Town leaders: Proposed cell tower could add convenience, safety

WESTMINSTER, Jan 04, 2009 (Sentinel & Enterprise - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- AWE | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Town leaders say a new cell tower proposal at Wachusett Mountain Ski Area would add convenience -- and possibly safety -- to citizens' lives.

Town Planning Coordinator Marie Auger said AT&T Wireless, formerly Cingular Wireless, has proposed building a tower in lower Parking Lot No. 3 at the ski area.

Board of Selectmen Chairman Tom O'Toole said the region is "notorious" for weak cell service.

"It's always been bad," O'Toole said. "It's been bad for years."

Selectman Nicholas Hay added that Westminster, as a whole, suffers from "horrendous" cell phone service.

"Especially after the (Dec. 11) ice storm, it was 10 times worse because all the power in the area was shut down," Hay said. "You could only improve what's there now."

Auger said the nearest cell towers currently in use are located at the Irving fuel station on Route 2 in Westminster, near the Fitchburg line, and in Gardner. Cell towers typically cover only a 2 1/2-mile radius, she said, leaving much of the town without a strong signal.

The ski area tower would offer little improvement to the town center, Auger said, which would sit just beyond the outer edges of the proposed service area.

The tower would be able to handle roaming signals from customers of companies other than AT&T. Chief Operating Officer of Wachusett Mountain Associates David Crowley said the lease agreement between Wachusett and AT&T also allows for other wireless companies to install

service connections to the tower.

Those companies would pay a split rent to AT&T and Wachusett Mountain Associates, Crowley explained.

For public safety leaders in town, the addition of the tower is not merely a matter of convenience.

"I would argue that it's a public safety issue now," Police Chief Sam Albert said in a phone interview last week. "We rely on cellular technology for the laptop computers in our vehicles, and we need to keep up with that technology, which is always changing."

Fire Chief Brenton MacAloney said building a tower at Wachusett will be even more important a few years down the road.

"Right now, I'd say not having strong cell service is an inconvenience, but as technology becomes more robust and we rely more and more on it, it becomes more demanding and more important to have access to it," MacAloney said.

The fire chief explained that police and fire departments in town began using cell phones about 10 years ago.

"There are some situations that are unique, or there's sensitive information that you'd rather not have go out over the radio," MacAloney said. "For instance, if someone has died or they have a certain medical issue, that's something more suited for cell phones."

But cellular technology has become a more important facet of public safety in recent years, he said, as the technology has "been built in" to the portable databases and computers inside public safety vehicles.

"We've got information on those computers that we use for preplanning," MacAloney said. "Knowing where fire hydrants are, for example. Or, if we're transporting someone to the hospital and we know we've transported them before in the past, we can look up their history and be better able to serve them or better able to alert the hospital to what's going on."

Albert added that cellular communication acts as a "back-up" if radio communication goes down. That can happen in severe weather, Albert said, but can also be a natural side-effect of hilly terrain.

"We have so many hills and valleys that it's difficult for the signals to get to us sometimes," Albert said. "There are a lot of natural obstacles."

Albert said cell towers typically have the capacity to overcome such topographical challenges.

"If our signal can have a clear path to the tower, they should be able to communicate," he said.

The town developed bylaws regulating cell tower development in 2001, Auger said.

"We hadn't addressed zoning for cell towers, so we made a bylaw to regulate how they're built and where they can go," she said.

The bylaw creates an overlay district that includes large, town-owned parcels, as well as the ski area and certain sites in the town center. The bylaw limits cell towers to 150 feet in height, and includes wording to ensure the tower does not become an eyesore by requiring wireless companies to either build in a scarcely-traveled area or camouflage the structure within a flagpole, church steeple, or in some other fashion.

All cell tower proposals require a special permit, granted by the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Crowley said the permitting process "could take months."

