We have been longtime residents of Royal Palm Beach and welcomed the Commons Park to our neighborhood after years of the property sitting idle. But as time has gone on, the noise has gotten louder and louder in the nice park. Its events have become almost a nightmare to us. The noise coming from the park — especially the thump,thump, thumping of the bass sounds — has literally driven us from our home when the events begin. My husband has a severe medical condition that the noise, at this tone, aggravates to such a level that his doctor has told him he needs to leave. And so we leave, sometimes for a few hours until the noise stops, and sometimes for several days over a weekend. Ours is the extreme case, but others around the park have also complained.
We have gone to the mayor, the staff, even spoken with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office at events and tried in vain to get the noise down to a bearable level with no results. At the last council meeting, we heard that there are plans for an amphitheater and were in hopes that this was our time to come forward to have this issue discussed by the public. We watched on Comcast as Martha Webster asked the mayor and the council to advertise to the residents around the park and within hearing distance to give them notification to come before them to hear the problems that the neighborhood is facing regarding the noise. It was with dismay that we heard Vice Mayor Richard Valuntas say that the issue was open to the public during the planning phase of the park, Councilman Fred Pinto, Councilman Jeff Hmara and the mayor said nothing. The village manager said that the completed plans for the amphitheater would be presented to the council at an April meeting. In other words, they are not willing to have any input into the plan and are not at all willing to listen to the residents.
When do we ever have our tum to speak out on village issues that are in our backyard? This mayor and council are deaf to the concerns of the residents. This is the last straw for us. We are asking our neighbors to get out and vote out this group and get a government that will listen and help solve our problems. We are voting for Martha Webster, Lenore White and Selena Smith — we are not taking this anymore!
Leon and Libby Brannan, Royal Palm Beach
