INSIDE

More time for tower decision

By Meg Olson

County land-use staff is asking for more time to respond to a hearing examiner request that the Whidbey Telecom tower be looked at as the preferred location for Verizon cellular telephone antenna.

In a February 25 memorandum to hearing examiner Michael Bobbink, land use supervisor Martin Blackman wrote that he had no response “after several efforts at trying to make contact with Whidbey Telephone Tower for consideration of collation of Verizon Wireless,” on the Whidbey Telecom tower on Benson Road. Based on the lack of opportunity to discuss the matter with the local telephone company, Blackman wrote “staff cannot recommend co-location on the Whidbey Telephone Tower.” However, they would continue to pursue the matter until March 3 if the hearing examiner chose to leave the record open on the application.

The hearing examiner asked staff to look at co-locating Verizon Wireless cellular antennas on the existing tower during a February 13 hearing on a revised application by Verizon Wireless to build a 150-foot tower with antennas on top.

The original application for the facility was to build it on a parcel of land owned by the local parks department. However, at a December 12 hearing Bobbink asked staff to look at an alternate location – private property north of the parks land and between the Whidbey property and the transfer station.

An updated staff report on December 20 suggested that the alternate site could be preferable and several continuances were granted allowing parties to study the feasibility of the new tower location. Based on submissions received during that time Bobbink chose to reopen the record and receive further public testimony on the possibility of the alternate location.

“We’re waiting for the hearing examiner’s decision at the park site,” said Verizon representative Andy King. King, a land use consultant with the Meridian Group, said the parks property continued to be their preferred location. In a January 28 submission to the hearing examiner King argues the much smaller parcel proposed for the alternative location does not comply with county siting location criteria, and does not allow for adequate setbacks and screening.

Parks commissioners also continue to argue the tower is best located on their land, where $12,000 in annual rent would help support local parks programs.

“The main issue we should raise is the disconnect,” said parks commissioner Mark Robbins at the February 11 parks meeting. “It’s parks property but it’s anything but parkland. There are no plans or resources to develop it.”

Parks property has been historically leased for community benefit, commissioner Linda Hughes said, such as the school, the transfer station and the public works yard adjacent to it.

“This land was given in trust to us and we have used it in a variety of ways to benefit the community. This is another utility for our community,” she said.

Opponents of locating the tower on parks property maintain the property, currently covered largely with scrub and blackberries, should be maintained as open space. Craig Jacks said he was personally ready to donate $1,000 to an effort to clear the area and build a “nature park”.

Volunteer labor and equipment was also available, Jacks maintained, as well as donations of native plants. “We see in the future of the park a pond. This was a wetland and the pond here was bigger,” he said.

Whidbey Telecom vice-president Julia DeMartini said a telephone call from county planning February 25 and from the hearing examiner’s office on February 26 was the first she knew the county had any questions about sharing their tower with another company.

She had attempted to return the call to the hearing examiner but had not reached anyone in that office. “Of course we want to try and be helpful when we can be,” she said.
DeMartini did not dismiss the idea of co-location, but said that “for a variety of reasons and legal complexity we generally have not allowed collocation.”