Winfield ends golf course noise dispute

It took five meetings, hours of discussion and a golf course's promise to get quieter lawn mowers, but Winfield has silenced a controversy over noise at Klein Creek Golf Club.

Village board members on Thursday night gave the golf course permission to do landscaping work as early as 5 a.m. However, the course is going to be required to keep the noise level down by using electric-powered mowers to maintain the greens.

The new local law, which the board approved 5-1, exempts the course's landscaping operation from Winfield's noise ordinance. Trustee Jay Olson cast the only negative vote.

"I am just glad it's over," John Weiss, Klein Creek's owner, said moments after the vote. "Now we can operate and we can prepare a nice golf course."

Weiss sought the exemption after the course last summer received seven citations and three warnings for violating Winfield's noise ordinance. Meanwhile, residents who claimed the pre-dawn landscaping work was disturbing their sleep urged Winfield to enforce its law that forbids operation of landscaping equipment before 7 a.m. weekdays and 8 a.m. weekends.

Neighbors said a big reason they complained about the golf course violating the noise ordinance is because the equipment Weiss is using is much louder than what the course's previous owner used.

So Weiss said he plans to buy three electric greens mowers, an investment of about $120,000.

For most Winfield trustees, it was "the workable compromise" they were waiting for.

"From the beginning, we had a number of residents saying they just wanted to go back to way things used to work," Trustee Glenn VadeBonCoeur said. "In this case, Mr. Weiss has agreed and promised to follow the practices and procedures established by the previous owner to minimize the noise disturbances. But on top of that ... the golf course has agreed to use electric greens mowers rather than the noisy gas ones that were used in the past years. I think this should help to even further reduce the noise levels to below those experienced under the original owner."

Still, Olson said he's opposed to letting groundskeepers leave the maintenance building at 5 a.m. during the prime golf season - between May 1 and Sept. 15 - and 5:30 a.m. during the fall and early spring.

"I didn't think we needed to go that early," said Olson, adding that he believes a 5:30 a.m. start time during the prime season and 6 a.m. at other times is "more than acceptable."

Klein Creek subdivision resident Harold Lonks said the noise situation has improved in recent weeks because the golf course is being maintained in a quieter fashion. He said he hopes that doesn't change now that the exemption has been approved.

"I just hope the loud noise issue has been solved," Lonks said.