A Bennington Superior Court judge ruled Friday that Camp Southern Vermont LLC must pay a $1,600 fine following continued noise complaints, which will be forgiven if there are no further complaints before the camp concludes.
Judge Cortland Corsones found, following a three-hour evidentiary hearing Wednesday morning, that the town of Bennington provided evidence of four separate violations of previous court orders that restricted noise from the camp.
“The court determines that a coercive, purgeable fine is appropriate,” Corsones’ decision read. The town was also awarded its attorneys fees in pursuing the motion for contempt.
The decision came after attorney Merrill Bent, representing the town, asked the court to shut the camp down and send campers home within 72 hours.
Additionally, Bent requested that the camp pay the town’s cost of suit and additional penalty fines “to have a punitive effect for the repeated and flagrant violations of court orders.”
“The town does not have any confidence that any order short of terminating camp activities will have any effect,” Bent said in a final argument, “and if the penalty is solely monetary, that the conduct will just continue and the neighbors will not get any relief for the remainder of the summer.”
Residents have complained for weeks that the camp, located on the former Southern Vermont College campus, has been producing noise that violates town noise restrictions and disturbs daily life.
The court’s decision fell short of Bent’s expectations.
“Although the court held the defendants in contempt, the penalty imposed was de minimus,” she told VTDigger in an email. “It remains to be seen whether the Camp will follow through on the director’s promise to reduce the noise complaints to zero. Future violations will result in further action through the court.”
Moshe Perlstein, camp director, insists he’s tried to resolve the issues by disassembling a PA system and moving activities into the campus gymnasium. He said installation of air conditioning in the gym has cost him more than $100,000.
“We have demonstrated from the very first day that we spared no expense or effort to get along with our neighbors,” Perlstein said in a statement sent to community members Thursday morning. “We initially spent a tremendous amount of money leasing an assembly room/tent. When we heard that this was causing our neighbors to suffer, we swallowed the loss and took it down, along with the PA system. Additionally, we changed our schedule time and again to accommodate our neighbors’ concerns.”
Perlstein called the judge’s decision a vindication.
“The judge realized how hard we’re working to continue getting rid of the noise issue,” he told VTDigger Friday. “I can’t be more thankful. We will continue to be very diligent, and make sure that there will not be any noise that will affect any people that live near the college.”
At the hearing, Bent, an attorney with Woolmington, Campbell, Bent & Stasny, called six witnesses, including five Bennington police officers and a neighbor whose property abuts the campus.
All of the officers testified that they’ve responded to multiple complaints about noise, some after midnight, since the camp and the town created a stipulated agreement on July 22.
The agreement came after the town filed a temporary restraining order on July 15, served by Bennington Police Sgt. Jason Burnham, which barred amplified noise after 9 p.m.
Carl Lisman, who represents Camp Southern Vermont LLC, clarified while questioning Perlstein that Burnham had accidentally delivered the temporary restraining order to Perlstein’s brother, assistant camp director Steve Perlstein, on July 15.
Burnham testified that he delivered the restraining order to Steve Perlstein because he mistook him for Moshe Perlstein.
Moshe Perlstein said he was away, handling a family health emergency, when Burnham served the order, and did not hear about it from his brother until the following day. By the morning of July 17, Bennington police had received 14 complaints about camp noise.
The complaints prompted the town to file a motion for contempt with the court.
In the agreement, all agreed that moving camp activities into the gymnasium would likely solve the noise problems, and the town canceled the hearing.
But in the days following the agreement, police officers responded to more noise complaints, including one on July 26, eight complaints on July 30, one after midnight on July 31, and an additional six complaints on Aug. 1.
Officer Corey Kingston summarized his response to the July 26 complaint, which was made at nearly 2 a.m., for the judge. It was the last night of the camp’s first session, and Perlstein had just concluded a farewell speech over a PA system given in the large white tent outside from the gymnasium. Hundreds of campers responded frequently with cheers.
“I informed Mr. Perlstein of the agreement between him and the town to which he wasn’t supposed to use an amplified system after 8 p.m.,” Kingston said. “Mr. Perlstein advised he believed the time to be 9 p.m., however he did acknowledge that it was too late to be using the system.”
Noise in the following days resulted not from the PA system, which Perlstein said he has disassembled, but from groups of campers shouting and laughing, blowing whistles and setting off air horns, according to later testimonies.
Officers reported that decibel readings were often greater than 50 at residents of the complainants after 10 p.m., which is comparable to the noise level of an indoor conversation. The sound level would be much higher at the source of the noise.
Perlstein testified that he saw the 371-acre property as an “island,” and didn’t believe at first that the noise was an issue. He referenced various complaints from residents, along with a widely circulated blog post that made false claims.
“Then, all of a sudden, noise became an issue,” he said. “So we thought, OK, this is just a little bit of fake news that’s trying to create momentum that we shouldn’t exist on the property.”
Perlstein said he realized the noise complaints were valid when a resident came to the campus and explained how it affected her. It was then, according to Perlstein, that he decided to meet with town officials, who had already served the temporary restraining order and scheduled a contempt hearing.
Perlstein is also operating a second branch of the camp in Rutland.
Lisman stated in his final argument that sending campers home may be a significant challenge for campers’ families.
“I think it would be an injustice to require Mr. Perlstein and the hundreds of campers and counselors who are there now to have to pack their bags and leave within 72 hours,” he said. “Parents of those campers have made plans. They may be not in a position to have their children come home in three days when campers are supposed to be here for more than three more weeks.”
In his statement, Perlstein pleaded that the community understand the challenges he’s faced while attempting to limit noise, and requested the campers not be sent home.
“Does Ms. Bent call making an innocent mistake (even if it happened more than one time), such a terrible misdemeanor?” he wrote. “Does this have to cause an entire group of children to be sent home? I am appalled at this complete lack of sensitivity displayed to blameless children.”
Bent said any other resolution seems unworkable.
“The reason this is the town’s request is because we have had conversations with the defendant,” she said Wednesday. “We’ve had two court orders. We have had a stipulated agreement with the defendant, and none of it works.”