Sprint/Verizon towers approved in Porterville, CA after long delay

Council approves construction of 2 100-foot towers

By Aaron Burgin, The Porterville Recorder

Despite opposition from one of the city's prominent business owners and a level of reluctance from the City Council about two 100-foot cell phone towers emerging inside city limits, council members approved the erection of the towers by separate 3-2 votes Tuesday.

The votes capped a three-month debate surrounding the appropriate placement of cell phone towers in the community, which nearly resulted in a moratorium on tower construction in September. “For a second there, I didn't know what was going to happen,” said Jamie Strachan, a site acquisition specialist for Sprint affiliate UbiquiTel. “There were some nervous moments, but now we have to get to work.”

The 102-foot UbiquiTel tower will be erected behind Clevenger Ford, just west of Main Street. Ridge Communications, affiliated with Verizon Wireless, will construct its 100-foot tower behind Fire Station No. 2 east of Newcomb Street.

The narrow approval was preceded by a 30-minute debate among council members as to what type of precedent they would set by allowing a 102-foot, co-locatable communication tower in the heart of the city, and was the cell phone tower worth potentially souring relations with local business stalwart Truman “Tex” Clevenger, who threatened to move the Clevenger Ford dealership outside of the city limits if the council allowed construction of the tower behind his business.

Clevenger, whose dealership has operated in the city for 35 years, expressed concerns that a cell phone tower might interfere with his company's satellite connection with Ford Motor Co. in Detroit, which sends the dealership daily sales statistics each morning.

He also argued that his business, which generates sales tax revenue each year for the city, meant more to the city than a “big, ugly tower” that doesn't generate revenue.

“I spend a lot of money and taxes in the city,” Clevenger said. “How much does a tower pay a city in taxes?

“I have a friend in the county, who would buy me out and move my business to the county in a heartbeat,” he said as he returned to his seat in the audience.

Mayor Pro-tem Cameron Hamilton and Councilman Ron Irish, who cast dissenting votes for both projects, said they were concerned that UbiquiTel's application left no room for aesthetic improvements, including natural or artificial camouflage that has become increasingly popular nationwide.

Strachan said since the tower was 102-feet tall, and able to service three additional carriers as a result, very little could be done to disguise it from plain view.

He also said that because of Federal Communication Commission regulations, interference with Clevenger's satellite would be “highly unlikely, if not impossible.”

Also, the project, Strachan said, was time sensitive: construction on the tower needed to begin prior to January 2006, or the company would lose project funding for the second time in almost three years.

At least one council member said he wanted to attract new business to the city, but not at the expense of a business that helped “build the city.”

City Attorney Julia Lew quickly interjected that council members were traversing shaky ground if they were to deny an application based on preference to another business.

Lew said during a council recess that council decisions cannot be made because a business has strong ties to the community, because the same rationale would have to be applied to all businesses.

Mayor Kelly West admonished the other council members that UbiquiTel had “jumped through every hoop” to get to this point in the process, and their business - which would provide better cell phone reception within the city limits - should not be denied based on Clevenger's legacy in the city.

“It just wouldn't be fair for us to deny them after all they had been through,” West said.

UbiquiTel's first attempt to bring the tower to the city was approved by a different council in January 2003, but their conditional use permit elapsed while waiting for the necessary funding.

After a short break, the council quickly approved Ridge Communications' application with little conversation, by the same 3-2 margin.

But council members said the debate is not over: the Community Development Department is currently drafting an ordinance that would regulate cell phone tower construction citywide, Hamilton said.

“We need to come up with an idea of what we want to do,” Hamilton said. “Do we want to have a lot of shorter towers, like in Los Angeles, or a few tall ones.

“I think the most important thing is appearance of the tower,” Hamilton said.

Contact Aaron Burgin at 784-5000, Ext. 1047, or aburgin@portervillerecorder.com.

This story was published in The Porterville Recorder on Nov. 5, 2005

The Porterville Recorder • P.O. Box 151 • Porterville, CA 93258 • 559-784-5000

http://www.portervillerecorder.com/articles/2005/11/05/news/local_state/news5.txt

 

True, but in this case it was Ubiquitel who doesn't have the funds to fight something like this in court. So we got lucky that this squeaked by.

 

Yeah I thought that would happen. I just hope that the plans for this tower in Porterville continue. Ubiquitel only has until January to begin construction or it will be dead.

 

Just an update. The Sprint/Ubiquitel tower is just about finished and should be on in a couple of weeks. I'm hoping to get up there and take some pics.