In a message dated 12/6/00 11:50:21 AM US Eastern Standard Time,
Jim_Hill@chsra.wisc.edu writes:
> As for myself, if I could find a house with a race track on one side and a
> railroad track on the other, I'd think that I'd died and gone to Heaven.
>
>
If I were the folks at SP I would have at least one neighbors' day each year
and get the locals into race cars...have a barbecue and invite drivers...give
them tickets...have a special paddock area...get a nearby sympathetic
homeowner to organize a "Friends of SP" group and have activities at the
track...conspicuously work with local charities...and be seen not only as
indispensable to the local economy, but to the local color so that the
occasional noisy weekend is a minor inconvenience.
In Indianapolis we have a grand building called The Athenaeum built in the
late 1800s and designed by Kurt Vonnegut's grandfather; it is an historic
landmark. It features a traditional German biergarten, which has live music
on Friday and Saturday nights during the summer. A half block away a
developer built 4 houses in the $500,000 range. One of the homes was bought
by a couple; the wife spent 3 years bitching about the noise from the
biergarten, first to the developer (for whom I worked) and then to the
Athenaeum and then to the city. She never got any sympathy because the
building and its activities are so much a part of city culture and nightlife
that her complaints were dismissed. The noise was always over by 11 PM
anyway. The point to this is, if she had been joined by complainers, and if
they had made themselves sympathetic to public opinion, the outcome might
have been different. Never underestimate the power of the message that
someone can make if they present themselves as the Little Guy fighting some
corporate interest. And if a homeowner says his sacred home is being
diminished in value and enjoyment by a noisy corporate entity, I would be
concerned that a jury or magistrate might be swayed.
Tom Butters
The Greens Fork Group
Creative Communications Services
765-886-5098
public relations & marketing
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