Auger, however, said she expects a quicker turnaround, predicting public hearings will be held sometime within the next two months. The Zoning Board of Appeals will make its decision on whether to grant the permit at the conclusion of the hearings, at which time workers can commence building, she said.

"If there are any other permits that are needed after the hearings, they would be in the jurisdiction of the Building Department," Auger said. "It does not have to go through the selectmen."

Crowley said construction will take about three months.

Calls to multiple AT&T representatives, as well as to Cambridge-based law firm Anderson and Kreiger, which represents AT&T on the project, were not returned last week.

Crowley said he granted permission for AT&T to propose a cell tower on his property in August.

"They seemed like the right team," Crowley said. "It was the first time we'd been approached by a company directly, instead of by a broker."

Crowley said multiple wireless companies have approached him to propose cell towers in the past, but he resisted.

"Many of the people we spoke to in the past were not serious about it," Crowley said. "They were looking to set up sites, but never planned to come through on a commitment to build. It's a way of trying to create a bunch of opportunities for themselves without considering the landowner."

Crowley said safety concerns, such as the possibility of a tower falling over, added to his past hesitance to commit.

A tower also hinders further development, Crowley explained.

"Once you build a cell tower, you can't really develop that area for much else," he said.

Crowley said he held out hope that, eventually, the cell phone companies would find another building spot close enough to the mountain to provide service to guests without adding the burden of a cell tower on the property.

"That didn't happen, and once we started getting comments and complaints from guests that they didn't have cell service, we had to do something," he said. "We have a lot of corporate accounts who don't appreciate the fact that they're out of service."

Crowley said the tower will measure 150 feet in height, and will not be camouflaged in any way.

"Camouflage is for long distances, like if you're driving down Route 2 and looking at a tower," Crowley said. "In the parking lot, the only people that are going to be seeing it are the people parking there, and trying to camouflage it might even look silly close-up."

Crowley said AT&T will lease the property from Wachusett Mountain Associates and pay monthly rent. AT&T will also pay for construction of the tower. Crowley said financial specifics of the lease contract were unavailable.

He said mountain officials only open the lot about 20 days per year, during the height of the busy ski season, further limiting residents' exposure to the tower.

He added that the ice storm left the mountain "really vulnerable," cutting its phone services and significantly hindering its ability to communicate.

"The need for cell service has become particularly evident lately, with all the weather," he said.

Town leaders have tried to encourage phone companies to build in Westminster, particularly in the town center, O'Toole said.

The town's cell tower bylaw allows churches to erect towers on their property or within their steeples.

Church leaders recently expressed interest at the notion of hosting a tower.

Pastor Robert Duebber, of the First Congregational Church of Westminster on Main Street, said he "would explore" the option if it came up.

"In many cases, older churches that date back to the 1700s and 1800s were built on the highest spot in town, so it's a sensible place for a tower," he said.

Gary Collette, Senior Pastor at Bread of Life Assembly of God Church on State Road East, said "a great gain is the financial reward that goes with" hosting a tower.

"I've heard it brings in about $1,500 a month, sometimes even more," Collette said. "We'd be open to talking if something like that came up."

Collette said Bread of Life has managed to maintain strong finances throughout the current recession, but Duebber noted that many smaller churches struggle.

"You have a lot of these Evangelical, conservative mega-churches that are growing, and traditional, small churches are struggling to survive," he said. "More people are going to church because of the down economy, but the churches themselves continue to struggle."

Both pastors rejected the idea that hosting a cell phone tower could compromise the church's spiritual integrity.

"I don't think it will mess with people's faith or upset the message," Collette said.

Duebber noted that some churches own businesses and properties.

"You have to pay taxes," he said. "Now, I think, maybe, if you opened up a liquor store on church property, that would be one thing. But not a cell tower."

To see more of the Sentinel & Enterprise or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/. Copyright (c) 2009, Sentinel & Enterprise, Fitchburg, Mass. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

More News:   Market Updates | Stock Alerts | All Trading News | Stock Index