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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06-23-1998 Hearings MINUTES OF SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING AND HEARINGS TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 1998 AT 7:30 P.M. HEARING - PROPOSED LOCAL LAW #2 - CELLULAR TOWERS @ 7:30 P.M . HEARING - PROPOSED LOCAL LAW #3 - ADULT ENTERTAINMENT @ 8:00 P.M. Those present: Teresa M. Robinson, Supervisor Ellard L. Sovocool, Councilman Daniel J. Carey, Councilman Donald N. Palmer, Councilman Donald F. Scheffler, Councilman Francis Casullo, Attorney Also present: Richard Case, Liz Brennan, DeForrest Hall, Francis Ciccoricco, William J. Sitzman, Robert McKenzie, George Totman, Terry Sharpe, Elaine Burrin, Sandra Bradly. Hearing on Local Law #2 for the year 1998, Cellular Towers, commenced at 7:30 P.M. Clerk Pierson read the legal notice regarding the two hearings. Supervisor Robinson invited comments, remarks, and input. FRANCIS CICCORICCO- I am Frank Ciccoricco, technical consultant. I have Mr. Bill Sitzman, who is president of Independent Broadcasting Consultants out of Trumansburg, NY. He has helped author the Farmington and Ulysses ordinances in the past two months. If you have any questions, he'd be glad to answer them. In the meantime, under your standards and application, I believe in order to avoid litigious action on the part of the Town of Groton, we should possibly amend Section 279.10 sub-paragraph D, which reads, "The Town, at the expense of the applicant, may employ its own consulting assistance." May employ. It's very tentative. Meanwhile, who would review this if it wasn't a consulting engineer? The standards and measurements and geographic coordinates, etc., radiation levels, etc., and I believe that we should address that and come up with some better wording. Otherwise, I believe the Board's proposed ordinance, as stated, is in pretty good shape. SUPERVISOR ROBINSON- Did you have some words that you wanted to put in there? FRANCIS CICCORICCO- Well, we should amend, as I said, Section 179.10, paragraph D, which is having to do with consulting assistance. Are you or are you not going to have consulting assistance in all the applications in order to avoid litigious actions? You have to have some expertise in the technical area here, besides legal expertise. It should be a part of the application, every application, every special permit as far as towers, radio, cellular, PCS's, whatever. It behooves the Town to do this for the benefit of the Town of Groton. Pg.2 - Special Town Board Meeting & Hearings - June 23, 1998 COUNCILMAN CAREY- Frank, let me get this clear. What you're saying is on every tower application that comes before this Board, we should have a consultant look at every single one. It should be mandatory. You're saying the Town should make it mandatory? FRANCIS CICCORICCO- That's right. And then review, possibly every year, every three years or every five years. Review their status to see if their radiation levels are adhered to, their towers still sound, etc. That's it. If you have any questions, Bill would be glad to answer you. COUNCILMAN SCHEFFLER- It's already in here about inspecting the towers to make sure that they're sound. It's in another section. What was it, five years or something? FRANCIS CICCORICCO- The FCC, up to about three years ago, before the Tele-Com Act, required inspection every three years. That's a standard. COUNCILMAN SCHEFFLER- Section 279.10 B covers inspections. It says every fifth year by a NYS licensed engineer. FRANCIS CICCORICCO- ......the technical expert should be a licensed FCC engineer, so he understands towers and radiation, and be with the, be knowledgeable and also realizes what the structural integrity of towers as far as icing, windloading, and guying, anchoring, and so on and so forth, and that's what a licensed engineer would be able to give you, that expertise. A licensed FCC engineer. SUPERVISOR ROBINSON- Is there anybody else who would like to speak. GEORGE TOTMAN, CHAIRMAN PLANNING BOARD- Yes, I would. Under that 279.10 D, it does say that we would require a licensed engineer. The question that was brought up has been studied by other attorneys that I know of in other towns, and that's why it was stated the way it was. It is believed that it would be okay, or it wouldn't be presented. FRANCIS CICCORICCO- It's tentative. Says may employ. It's very tentative. We don't work with tentative situations. We have to avoid litigation. WILLIAM SITZMAN- My name is Bill Sitzman. I have represented, and still represent the Town of Farmington, and I'm here to clarify a few things at least from our expertise. A registered professional engineer will come in very very different expertise and different disciplines. It could be an electrical engineer or a civil engineer, but it's somebody that doesn't understand tower structures and doesn't understand how to assess levels of RF radiation. He might be legally qualified, but in practicality, you might have somebody that while he carries a piece of paper, but really can't be of any value. That's the only thing that I bring