Fix the noise, Ford!
Organizing to turn down the harm Ford Amphitheater is doing to our community
The daily life of up to 43,000 people in the Colorado Springs area has been invaded: Northgate. Flying Horse. Greyhawk. The Farm. Gleneagle. Jackson Creek. Fox Run. Even Monument, Woodmoor, Black Forest, and Pine Creek.
We’re not opposed to local music, great shows, economic development, or successful business. The issue is when these things are done in a way that harms others without their consent.
Fix the noise and we can all get back to getting along. As discussed below, without a fix, this situation will continue to worsen for everyone.
As amphitheater founder J.W. Roth said during the ribbon cutting, “Without Ford, this project wouldn’t have happened.” Ford has now aligned themselves and invested millions of dollars with an invasion that is harming thousands of people – including many current and future Ford customers.
Here's what's at stake:
Sleeping with windows open to mountain breeze. Peaceful family dinners. Quiet reflection on the deck. Serene backyard campfires. These are the moments of our lives (e.g. the kind of things you see in Ford commercials…) and are now being interrupted with no end in sight. This isn’t just a nuisance for a small neighborhood, it’s a threat to the way of life for an alarmingly large community.
Residents aren’t just hearing disruptive noise in their yards; they’re experiencing it in their bedrooms with their windows shut. Sleep is being interrupted and lost for students, healthcare professionals, military members, and so many more. Robbing residents of ability to sleep peacefully in their own bedrooms is inexcusable.
The same noise that is inconvenient for some can be intolerable for the most vulnerable among us, including veterans with PTSD, children with autism, migraine-prone individuals, older adults, and many more. Are our vulnerable neighbors no longer welcome in our community?
Our life savings are tied to our homes – and depressing real estate values due to the issues above hurts us all and steals dollars from families that are counting on them. If this continues, we will all be forced to pay for the amphitheater – how much are you willing to pay?
Our demand is simple: FIX THE NOISE. Give us back the same peaceful enjoyment that we enjoyed prior to this invasion. We are reasonable people focused on rational solutions:
Keep the noise out of our homes and backyards. Turn it down. Build barriers or enclosures. Use technology. If you can figure out how to fit an amphitheater into such small piece of real estate, you can surely figure out solution to the noise it emits.
Taper the noise based on conditions.
Noise drifts further in humid conditions or temperature inversions. Turn down the volume further when these conditions are present.
Full volume until 10:30PM on weeknights and 11:30PM on weekends exacerbates the harm above. Taper the noise as it gets later.
Limit noise to performance times only. It’s bad enough when we know when to expect the noise – it’s even worse when we're bombarded unexpectedly during the day with warmups, sound checks, and other unannounced sound shocks.
Limit noise to only the artists. Obnoxiously loud fireworks at the end of concerts wake up everyone that managed to sleep through earlier disturbances.
Ford Amphitheater is currently operating in violation of Ford's own policies that promise to "enhance the health and well-being of the communities that surround us and respect the rights of the people who live there."
We need your help to contact Ford Motor Company leadership and demand Ford Amphitheater abide by Ford's own community relations standards. Swift action by Ford to uphold their own policies and brand can restore peace to surrounding communities -- and prevent the need for further steps such as demonstrations at Ford dealerships or campaigns to educate prospective Ford customers about the harm to neighbors being funded by Ford purchases.
We also need your help to petition Mayor Yemi to stop giving Ford Amphitheater a blank check permit for unlimited noise pollution and require the venue to abide by the city/state noise pollution laws already in place to protect neighborhoods like ours.
The people that created this problem must now fix it. We're not going away until the problem does -- and the First Amendment is on our side.
Here's how you can channel frustration into solution – and give future generations back a community we can proud of.
