I voted for it before I voted against it…
More cellular coverage is a good thing and I have voted to support cel sites whenever they have come before me as an Irvine Planning Commissioner.
However, last month Sprint had an application before my commission for 10 ‘repeaters’ in the Turtle Rock area of Irvine (a hilly community notorious for lacking cel coverage). Repeaters are much smaller than traditional cel sites. They are simply appendages that attach to either side of a street light standard and tie into the local cable company’s fiber optic network below the street.
The LA Times had a story a couple weeks ago that indicated that I had voted against the proposal. In fact, I voted for it, before I voted against it. Weak, I know. But I had a good reason.
That night the commission was lacking one commissioner and the vote was two-to-two. After realizing I was not going to be able to muster the votes for an approval, I assumed as with any other 2-2 vote that it would be deemed a denial and the applicant (Sprint) could appeal the planning commission’s decision to the city council.
Not so said the city attorney who explained that given the federal government’s involvement in regulating the wireless industry, Sprint would have been in a weird legal limbo that would not let them appeal the decision. So I did what I thought was the right thing–made a motion to deny the application and easily won the votes.
I got no pleasure from pressing the red "no" button that night and I have since gotten a good ribbing from friends who know my pro-business/pro-property rights background didn’t mesh with the vote.
I even got some thank you notes from residents who opposed the proposal for my "no" vote. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I voted the way I did to give Sprint a better chance of approval.
Sprint appealed to the city council and it was supposed to be heard last night, but it was put off to a date uncertain.
More on the wireless industry soon.
July 12th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Adam,
As a Turtle Rock resident myself, I can attest to the poor quality cell coverage in our neighborhood. Maybe people can relate to this….you’re driving home from work, trying to close a deal, and you forget that once you pass a certain point on the road, you automatically drop the call because of a lack of cell coverage. It’s really annoying. My neighbors need to get over their petty aesthetic argument about cell towers/repeaters being an eyesore. You can hardly notice them these days. In fact I had to switch from Cingular to Verizon just so I could get cell calls at my house(Verizon has the only tower in the area). Bravo to Sprint for wanting to service their customers. In todays world, cell phones are very important for communication. I’m even thinking of droping my land line completely. I hardly ever use it anymore. Thank you Adam for your work on this issue.
July 13th, 2006 at 12:00 am
If you had an inkling that it was a tie vote, wouldn’t it have been better to just punt the issue to the next meeting in hopes that Commissioner No. 5 would show up and render a decision one way or another?