>Group is formed to fight proposal
Friday, September 4, 2009
BY MICHAEL SEDON
The Ridgewood News
STAFF WRITER
https://www.northjersey.com/news/57154972.html
Residents who live near the Lakeview Drive composting facility have begun to rally opposition to a proposed cellular tower that the village is considering placing there.
Ridgewood resident John Tripi canvassed his neighborhood upon receiving an official notice in the mail from Village Hall that the Village Council is seeking proposals to place a 150-foot cell tower on the site.
The council is only obligated by the state to notify residents within 200 feet of a proposed construction site, but since there were no properties within the 200-foot range, the village engineer was directed by the council to send notices of the proposed cell tower to residents up to 500 feet away as a courtesy after the Aug. 5 council work session.
Tripi spoke for a group of residents calling themselves Parents Against Cell Towers (PACT), and he outlined the group’s concerns Tuesday evening in the home of Mountain Avenue resident Debi Broatch.
“Although we appreciate the advancement of modern technology and enjoy the convenience of cell phone use, we’re not in favor of the installation anywhere near the vicinity of our homes,” Tripi said. “When we chose to buy our houses there were no cell site towers here, and I think they’re just a Trojan Horse rolling in that has only inherent problems once it opens up.”
Dorothy Stikna, the village’s chief financial officer, said Ridgewood is currently facing a $1.5 million budget gap, and based on the revenue generated from the cell tower located at the village’s Waste Water Treatment Plant on Prospect Street in Glen Rock, the village envisions a single carrier paying $42,000 annually. The Prospect Street tower, co-owned by Glen Rock and Ridgewood, is being leased by four carriers: AT&T, Sprint/Nextel, Verizon and T-Mobil, Stikna said.
But Tripi argued that contract negotiations and possible legal disputes caused by a carrier attempting to pull out of a lease or modifying it can interrupt the revenue stream.
“Verizon’s use of the property is conditional upon it obtaining necessary government approvals and performing sufficient soil testing,” according to www.celltowerattorney.com, a Web site that deals specifically with advice on cell tower contract negotiations. “The landowner must cooperate with Verizon in obtaining such approvals.”
Tripi also cited “hazardous material” that can be stored on site for a backup power source, or the decline in property values that a cell tower could potentially inflict on surrounding homeowners.
Village Engineer Chris Rutishauser explained the hazardous material that can be associated with backup generators might be diesel fuel or natural gas, depending on the type of generator. Because of his familiarity with the Prospect Street cell tower, he said he envisioned a similar structure would be proposed at the composting facility.
In addition to the group’s aforementioned issues with the proposed tower, Tripi said, “there is still a concern regarding our health, and the presumed non-rebuttal silence muzzling citizens is unacceptable.”
“Cellular phone towers, like cellular phones themselves, are a relatively new technology, and we do not yet have full information on health effects,” according to a summary of radio frequency (RF) waves cell towers at www.cancer.org. “In particular, not enough time has elapsed to permit epidemiologic studies. There are some theoretical reasons why cellular phone towers would not be expected to increase cancer risk, and animal studies of RF have not suggested a risk of cancer.”
PACT also contends that tax-exempt property cannot be used for profit. But Village Attorney Matt Rogers explained that tax-exempt properties can be used to “create revenue for the village,” and he compared the proposed cell tower site to the former Pease Library building, which is currently being rented to private businesses to create revenue, primarily for the Ridgewood Public Library.
Rogers added that cellular service providers “just can’t go around building towers wherever they like; they have to build them in specific areas that provide coverage where it is needed. They have to prove [before local planning or zoning boards] that where they propose the site is going to provide the coverage they need for that low-coverage area, and then they have to satisfy the FCC in terms of frequency emissions.”
Ridgewood Fire Department Chief Jim Bombace said the department would not need special equipment to deal with any potential problems at the proposed tower.
“There’s really only one thing that we have to be concerned about, and that is should an electrical problem occur, we have to disconnect whatever power is supplying that facility before we can put water on it,” Bombace said. “Generally speaking, the equipment is reliable.”
Tripi said PACT wants a withdrawal of the application, contract and the bidding.
E-mail: sedon@northjersey.com
