilion by any one group. However, select board member Walsh suggested toning down the volume and setting hours at a more reasonable 2-5 p.m., not including setting up and taking down time of ½ hour each, and both the Board and Campbell agreed that seemed fair.

The report in the paper said new beach rules will be posted as policy and an ordinance finalized later.

Fred and I went to the beach this afternoon to find out first hand about the band. When we arrived, a little before 5 p.m., there were two guys parked across the road from Woody's Trolley, getting their guitars out ready to play "with those guys," who were set up next to the trolley in the shade of the trees. There was a small group of people waiting to hear the band, but nothing happening at the pavilion end of the beach area. Soon the band, consisting of four people, the two guys we'd seen with guitars, and a vocalist and drummer who were apparently already in place when we got there, probably left over from another group as we were told there had been another band playing earlier.

We stayed around to listen for a bit, and then moved down to the parking area in the village to see how loud the music was there and we couldn't hear it over the traffic noise. We were too late to hear the first band, so I can't say if they were too loud, but it looked as if they had not been playing at the pavilion today. We checked to see if the select board's new policies were posted, but we didn't find anything at the entrance of the beach. We didn't go over to the pavilion, though.

We talked to a few people before we left and they were all enjoying the band. Cars passing by were doing a double take and at least a few stopped to check out the music and there were several kayaks and pontoon boats that came by and stayed a few minutes to listen.

We hope the musicians and the community have found a compromise that works.