up. We have... any application that we get up in Farmington, is reviewed by myself and also by a civil engineer who is skilled in tower structures. I think that's really one of the points that I thought I would share with you people here, just as a friend. SUPERVISOR ROBINSON- Thank you. June 23, 1998 - Special Town Board Meeting & Hearings - Pg3 COUNCILMAN PALMER- Could I ask you a question? From your experience in reviewing these applications, is it customary that each tower would be reviewed by someone in your community? WILLIAM SITZMAN- Yes. COUNCILMAN PALMER- Could you just as a point of reference give us some idea what the cost might be for that process to be undertaken by an independent authority? WILLIAM SITZMAN- I think generally for our situation it was under $750 unless there was some extenuating circumstances that would run into a lot more staff time. I think one of the things that a lot of the cell companies fail to recognize is the backbone of any proposed site is the geographic coordinates. One of the next things is documentation from the tower manufacturer. In fact you can actually get drawings from the manufacturer that are stamped by a registered professional engineer. There often have been missing, any documented clearance or determination from the Federal Aviation Administration. These are things we are looking for. Some companies are very good at supplying all this and other cell companies are very lax. So the level of engineering from the applicant can be very good or very poor. So this is the reason that we review them very carefully. We have three of them right now. We have Nextell (?), we have Sprint Spectrum, their application, also Frontier. SUPERVISOR ROBINSON- Well, what we're saying then is that the engineers would be paid by the applicant? But it should be a specific type of engineer, right? WILLIAM SITZMAN- Yes. It should be, for the structural integrity, it should be a civil engineer or a registered professional engineer that is familiar with tower structures. Fortunately in that area, we do have a tower manufacturer over in Ontario, NY. We have access to their PE that works with that tower manufacturer. So, that is very useful. Another thing that we've found too are that the cell companies will provide to you an actual layout of where the other cells are, so you can see where the center of the proposed service area is to be. If you talk about co-location, it has to really fit reasonably within a certain buffer space in the center of that cell. If it's quite a ways off center, it isn't likely that you would get another company co-locating on that unless it fit their particular plan. They're not uniform among various companies. Their cells are in other locations. It's not a standard. Any other questions that you might have? SUPERVISOR ROBINSON- Anybody else? Any questions? There being no further questions, the hearing was closed at 7:40 P.M. Attorney Casullo suggested that the Board vote on the Cellular Tower issue and then commence the next hearing at 8:00, as scheduled. Supervisor Robinson asked if changes could be made to the Proposed Law at this Pg.4 - Special Town Board Meeting & Hearings - June 23, 1998 time. It was explained that if there was a major change, it couldn't be made that night. ATTORNEY CASULLO- I guess the issue is the one section, 279.10 D, changing "may" to "shall", and the other, that the inspection be done by licenced FCC engineer. I guess those are the only points that I saw that were raised. I don't see that as anything major. I think...... SUPERVISOR ROBINSON- Do you think that it's necessary? COUNCILMAN PALMER- I don't. COUNCILMAN SCHEFFLER- The way it's worded, I think we can do it anyway. Leave it the way it is. They way this is worded, we could hire twenty different engineers to do anything we want. More discussion took place. COUNCILMAN PALMER- If we leave it the way it is, we've got the option. It's still doing it that way, without enforcing it. COUNCILMAN SCHEFFLER- I like it the way it is. COUNCILMAN PALMER- If you put "shall" it's a restriction that you have to do it. Further discussion took place in which the consensus of the Board members was to leave the wording as originally written. Board Members felt that this would leave the option open to them to hire a specific engineer for whatever concern that needed to be addressed rather than require them to use an FCC engineer. RESOLUTION #34 - ENACT LOCAL LAW #2 FOR THE YEAR 1998 FOR THE REGULATION OF CELLULAR TOWERS Moved by Councilman Palmer, seconded by Councilman Sovocool, that the Town Board does hereby adopt Local Law #2 for the year 1998, amending the Town of Groton Land Use and Development Code relating to the regulation of Telecommunication Towers in the Town of Groton. Ayes - Sovocool, Carey, Palmer, Scheffler, Robinson. Hearing on Local Law #3 for the year 1998 on Adult Entertainment commenced at 8:00 P.M. Supervisor Robinson asked if anyone would like to speak on the Adult June 23, 1998 - Special Town Board Meeting & Hearings - Pg5 Entertainment proposal. TERRY SHARPE- I reside in the hamlet of McLean. We're here I believe, to see if you will