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Board approves cell tower in principle

By Meg Olson

The local parks board gave unanimous agreement in principle to leasing land to Verizon Wireless for a cellular telephone tower.
At their January 4 regular meeting following a meeting the night before to hear additional public comment on the proposed option and lease agreement, commissioner Fred DeHaan resubmitted his motion from a month earlier to execute the lease agreement. “My motion still stands –
I think we’ve spent enough time and money and effort on all this,” he said.

Commissioner Linda Hughes seconded the motion. “We definitely looked at mountains of information on all sides of this. I’m confident we should go ahead and take advantage of this opportunity,” she said. Under the lease agreement Verizon would pay $1,000 per month to lease 3,000 square feet in the northwest corner of the 65-acre property that is also home to the skate park, Baker Field and the primary school.
Commissioner Shelley Damewood, who had made the previous evening’s public meeting a condition of her remaining on the board, said she would like to see certain changes to the lease agreement to reflect public concerns. “From the meeting last night I think we should be talking to them about shielding – that was brought up,” she said. She wanted to ask Verizon to consider a tower smaller than the proposed 200 feet and to look into “camouflaging” the structure.

“I’m sure they’d be willing to consider all that,” said parks board chair Irene Waters. ”I think it would be nice to have a lower tower but I don’t know about camouflage because I don’t really think you’ll see it. Do you see the Whidbey telephone tower?”

Damewood added after the meeting that she felt the numbers indicated more people favored the tower than were opposed to it, and her moral dilemma over using parks land for commercial purposes was overcome by the advantage of greater community control over the facility than if it were built on private land. “If we can continue to control what goes on that tower we as a community can continue to be vigilant,” she said.
Waters said Meridian Group representative Andy King had indicated revisions to the contract already requested by the parks district were being incorporated and they were open to further modifications. “We don’t have to finalize this agreement as such. He wants to go ahead with the paperwork for the conditional use permit and he needs to know if this is a go or not,” she said. DeHaan indicated he would like to ask Verizon to help the district cover some of the legal costs incurred during the contract negotiation.

When Verizon applies for a conditional use permit for the project it will be reviewed by county land use division staff and the county hearing examiner’s office.

At the conclusion of the parks district meeting community member Steve Wolf said he was already looking at other sites should the Verizon proposal at the parks lease site not gain approval through the county review.

“We had discussed that I would look at alternative cell sites if Verizon doesn’t work out and I would include a business arrangement to put some money back into the parks. I’ve already started that,” he said, suggesting a non-profit community group lease land in the commercially-zoned areas along Tyee and Gulf roads. “This is an open ended community thought process at this point. I’m pro-parks but I’m against putting it near the school. Put it in the commercial district.”

Wolf said he was proposing a 50-foot wooden structure, instead of a 200-foot metal lattice tower, that could support enough infrastructure to meet the community’s needs for enhanced cellular telephone communications. “You could put a flag on it,” he suggested.