Island Dispatch
Opinion March 26, 2010
By W.T. “Bill” McKibben
(Full Disclosure: I am a Sandy Beach resident and a member of the Island Presbyterian Church, the Sandy Beach cell phone tower’s Huth Road site. I am not writing on their behalf, nor do I represent them. And my marketing firm represented Verizon Cellular Service and its predecessors for many years. I have no association with them now and have not for 15 years or more. That history, however, does give me a certain amount of expertise in this matter. My sole reason for writing this opinion piece is to speak for one group that has been left out in these deliberations.)
One thing we can all agree on in regard to the proposed Sandy Beach cell phone tower is that Verizon’s service in that area is lousy. Verizon’s effort to correct this problem with a new tower has been held up by various parties for the last several years. The original location on Huth Road has seen a series of maneuvers in an effort to find an alternative location that would suit everyone. Finally a Town setback requirement ruled out the ideal Huth Road site and moved the tower into Veterans Park.
While the Park site meets the bare minimum location requirement for additional cell phone service on the north end of the Island, it presents a host of problems. The move was made, according to the Town, to impact the minimum number of residents. And while the setback distance from residential property is met in the Park, the residents in the adjacent subdivisions do not seem any happier than those living adjacent to the Huth Road site. In fact there seems to be a lot more opposition. Not many people are crazy about having a cell phone tower in their back yard.
While these NIMBY objections are understandable, they just don’t carry any weight in choosing locations for cell phone towers. It’s a federal law; cell phone towers must be located at the best available site. It’s like the utility poles and wires that surround our homes. They don’t add ambiance to the neighborhood, but we like the lights and phones and cable TV they bring us. We’re used to them and so there is no hue and cry when new larger and more intrusive poles are installed such as those now underway along Baseline Road
The setback for cell phone towers that our Town Board has established is far more restrictive than almost any other in the State. In fact the Town of Evans is the only other in the area with a plan this restrictive. Actually were these setback restrictions applied, most of the existing cell phone towers on Grand Island would not meet them. If the normal setbacks required by most jurisdictions were applied, the Huth Road site would meet them.
Not the least of the other problems with the Veterans Park Site is a New York State law requiring State Legislative approval before the tower can be erected on parklands. I suspect the purpose of this law is to maintain public parks for their intended use, not as locations for commercial enterprises. And considering the state of our State Legislature these days, it seems unlikely that the Town could get this kind of bill considered and passed anytime in the near future, if ever.
At an informational meeting held in the Town Hall Monday evening (3.16.10) several of the residents present raised the issue of whether this use is a proper use of Park lands. While the Town Board has obtained the consent of the Parks and Recreation Board, there is concern about the families and the athletic teams, the people who use the Park. And there are those who use the Grand Island Library; do they have concerns? Not to mention those citizens who may have contributed lands for the Park. When that issue was raised concerning the family that gave the piece of land that the tower will occupy, the town attorney dismissed the issue by saying that since they did not put any restriction on the gift, the town could do anything they wished. That position may or may not stand up in court, but it is obviously ethically way out of bounds.The Town attorney was equally dismissive when I raised the interest of the one group not represented, the cell phone users, “They have no rights,” he said. I beg to differ. Federal law mandates that the tower be sited in the best available location. If not for the thousands of cell phone users on the Island, who then? Let’s look at the result of the Town’s efforts to move the tower away from the Huth Road site, the ideal site for the users according to Verizon’s technical experts. The coverage maps of the two sites tell the story.
Not only does the Huth Road site cover the target area better, there are public safety issues. All cell phones sold in the last few years contain a GPS chip. That assures that if you need 911 service, emergency responders can find you. By moving the tower to the outer edge of the acceptable range, the North end of the Sandy Beach area will have spotty coverage, as will the area along East River Road, Buckhorn State Park, and the adjacent waterways. A weaker signal means things like GPS effectiveness will be diminished.
Whose tower is it anyway? The Federal mandate is clearly on the side of the person trying to use their cell phone. How will the Town Board members feel should someone boating near the North end of the Island need emergency service and be unable to connect? Or someone out for a walk in Buckhorn? The Huth Road site is designed to meet the requirements of those users; the Veterans Park site spotty coverage may or may not. Do we want to make that gamble; perhaps gamble someone’s life? Most of the cell phone towers on Grand Island do not meet the town’s draconian setback requirements. There is a provision for a variance in this section of the Town code; it should be used to approve the Huth Road site.
Let the Town Board know how you feel about this intrusion into Veterans Park – about their unwillingness to serve the thousands of Verizon subscribers on Grand Island, as well as those who are our guests – about those who might need this service in a life threatening situation. There will be a hearing on this subject on Saturday, March 27th in the Grand Island Middle School Auditorium at 9:00 AM. Let the Board know how you feel before that meeting. Their contact points are available on their web site. Come to the meeting if you can. Let them know whose tower this is.