"This is to those of New Lebanon area who have influence on how the city's most valuable assets continue on with vitality, value, safety, and beauty in the increasingly challenging wireless future. I am speaking from experience as you will see in the paragraphs below.
I understand that your Technology Committee and perhaps your staff and Town Board has received a great deal of input from Wireless Company "advisors" and they have perhaps influenced you about the proposed content of
your much-needed new wireless code for the city. They have perhaps advised you of the perils of violating the Telecommunications Act (TCA) and more recent rulings of the FCC regarding 5G installations based legally on that 1996 Act. These perhaps seem to remove a great deal of your local power in siting decisions for wireless facilities--certainly is is important to see if they do.
Code revisions of some kind are certainly needed these days as wireless exponentially gains in complexity and as regulations of that complexity multiply. All the techno-babble around city code revisions is dizzying for the
typical administrator, staff-member, and government representative--and even the typical legal skill bandwidth controlled by city attorneys, despite their protestations that they understand it well as they quote FCC regulations. Meanwhile, hovering over it all is perhaps your fear that a legal misstep can trigger a crippling lawsuit from Big Wireless or, God-forbid, the FCC.
What is left out of all this is that the TCA is far more promotive of local sovereignty than wireless-industry-connected "advisors" and industry-written information will admit. Indeed, the industry-tipped playing field can even emerge as an image in some legal advice given to the
city by cautious attorneys generally not briefed in the latest information about truly effective and protective city codes.
My experience has proven that there is
another side of the story that you may be presently hearing from those approaching you that have vested interests in wireless expansion. It's about your prospective power to control siting of macro- and mini-cell-towers in your precious town settings. Why would you want to retain such power? At stake are 1) town character, 2) town planning priorities for the future; 3) property values; 4) heritage areas and sites; and 5) citizen contentment and health. Examples of 5) being trampled is the
current uproar and citizen lawsuits in Pittsfield, Mass and even in Los Angeles, as well as in other cities. Poor siting judgements come back to city officials with a roar amidst very negative citizen feelings and real damages; these are happening with increasing frequency each year.
Our small town of Langley in WA state has a brand new wireless code. This this was achieved in short effort once myself and some concerned citizens lost a lot of time a three year study and advocacy before we discovered a way we could have done it in a matter of a few months and at a very reasonable legal and administrative cost. The new code gives virtually bulletproof powers
of oversight on wireless siting activity to our city administration and these powers are legally virtually unchallengeable by industry or the FCC. (Any rare legal challenge from a wireless developer, and even a loss of this by our city, would have as its ONLY consequence Langley granting a wireless facility's right to be placed at a certain location in the city.)
The code is written entirely, and very affordably, by nationally known wireless attorney Andrew Campanelli of New York. It's approval made it past our citizen Planning Board, all city staff and officials, and, yes, our city attorney, who was originally quite sympathetic to, and
promotive of, wireless interests out of fear of lawsuits. Even a wireless company attorney who was assisting our city attorney gave it a pass. It is an example of a very protective code with teeth that keeps Big Wireless on an equal playing field with the city. They city's cost: about 15 planner hours and $8500, a sum actually raised by city donors to a crowdfunding effort to help our town's stretched budget. All info is in the links below.
And here is a detailed
writeup on Environmental Health Trust about its development and features.
I wish for you the peace of mind our city and citizens now have about meeting the future of Wireless with local sovereignty and preserved village character and safety.
Mark Wahl,
Coordinator of CLEAR (Citizen League Encouraging Awareness of Radiation) on Whidbey Island, WA"