Service Problem
Imagine you're a public official in a town where 99.9
percent of the people think having cellular telephone service
is really important. Imagine after much water under the bridge
and lots of wasted time, people finally come to understand
they're not going to get cell service until one thing
happens first: the town adopts a law that makes it possible
to get towers built. This isn't something peculiar to
us, it's just something towns have to do. So one day
a supervisor assembles a committee which includes the town's
Planning and Zoning Board chairs, the town's ZEO, a
telecommunications executive from Phoenicia, an RF engineer
from Shokan, and a cell-system designer from Highmount, all
working together under one of the region's top planners
who happens to have written a book on writing cell tower laws.
No lightweights here and no politics. These people did a hell
of a good job.
They worked for 7 months. They started with 3 of the best
laws they could find, chose Marbletown's as a guide,
and they drafted a law for Shandaken. Almost a year ago, they
finished. They sent copies to every town board, planning board,
and zoning board member, plus the town's counsel and
the County Planning Board. The Town's attorney - a very
good one, Paul Kellar - approved it, with only very minor
changes. Then the County Planning Board - also a very good
one under Dennis Doyle - also approved it, with again, very
minor changes. The draft law was DONE, ready to go to public
hearing and be enacted 30 days later. But by then it was November,
and so the outgoing supervisor handed it off to the incoming
one, with an assumption shared by just about everyone that
by this past February we'd have our law on the books,
and we could finally get down to business with the wireless
providers.
Winter came and went, Spring, Summer∑with more and more
people asking both each other and sometimes Supervisor Cross
"what's going on with the cell tower law?"
Then four months ago Cross began talking about forming a new
cell tower committee, though he wouldn't and still hasn't
answered the question, "why do we need one?" Finally
after two months of being asked by the press, the answer came
out at July's town board meeting, though not from Cross.
It came from councilwoman Jane Todd:
"I found something in there that says you can't
build cell towers," she announced.
O-kay then. That WOULD be a big problem for a law whose whole
point is to get them built. And we think it's great
when a town board member proves a keener legal read on an
issue than our county's formidable head planner, our
industry experts, or the best lawyers we can hire. So what
exactly IS the problem? Well, we'd like to tell you
but we just don't know. It's still, apparently,
some kind of town government secret, and Cross and Todd simply
refuse to say when asked, what it IS that's wrong with
Shandaken's draft cell tower law, and why they've
now appointed a whole new committee to start over again.
Nope, we don't understand it either, unless the answer's
so cynical and so political it just hasn't occurred
to those of us who aren't wired that way. But what would
YOU do, if you were the one who found a fatal flaw in some
proposed law, which none of the experts who drafted or reviewed
it ever picked up on? Well, there is commonly accepted
procedure. You take a pen and you underline the passage, or
maybe you circle it with a big question mark in the margin.
And then you fax it to the town's attorney. Maybe the
guy's out to lunch or gone for the day. So maybe it
takes two days, a week even. And then, after you talk, you
either delete the questionable sentence or whatever, or you
FIX it. And then you get on with the town's business,
which in this case is enacting a law so we can get some cell
towers built.
What you DON'T do, not if the goal is to get cell service
here, is what Cross and Todd have been doing on this since
the day they took office in January, or in Todd's case,
since the previous September. You don't knowingly sit
on a solvable problem - assuming it really exists -
for the better part of a year, while the whole community waits
for a dial tone. Our town NEEDS a cell tower law, and
we HAVE a cell tower law, maybe one of the best, most business-friendly
ones anywhere. It opens up more, and more relevant parts
of the town for siting towers than our current zoning law
permits, and it doesn't outlaw or restrict any kind
or height of tower from being proposed. But it does make it
vastly easier to get permits for the kinds of towers people
actually find acceptable and are now the norm in most communities
- steath and semi-concealed designs like pine trees, flagpoles,
and so on. In fact the whole point of the thing is to make
it as close to hassle-free for the carriers as possible, to
put up the kind of towers people want, while eliminating any
prospect for lawsuits or delay. The thing is written to WORK,
and you can read it for yourself at www.phoeniciatimes.com.
What we need to do NOW is to take the draft law to a public
hearing and pass it, sure, with whatever last-minute changes
it might need, but pass it, and then to go work on getting
the towers we need. What we DON'T need is another committee
of political appointees, and another season of town politics
slowing down the fulfillment of our community's needs.
What's most troubling to us though is that all of this
isn't some series of errors, this is Bob Cross'
idea of a plan. We haven't a clue as to what that plan
might be. But this isn't just dropping the ball. It's
kicking it into a storm drain. It's time to go fish
it out, put our cell tower law back in play, and stop jerking
the town around with yet another round of political appointments.
Enough already. People are getting very tired of it. And they're
owed an explanation.
