To the Editor:
Your Sunday editorial "Due Diligence - Norwich and the Cell Tower" oversimplifies what "irks" some residents about the "Fulton Tower" controversy in Norwich.
Since Norwich opted for a Town Manager more than a decade ago, we've struggled to make this administrative arrangement work. To some degree, our first three town managers all succumbed to a Selectboard and political culture still rooted in the pre-town manager allocation of responsibilities. To their credit, our current Selectboard has consciously set out to more clearly delineate the duties and authority delegated, by statute, to a town manager and last year hired a very promising new Town Manager in Neil Fulton. This most recent kerfuffle over Fulton Tower is all the more surprising given the positive steps taken these past 18 months in finding a more mature relationship between Selectboard and Town Manager.
Again, to Neil Fulton's credit, since taking office he has moved quickly and decisively to prepare our public safety departments for the FCC "narrowbanding" deadline at the end of this year which prior regimes had either ignored or misunderstood. Fulton is highly adept at the grant game and has already justified his salary increase many times over in securing hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants for police, fire and public works communications equipment this past year. In the event, very few townspeople have seriously questioned the need for significant investment in emergency communications infrastructure. Nevertheless, a major public safety infrastructure project which should have garnered broad public support has become a significant controversy. Why?
If you ask me, it's a fairly straightforward -- cautionary -- tale of initial, understandable, oversights compounded by obstinance and a lack of public due diligence.
The controversy was there at the outset. Fulton Tower is to be built in a valley along New Boston Road. Due to the low base elevation in a hilly town, the structure needs to be very high to broadcast effectively. The proposed height of 198 feet is a concession to avoid FAA regulations requiring a flashing red light on towers 200 feet or higher. 198 feet is the height of a 19 story building and about 140 feet above the surrounding tree line.
This site and design were felt to be the most cost-effective solution to an acknowledged need. But our Town Plan and zoning regulations don't rubber stamp towers -- even town-owned towers -- on the basis of cost-effectiveness. Instead, they were drafted to steer developers towards siting towers where they can achieve their coverage objectives, if possible, no more than 20 feet above the surrounding tree line. Adept tower developers -- like Verizon before they built their tower in Norwich back in 2006 -- research a number of possible sites to locate some with the topographical charcteristics that allow them to achieve their coverage objectives consistent with our height restrictions.
Repeated public requests for an engineering study to look for sites that achieve our coverage needs in compliance with our own zoning regulations have been ignored. Instead, we've been given a 2010 draft feasibility study which considers only this one site, suggesting no professional effort was ever made to look beyond this predetermined solution.
Due diligence? The initial oversight -- forgetting to consider our zoning regulations in designing a proposed tower -- is perhaps understandable, even for a Town Manager lauded for his engineering expertise. I find it harder to grasp why our Selectboard felt no need to request siting options, especially once the zoning, height, and coverage concerns were raised last Spring.
Unfortunately, the initial zoning compliance oversight has knock-on effects.
Perhaps recognizing the zoning issue, the Town withdrew the original zoning application filed with our Development Review Board ("DRB") last July and decided, instead, to seek fast track review that would avoid local zoning and Act 250. The Vermont Legislature created the fast-track option for tower developers through the Public Service Board under 30 VSA 248A several years ago in an effort to "juice" broadband infrastructure construction. For those applicants wishing to avoid local and Act 250 review, 248A offers a cursory threshold to approval which includes a statement from either the town's Selectboard or Planning Commission that the proposed tower is consistent with the Town Plan.
In our case, this means our Selectboard and Planning Commission will soon be asked to go on record that 198-foot towers are consistent with our Town Plan. Inconveniently, more than a decade ago Norwich enacted detailed zoning regulations governing tower height consistent with our Town Plan. In 2006, both our Development Review Board and the Act 250 District Commission, reviewing our Town Plan and zoning regulations, enforced these regulations to restrict Verizon's Norwich tower height to twenty feet above the surrounding tree line.
