Slippery Rock council fine-tuning changes to noise ordinance

Sep. 26—SLIPPERY ROCK — The Slippery Rock Borough Council continued its mission to amend their noise ordinance at their meeting Sep. 19.

The current noise ordinance has no specified limit on noise, just that noise may not be excessive or continuous. The council wants to make this more specific so they have something to measure to determine if it warrants a violation.

The proposed noise limit would be 90 decibels, this comes from Solicitor Rebecca Black's research and a noise study that found the average noise in Slippery Rock to be 68 decibels.

Citizens brought up a variety of concerns such as routine home maintenance. This includes daily tasks like lawn mowers, leaf blowers and chainsaws. The council agreed to add a clause for routine maintenance between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m..

Citizens also came to request stricter rules, such as a prohibition on certain car engines and a particularly loud air-conditioning unit on the college's campus.

The council said they will take a look at these kinds of rules, but can not make everyone happy.

"This is not meant to turn us into a police state," Councilman Alex Tuten said. "You are living in a college town, you are going to get some college noise."

The council tabled the matter to amend and make changes over the next month. This lets them take the community feedback into consideration. The council does hope people will come to their earlier meetings, instead of the voting meeting to give their feedback.

In other business, the Halloween parade will be at 6 p.m. Oct. 31 with trick-or-treating afterwards until 8 p.m. This makes Slippery Rock one of the few towns to celebrate on Halloween day rather than a weekend.