Festival Raises Ire, Decibel Level of Town

Complaints keep rolling in about the impact of some of the 's concerts. Only recently, a by a group of young Mansfield men over a conversation with a girl. Numerous Mansfield witnesses later stepped forward to identify .

This week, Spring Street resident Howie Fiske, a long time member of the Mansfield Airport Commission, told selectmen on Monday that his house was rattled by the reverberations from Saturday's all-day Identity festival.

"Comcast is not a good neighbor," said Fiske. "I hear 60 percent of the concerts at my house, although others don't. For the concert Saturday night, I had to turn my T.V. up."

Selectman Chairman Jess Aptowitz, who has attended several Comcast concerts this year, partly to witness the lively parking lot scene, said he could hear the noise at his home on Fieldstone Drive, and said he had many phone calls and text messages from residents.

He said he had received a return call from the police department after he had tried to contact them, as well as from Comcast General Manager Bruce Montgomery and Police Chief Arthur O'Neill.

"It was thumping pretty loud at my house," Aptowitz said. But he added the board has deferred authority to those in charge.

"Once an event is in place, we have to let the staff control it," he said. "The worst thing you can do is to try to unplug it."

Fiske said he thought great strides had been made in traffic control, and noted, "I've known Mr. Montgomery for a long while - this was a bump in the road. They should be reprimanded severely." He added the noise was shut off abruptly at 11 p.m. - the mandated shut off for all concerts at Comcast.

He said Montgomery had come to his house personally to apologize and explain.

The board surmised that concerts that stage part of the performance at pavilions in the parking lot may broadcast more noise into the atmosphere than those whose bands stay on the main stage.

Board member Kevin Moran suggested that during the next round of the yearly entertainment licensing hearings, Comcast officials should know that any concert using the outside stages should receive explicit permission from selectmen.

Town Manager Bill Ross, who recently purchased a Mansfield home, said he lives two miles away from the concert center, yet heard the Identity festival all day.

He said he would recommend to the board that they discuss particular arrangements for the outside stages.