extend the moratorium that is in place. I feel that it needs to be extended. There was an article written in the Cortland Standard on June 17th, that might give you a little insight. We all know that the Langers had been arrested back in June, and there's a quote in here by Mr. Langer, himself, the owner of Sirens, about since the arrests, the clientele at Sirens has changed, and the safety of the dancers has been placed in jeopardy. That's on the inside of the club, that's not counting what can happen on the outside of the club. He's quoted in here as saying that we used to have decent customers, now we have people looking for prostitutes. One of my concerns would be, can Siren's be sold right now, under the moratorium that's in place? Can that change hands? ATTORNEY CASULLO- We can't really answer that..... TERRY SHARPE- Well, what my question would be then, under the moratorium, if you are to extend it, can Sirens be sold and is this going to prevent them from changing hands? I understand that it's in litigation. From my understanding the Zoning Board of Appeals won the request that Sirens apply for special permits. Now, I've been hearing in the news that the Langers have appealed that decision and as far as I'm concerned if the Zoning Board says they need to apply for special permits, I don't know if they have or not, that I'm not aware of. I understand they're appealing it, and they're still operating. I'm not sure what all of that litigation is about, but I'm hoping that the moratorium is going to keep us safe. I don't feel safe right now, especially if the moratorium expires. I don't think, I'm sure if there's been a thorough study.... SUPERVISOR ROBINSON- The moratorium is for a more thorough study. That is why. TERRY SHARPE- I'm not sure that you guys have done a thorough study or..... SUPERVISOR ROBINSON- We haven't. And we're extending the time so that we will have an opportunity to. We were going to get together with some other towns and it didn't work out, so that's where we are now. TERRY SHARPE- Yes, I heard that. But is 60 days, is that what you're asking to extend the moratorium, will that be enough time to do a thorough study? SUPERVISOR ROBINSON- Some of it has been done already...... TERRY SHARPE- If it comes to 60 days and you're still not complete, then you come back and do it all over again? And request to extend it again? Or is this like a one time deal: you can only extend it now and at 60 days you have to make a decision?..... ATTORNEY CASULLO- .....I feel bad that we can't answer all your questions. One thing that I do want to address without going into executive session in a public hearing, I can tell you unequivocally that the Langers have not Pg.6 - Special Town Board Meeting & Hearings - June 23, 1998 officially appealed any ruling. So that is not accurate. If they have appealed Judge Rumsey's decision, I have not seen it yet. They will have time..... The reason for the extension of this moratorium is that we thought we were going to go in with Lansing and Dryden to do a joint study, but for various reasons we all opted out of it. So we are going to undertake the study on our own. I'll be involved, George Totman, who is the head of the Planning Board, and hopefully some other people here will be involved. Before you can adopt a local law or ordinance regulating adult businesses, the State Law requires that you conduct a study. Thats' what we're going to do. You have to remember that you can only regulate adult businesses. You can't ban them........, after the study, enacting, hopefully, a local law that will regulate adult businesses in the Town of Groton. I think 60 days is sufficient to get it done. I don't really foresee us taking longer than 60 days......... SUPERVISOR ROBINSON- Are there any other questions? Anybody else who would like to speak? Now's your chance. TERRY SHARPE- Just for the record, I believe that some of the cliental that Mr. Langer had quoted in here about being decent and respectable, I believe were the undercover police officers that had been in there. I don't think that they have really any decent customers. As he's quoted in here, now they don't have any customers who are decent, they're looking for prostitution. That's why I just want to make sure that this moratorium does get put in place for at least another 60 days.................I just hope it will be enough time. SUPERVISOR ROBINSON- Any other questions? We're here to listen not to talk. Thank you very much. We will close this hearing. Hearing to enact Local Law #3 for the year 1998 was closed at 8:08 P.M. RESOLUTION #35 - ENACT LOCAL LAW #3 FOR THE YEAR 1998 TO EXTEND MORATORIUM ON ADULT ENTERTAINMENT Moved by Councilman Carey, seconded by Councilman Scheffler, that the Town Board does hereby extend the Moratorium regarding the establishment of Adult Uses/ Adult Businesses in the Town of Groton for another 60 days. Ayes - Sovocool, Carey, Palmer, Scheffler, Robinson. Moved by Council Sovocool, seconded by Councilman Carey to adjourn the meeting at 8:10 P.M. Unanimous. Colleen D. Pierson June 23, 1998 - Special Town Board Meeting & Hearings - Pg7 Town Clerk