Due diligence? A decision by the Selectboard or Planning Commission to certify Fulton Tower's 198-foot height at the Public Service Board spurns these facts -- rejecting all the work done by townspeople in town plan discussion, Planning Commission review, and DRB adjudication of regulations we all naively thought reflected the conscious democratic will of the Town -- and creates a precedent that will be difficult to reverse.
What basis will the town have to limit height for any future tower if we wink at this one?
The only reason we now face this regrettable policy choice is because the original design for Fulton Tower never took into account our zoning regulations so never thought through how this tower would receive DRB and act 250 approval. Every effort to flag these issues for the Town Manager and Selectboard have been met with dismissiveness and dissembling.
Then there's VTel.
Whatever individuals may think of VTel's owner or the company itself, the proposed VTel contract is a questionable business deal for Norwich residents. The idea behind this contract is, again. cost-effectiveness. In exchange for building us a tower on town property to locate our emergency services transmitters, VTel will effectively own the tower for up to sixty years on this site rent-free.
Due diligence? At no time prior to approving the VTel Letter of Intent was the Selectboard or the public provided any information about typical lease rates, similar revenue share agreements, or co-location rates to help us judge the wisdom of this deal. VTel will be using taxpayer grants to build a tower on town land it leases rent-free. It will broadcast for-profit broadband signal to Norwich subscribers without paying any co-location rent or sharing any revenue from that service. And it will keep 97 cents on every dollar any other broadcaster pays them in co-location rent potentially for the next sixty years. When asked at a Selectboard meeting whether the 97/3 revenue share on colocation seemed reasonable, our Town Manager stated that he felt VTel saw this rate as non-negotiable. I don't question our Town Manager's motives in trying to get a tower built cheap. I question his business judgment in thinking a sixty year lease on these terms is cheap.
As your editorial states, it is certainly within the authority of our Selectboard and Town Manager to act as they have. However, the failure to do our homework up front has us, as a town, backpedaling into a series of really questionable business, regulatory, and policy decisions that are only being brought to light through the alarmed efforts of townspeople. It may be "the cogs of local democracy are well-oiled in Norwich," but the administrative judgment of our town government -- and public due diligence made upon it -- is looking increasingly suspect.
Your Sunday editorial "Due Diligence - Norwich and the Cell Tower" oversimplifies what "irks" some residents about the "Fulton Tower" controversy in Norwich.
Since Norwich opted for a Town Manager more than a decade ago, we've struggled to make this administrative arrangement work. To some degree, our first three town managers all succumbed to a Selectboard and political culture still rooted in the pre-town manager allocation of responsibilities. To their credit, our current Selectboard has consciously set out to more clearly delineate the duties and authority delegated, by statute, to a town manager and last year hired a very promising new Town Manager in Neil Fulton. This most recent kerfuffle over Fulton Tower is all the more surprising given the positive steps taken these past 18 months in finding a more mature relationship between Selectboard and Town Manager.
Again, to Neil Fulton's credit, since taking office he has moved quickly and decisively to prepare our public safety departments for the FCC "narrowbanding" deadline at the end of this year which prior regimes had either ignored or misunderstood. Fulton is highly adept at the grant game and has already justified his salary increase many times over in securing hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants for police, fire and public works communications equipment this past year. In the event, very few townspeople have seriously questioned the need for significant investment in emergency communications infrastructure. Nevertheless, a major public safety infrastructure project which should have garnered broad public support has become a significant controversy. Why?
If you ask me, it's a fairly straightforward -- cautionary -- tale of initial, understandable, oversights compounded by obstinance and a lack of public due diligence.
The controversy was there at the outset. Fulton Tower is to be built in a valley along New Boston Road. Due to the low base elevation in a hilly town, the structure needs to be very high to broadcast effectively. The proposed height of 198 feet is a concession to avoid FAA regulations requiring a flashing red light on towers 200 feet or higher. 198 feet is the height of a 19 story building and about 140 feet above the surrounding tree line.
This site and design were felt to be the most cost-effective solution to an acknowledged need. But our Town Plan and zoning regulations don't rubber stamp towers -- even town-owned towers -- on the basis of cost-effectiveness. Instead, they were drafted to steer developers towards siting towers where they can achieve their coverage objectives, if possible, no more than 20 feet above the surrounding tree line. Adept tower developers -- like Verizon before they built their tower in Norwich back in 2006 -- research a number of possible sites to locate some with the topographical charcteristics that allow them to achieve their coverage objectives consistent with our height restrictions.
