Wallace residents reject ordinance

WALLACE –– The Wallace City Council tabled their proposed noise ordinance following a public hearing at their April meeting on Wednesday night. 

The draft ordinance has been met with significant opposition in recent weeks, specifically from the members of Wallace’s downtown community – both business owners and residents alike. 

Some of the major sticking points of the legislation centered on its enforcement. 

According to the draft ordinance, complaints could be filed anonymously, the punishment for the first violation was a $300 fine, and that the proposed time framework of the ordinance constricted Wallace’s popular nightlife.

Many of the opponents of the legislation admitted that if the proposed ordinance were only governing the residential area of the city, even though there were parts of the draft that they didn’t agree with they wouldn’t oppose it

According to several residents’ accounts, in the past six years, only two noise complaints had come from Wallace’s downtown business district. However, the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office reportedly responded to eight noise complaints from the city’s residential area. 

Jocelyn Bachman, the owner of the Silver Corner Bar, submitted a letter to the council that included 107 signatures from members of the public, opposing the ordinance.

In her letter, she mentioned many of the same issues with the proposed legislation, but her final reason was that the ordinance doesn’t “keep Wallace, Wallace.” 

“If this proposed ordinance were limited to the residentially zoned areas of Wallace, I would not be speaking against it tonight,” Bachman said after her letter was read. “If this proposed ordinance began at 2 a.m. every day, the time until which I am legally allowed to operate my business, I would not be speaking against it tonight. It is my hope that significant changes are made to this legislation before you vote it into law.” 

Bachman was one of many people who wrote letters or spoke out against the ordinance during the hearing. Alternatively, no one spoke in favor of the ordinance and two people provided neutral comments. 

After the hearing was closed, the council discussed the matter, to which they all agreed that the ordinance needed several amendments before they presented it to the public again. 

“The genesis of this came from residential complaints,” Councilman Dean Cooper said. “What we’re hearing loud and clear is that it doesn’t need to go over to the commercial district – we need to go back and rework this.” 

Mayor Lynn Mogensen had some terse words for the public about rumors that had been swirling throughout the town, many of them on various social media platforms. These rumors included several false statements surrounding the creation of the draft ordinance. The most inflammatory of these was about the amount of money the city was spending on legal counsel throughout the process.

It has been alleged that the city was spending more than $300,000 in legal fees as they worked on several different ordinances – In actuality, the city spent 20% of the rumored amount.

“If you’re taking your news from social media, there’s quite a difference between $350,000 and $75,000,” Mogensen said. “But get your information where you will – Be uninformed. But, I agree that we need to compromise. There are some things in here (the draft ordinance) that I don’t agree with.”