At a public meeting in the Springs on December 17, dozens of members of Ford Hurts Families spoke before Mayor Mobolade. They aired their frustrations over Ford's noise levels in the surrounding neighborhoods since the massive venue opened in August.
In Mobolade's response to those requests to lower Ford's concert volume in 2025, he shifted the fix elsewhere.
"The solution is sound mitigation," he told KKTV at the meeting. "That's what I want. That's what residents want. And that's what JW [Roth, founder of Venu, the company behind Ford] and his team want. That is the focus of this conversation."
The residents who comprise Ford Hurts Families, however, have repeatedly stated that noise mitigation is not the only tool the Mayor should be using.
"Ford and those who control the volume knob face a decision of fixing versus prolonging this," the group's website states. Ford Hurts Families is indeed in favor of mitigation efforts, including an extension of the sound-insulating walls that currently surround Ford. But they also believe that simply turning down the sound should indeed be part of the process.
Much of the meeting concerned those sound-insulating walls. Venu applied to change its development application with the city to allow for more and higher walls to be built, although no timeline was indicated for the approval or construction of such a project.
For Ford's inaugural season in 2024, Mobolade approved an exemption from the Springs's existing noise-level laws. He hasn't made it clear yet if he will do so again for the 2025 season. Until he does, it's likely that Ford Hurts Families will continue to feel that its complaints are falling on deaf ears.
Ford Hurts Families says that Ford's negative effect on nearby residential communities is more than a matter of annoyance. The group claims that noise from the venue's concerts has caused the following issues:
Triggering PTSD and traumatic brain injury, resulting in feeling unsafe in your own home.
Triggering autism and depression through unescapable noise, creating dread every concert night.
Special-needs children awakened by concert noise, terrified and inconsolable.
Teachers unable to perform at work because they were unable to sleep the night before.
Kids unable to sleep because the concert can be heard in every room of the house.
Families spending $36,000 on new windows in an effort to escape relentless noise.
