Description

The city of Alameda's noise ordinance is virtually unenforceable due to the city's policy of requiring officers to personally witness firsthand a violation in order to cite the offender. This means that if the offender makes sure to stop the noise upon the arrival of officers, they are immune to being cited even if their misconduct is recorded on video and multiple people corroborate the account.

There is no point in having a law if it cannot be enforced. Therefore, I suggest that Alameda either a.) removes the noise ordinance entirely, since it cannot be enforced in its present form or, more preferably, b.) amend the current ordinance to remove the requirement for an officer to personally witness the infraction, so that video evidence or multiple verbal accounts of an incident from separate parties is sufficient to cite the offender.

This applies not only to the noise ordinance but also the city's ordinance against barking dog complaints. This applies just as much to Alameda Animal Services as it does to Alameda Police. Currently, the laws are not possible to be enforced because the city has severely limited staffing in our police department and animal services department. There is currently only one animal control officer serving the entire city of 79,000. It is literally impossible for them to cite offenders if they have to be on site during the incident and witness it personally, not to mention for 10 minutes straight in the case of barking dogs. This creates far too many loop holes for offenders to get away with causing nuisances to their neighbors, the prevention of which is the entire goal of these ordinances. So I ask you, again, please revise the current legislation to make these laws actually enforceable, or otherwise just get rid of them since they serve no useful purpose as-is!