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Noise pollution

Hillsborough County commissioners who sold out for Clear Channel should admit their mistake in settling with the entertainment giant.

Clear Channel Entertainment didn't waste any time showing its corporate colors. Only weeks after cutting a deal with Hillsborough to lower the noise at its amphitheater near Tampa, regulators say the concert giant hosted one of its loudest concerts yet, breaking the sound limit and prompting residents yet again to call authorities to complain. Commissioners should have anticipated this show of bad faith when they gave Clear Channel a year to break the law.

The real story is not that Clear Channel continues to be a nuisance, but that it so brazenly embarrassed commissioners who sold out for the company's benefit. Where is Ronda Storms, that hair-trigger of outrage, now that Clear Channel made her, Jim Norman, Brian Blair, Ken Hagan, Tom Scott and Mark Sharpe look so gullible? County regulators, whose rules limit noise pollution, recorded sound levels at the recent Alan Jackson show 23 decibels and 26 decibels above the maximum. An increase of only 10 decibels makes the sound twice as loud. "Something went wrong," the county's top regulator, who shares responsibility for this mess, wrote to Clear Channel. An executive said the company would be "proactive," whatever that means.

The fact is, Clear Channel does not have to be proactive. Under the deal the commissioners approved, it merely needs over 12 months' time to show progress toward complying with the rules it was subject to from the day the venue opened. Should those fixes fail, Clear Channel might even seek another variance from the rules it has another year to flout. The only thing certain is that residents face another concert season with a deal that makes it difficult for the county to offer any relief.

What makes it so hard for these elected officials to enforce the noise limit? Would the board strike the same deal for a phosphate company that wanted to pollute the bay? What will it take for Storms, Norman and the rest to acknowledge their mistake and move to vacate the settlement? Nothing that happens at the amphitheater is so vital to the public good that the county should lose its regulatory authority. It's a concert arena, after all. Commissioners have a clue what the next year might be like. It's time they stood with the community.

[Last modified December 10, 2005, 00:51:18]