Repeated public requests for an engineering study to look for sites that achieve our coverage needs in compliance with our own zoning regulations have been ignored. Instead, we've been given a 2010 draft feasibility study which considers only this one site, suggesting no professional effort was ever made to look beyond this predetermined solution.
Due diligence? The initial oversight -- forgetting to consider our zoning regulations in designing a proposed tower -- is perhaps understandable, even for a Town Manager lauded for his engineering expertise. I find it harder to grasp why our Selectboard felt no need to request siting options, especially once the zoning, height, and coverage concerns were raised last Spring.
Unfortunately, the initial zoning compliance oversight has knock-on effects.
Perhaps recognizing the zoning issue, the Town withdrew the original zoning application filed with our Development Review Board ("DRB") last July and decided, instead, to seek fast track review that would avoid local zoning and Act 250. The Vermont Legislature created the fast-track option for tower developers through the Public Service Board under 30 VSA 248A several years ago in an effort to "juice" broadband infrastructure construction. For those applicants wishing to avoid local and Act 250 review, 248A offers a cursory threshold to approval which includes a statement from either the town's Selectboard or Planning Commission that the proposed tower is consistent with the Town Plan.
In our case, this means our Selectboard and Planning Commission will soon be asked to go on record that 198-foot towers are consistent with our Town Plan. Inconveniently, more than a decade ago Norwich enacted detailed zoning regulations governing tower height consistent with our Town Plan. In 2006, both our Development Review Board and the Act 250 District Commission, reviewing our Town Plan and zoning regulations, enforced these regulations to restrict Verizon's Norwich tower height to twenty feet above the surrounding tree line.
Due diligence? A decision by the Selectboard or Planning Commission to certify Fulton Tower's 198-foot height at the Public Service Board spurns these facts -- rejecting all the work done by townspeople in town plan discussion, Planning Commission review, and DRB adjudication of regulations we all naively thought reflected the conscious democratic will of the Town -- and creates a precedent that will be difficult to reverse.
What basis will the town have to limit height for any future tower if we wink at this one?
The only reason we now face this regrettable policy choice is because the original design for Fulton Tower never took into account our zoning regulations so never thought through how this tower would receive DRB and act 250 approval. Every effort to flag these issues for the Town Manager and Selectboard have been met with dismissiveness and dissembling.
Then there's VTel.
Whatever individuals may think of VTel's owner or the company itself, the proposed VTel contract is a questionable business deal for Norwich residents. The idea behind this contract is, again. cost-effectiveness. In exchange for building us a tower on town property to locate our emergency services transmitters, VTel will effectively own the tower for up to sixty years on this site rent-free.
Due diligence? At no time prior to approving the VTel Letter of Intent was the Selectboard or the public provided any information about typical lease rates, similar revenue share agreements, or co-location rates to help us judge the wisdom of this deal. VTel will be using taxpayer grants to build a tower on town land it leases rent-free. It will broadcast for-profit broadband signal to Norwich subscribers without paying any co-location rent or sharing any revenue from that service. And it will keep 97 cents on every dollar any other broadcaster pays them in co-location rent potentially for the next sixty years. When asked at a Selectboard meeting whether the 97/3 revenue share on colocation seemed reasonable, our Town Manager stated that he felt VTel saw this rate as non-negotiable. I don't question our Town Manager's motives in trying to get a tower built cheap. I question his business judgment in thinking a sixty year lease on these terms is cheap.
As your editorial states, it is certainly within the authority of our Selectboard and Town Manager to act as they have. However, the failure to do our homework up front has us, as a town, backpedaling into a series of really questionable business, regulatory, and policy decisions that are only being brought to light through the alarmed efforts of townspeople. It may be "the cogs of local democracy are well-oiled in Norwich," but the administrative judgment of our town government -- and public due diligence made upon it -- is looking increasingly suspect.
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