Welcome to Rocky Mountain Solo › FORUMS › Announcements › EVOC Status
Welcome to Rocky Mountain Solo › FORUMS › Announcements › EVOC Status
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I would like to thank to all the Chiefs and event participants that have made our events at EVOC a massive success. There were a number of challenges along the way, but I’m impressed in how our community came together and overcame them with class.
In particular, thank you for being respectful of the additional waiver, and the Sound regulations.
The feedback from the site owners and managers at the Sheriff’s department has been great. They have expressed that working with RMSolo has been a pleasure, which is not something that I can take credit for. That is something that all of you make happen. In reality, it makes my job easier when you enable RMSolo to have a fantastic relationship with the site owners.
For everything, thank you.
Unfortunately, I have some bad news.
Due to the escalating tensions between the Sheriff’s department and the neighbors near the EVOC facility, all the area autocross clubs including RMSolo have lost the ability to schedule future events at EVOC. I want to reiterate, this is not the fault of RMSolo as a whole, or any particular member of the club. It is a sad reality that we can do everything “right” and yet still lose a site.
I feel as though I have failed you. EVOC is/was a great site, and I had hoped we would have a long history of great events there. Sadly, it appears that will not be the case, and although I know this is not something that anyone of us has caused, I cannot help but wonder if there is something I could have done to impact the end result.
The Sheriff’s department has stated that they intend to plan and execute on additional sound mitigation improvements to the EVOC site. If they are successful, they will consider allowing RMSolo and the other clubs to utilize EVOC at some point in the future. There is no specific timeline for this currently, however the Chief’s team and I will be in touch with EVOC from time to time with the goal of hopefully re-obtaining use of the site.
I hope this does not need to be said, but I will state it anyways – please do not take any action based on this news, particularly negative. The worst thing that anyone could do is take action that could be considered “an attack” on anyone involved in this situation. Such rash actions may not only result in our inability to ever secure EVOC in the future, but could lead to more serious consequences such as criminal charges. We are better then petty revenge and I truly believe that if we continue to take the high road, everything will eventually work out for us.
If you have questions about this, please feel free to contact me directly.
Again, thank you for a wonderful season at EVOC.
Jeff Hugo
SCCA Colorado Region Solo Chair
Well that’s a major bummer. Jeff, I will say I think you did the best you could in working to help RMsolo meet the requirements of the site. Sometimes a person can do everything asked of them but it’s still not enough. Hopefully things change in the next year or two and we get to use the site again.
Jeff, thank you for all that you do! All your behind-the-scenes efforts that go into coordinating events and dealing with site owners is greatly appreciated. I’m sure there was nothing else you could do – some things are out of our control.
If there is something constructive we can do (in cooperation with the Sheriff’s Department) please let us know.
The very first time I drove to EVOC I figured our days there were numbered. There are a lot of really expensive houses being built along the access road, and history shows time and again that people that buy really expensive houses in really expensive neighborhoods are not all that tolerant of noise, real or perceived. I am quite grateful we had the events we did. My only regret is not bringing the shifter kart out to enjoy that surface!
Matt Leicester
Jeff, you have absolutely no reason to believe you have let us down or failed. When I met with Arlen along with Larry Horowitz and Arnie before the season ever started, we were told that the people in the house to the southwest on the hill had already complained extensively. Arlen told us that he tested sound out near that house and it was well below our standard limits. This was an older home that was there for obviously quite a while even well before all the new construction had started. This sounds like a “get off of my lawn situation”- whoops, that is my generation!
I think we were doomed before we even ran an event, unfortunately. For people who have probably never had any noise at all for twenty to thirty years, 8-10 hours of noise almost every day is going to be an irritant to them that I can’t ever see being overcome.
I hope I am wrong.
Its a major disappointment for us and the Douglas County Sheriff’s office. As mentioned above we all worked hard to meet the sound requirements, but there was just no satisfying the neighbors. Sheriff deputies repeatedly ran sound tests at the homes in the area and showed the residents that the sound levels were well within county standards. But, as Mark said, the neighbors just didn’t like the new activity in their area.
The facility was built to train law enforcement officers and emergency vehicle operators how to safely drive and handle their vehicles in all conditions. The Sheriff’s office trainers wanted their deputies to be able to practice chases in their squad cars with sirens blaring and radio messages coming through. But, as those of you who were at the facility may have noticed, signs were put up notifying all official personnel that use of sirens was prohibited. That was the beginning for the neighbors complaining about the facility.
In addition to complaining about motor sports activities they complained about the Sheriff’s emergency service helicopter that’s based at the facility, and they even complained about the traffic for the the Special Olympics charity car show and autocross we helped produce this past June. By the way, it was one of the highest grossing events of the summer for the Denver Area Special Olympics organization.
As Jeff mentioned, the Sheriff is planning on building some berms and other noise abatement measures for the site. If after testing, and those measures prove successful, we’ll be invited back. Let’s hope.
Larry
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