Council Candidates’ Views on Crown Castle

On Tuesday we had an opportunity to watch the council continue to struggle with a site-by-site assessment for how to deal with Crown Castle.  Not only do we have the views of the three incumbents, but both Lucas Frerichs and Brett Lee made public comments laying out their views.

Stephen Souza two weeks ago made the comment that it was telling to him that every single person who considered this issue important enough to come down and make their voice heard was opposed to it.  However, he said, “The easy path, and most pleasing path for me to go would be for me to deny every one of these sites without prejudice.  It would make you all feel happy.  I would feel good about it.  But in the long run, I don’t think it’s the best course for us to go.  I just don’t.”

“I am convinced looking at the case law, that we will lose local control.  We will lose all say, if we go down the legal path other than where we’re going right now.  It would be fantastic to say, I fought the law, but I didn’t win.  That’s a path don’t think I want to follow because it also would be costly in terms of dollars and cents,” he continued.  “We’ve heard the path could be anywhere from a half a million to two million dollars.  I’m not willing to pay that and not have some say in the matter.”

He said he would prefer to have some say right now, and the fallback is that if they are challenged all courts have said we have the legal basis to do that based on aesthetics.

“That to me is the most fiduciarily responsible path to and I was elected to do that in every [action] I have to make on your behalf.  I’m going to do that here tonight even though it doesn’t  make me feel good because I don’t like being bullied,” he said.  “I feel like we are.”

Sue Greenwald called this a very difficult issue, “My fear is that if we turn this down, it appears that the most likely scenario after a major lawsuit would be that the original plan would be reinstated.  I have no reason to believe that our attorney isn’t right.

“I have looked through all of the cases – the cases that people have discussed where cities have won have been they’ve won the right to do essentially what we’re doing tonight.  They have not won the right to turn down projects, unfortunately.”

“This is really painful for me because I think I was the only councilmember who was here when we did the first ordinance and we worked really hard, we agonized, and we thought we finally had protected everybody from things that they don’t want near us,” she said.  “Now the federal government is telling us that everything we’ve done is no longer is acceptable to them and we have to accept less local control and have the antennas nearer to us.”

She said that right now we need to make sure the antennas are not so close to people’s homes.

Dan Wolk voted against this each time,  His view is very easily summed up, as we previously noted, “I respect where my colleagues are coming from, (but) for the reasons I stated last time, I’m going to be voting no on this.  For me it’s just a matter of principle and a matter of local control.”

He told the Vanguard that he believes the legal issues are not nearly as black and white as have been portrayed by city staff and the city attorney, and believes that the city would have a chance to prevail if challenged.

The views of the incumbents is well known and they have voted on the record.  What we know a good deal less about is the view of the challengers.  Fortunately, both provided ample public comment last Tuesday and that gives us an opportunity to begin to understand where they are coming from on this issue.

Brett Lee speaking during public comment and said, “I believe that the city should try to find a pro-active compromise where we establish community control yet we also meet the needs of Crown Castle.”

“I think their interests are that they have a comprehensive network so that they can service their customers,” he said.  “But I think our interest is that we have community control over where those poles are located .  And we also set up the stage so that in the future, should there be additional cell phone carriers who wish to location within our city, we’re able to establish where they should go.”

“I believe that the city should own the poles and should work with Crown Castle to make sure the location is suitable not only for them but for our residents,” he added.  “The important ask of owning the poles is that we would control our future, when future people come before us asking for additional cell phone infrastructure.”

Lucas Frerichs, commenting on Site No.9 said, “Crown Castle has stated that this project is here to provide public benefit to the community and increase coverage where there are significant gaps.  The other reason they are coming forward with this project is because they are interested in maximizing profits.”

“That’s why they are pushing for the public right-of-way in all of these locations, they were not willing to work with the public on the planning commission during multiple meetings,” he said.  “We offered up numerous alternative locations, including this one.”

“It’s imperative that we get them to put some of these locations on public property – particularly in light of the city’s fiscal situation.  It is imperative for us to try to get some money out of this,” he added.

Brett Lee also spoke to a location near his home.  He stated he was a little puzzled by this particular location. “I know we have generally been going with the idea that we would have the antenna structure such that we could co-locate one or two carriers there.  What I’m not clear on is what the incentive is for another carrier to come along and decide to co-locate in one of these poles.”

“I think it would be helpful for me if I knew what the cost was roughly per pole and what, if any, incentives would be available for another company coming forward to co-locate,” he said.  “I’m not clear on that and it’s hard to evaluate aesthetically which is most pleasing without having that information because presumably in most cases, most aesthetically pleasing would be smaller.  But then there’s the worry that, if we go smaller, it only holds one antenna, that another company would come forward and want to build a second antenna.”

—David M. Greenwald reporting