Fort Ann motocross decision delayed again
Wednesday, July 27, 2016 at 2:02PM 
FORT ANN — A motocross track proposal is still being considered by the town Planning Board, but the board got no closer to a decision Monday night.
“It was tabled,” said Planning Board Chairman Don Bedeaux. “We didn’t have all the information we wanted.”
The board’s first meeting on the proposal was May 23. After three successive meetings, project proposer Jeremy Treadway is getting frustrated.
“They put it off another 30 days,” he said, before adding that delays won’t make him give up the idea. He’s already purchased the Country Meadows Golf Course, where he hopes to build the track.
“We’ve invested the money in the property. I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m not going to give up.”
The main sticking point seems to be noise, and whether hours of motorcycle races would echo through the hills and farms.
Treadway is certain the races wouldn’t be loud enough to bother neighbors.
“We lowered our sound decibels from 112 to 105 max,” he said. “There is no question about sound anymore.”
A maximum of 105 decibels would require many racers to install quiet core inserts in their motorcycle exhaust system, Treadway said. Some racers worry that the insert could hurt performance, but he tested the insert and found that it improved performance, he said.
He was so surprised that he contacted motorcycle engineers to determine whether his test had gone wrong somehow.
“They told me typically it does create horsepower because of the back pressure created by the quiet core,” he said.
He is now working to set up a demonstration in which 10 motorcycles would race on his property while sound engineers measured the decibels from a distance as close as the closest house. He plans to announce the test in advance so that neighbors can listen and determine for themselves whether the noise would be bothersome. He’s certain he’ll be proven right, though he is not so certain that he will win over his neighbors.
Neighbor Tracy Monahan made it clear that she was worried about sound when Treadway first proposed the track. She called the track a major change for Fort Ann, and with her husband organized an informational session about the proposal.
“My opinion is that sound travels, and, yes, we are right next door, but this is all farmland up here, and I think people will be able to hear it on Farley Road, Hadlock Pond Road, Goodman Road, Tripoli Road, Nichols Road, Mattison Road and Cartier Lane,” she said in May.
She did not immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday.
The town does not have zoning, making it difficult to stop the proposal. But there hasn’t been a huge push to institute zoning, Town Supervisor Richard Moore said.
“I’ve had a few people, since this came to the forefront, ask why the town doesn’t have zoning,” Moore said. “But to be honest, there’s not been a big outcry about the zoning.”
He added that he’s heard from residents on both sides.
“There are people who are in favor and people who are not in favor of the motocross,” he said.
The next Planning Board meeting is Aug. 22 at 7 p.m.
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