verizon

There were a couple of turns in the road on the way to approval for a new mobile phone tower for Verizon customers in the area of 9321 Wilkenson Road in the town of Batavia, but in the end, the town's planning board approved a special use permit and site plan review.

Bell Atlantic Mobile Systems LLC is the official applicant. The tower will be 154 feet high, have a four-foot lightning rod, and nine antennas on it, along with associated equipment on the ground.

Tuesday's meeting was the second time the board approved the same project.

The first approval had to be redone because of a "miscommunication," said board President Kathy Jasinski. At a previous meeting, the board moved ahead with approval even though the project had not yet been reviewed by the Genesee County Planning Board.

Last week, the county board recommended approval but with modifications.  Members voted to require space on the tower for public safety purposes, such as the 9-1-1 system at no cost to the public.

That was another turn in the road.

Steve Fantuzzo, an attorney with Nixon Peabody LLP, representing Verizon, said Verizon objected to that requirement.

"It's a takings issue," Fantuzzo told the board. "It's the government taking property without providing compensation.  Basically, it is not legal for the county to say we're taking space on the tower, or else we don't recommend approval. So the reality is that Verizon will accommodate them, and when they request it, they're generally willing to accommodate that space, but as a condition and a requirement, Verizon would object to that."

Board members quickly agreed that space on the tower should not be a requirement but had a short discussion about whether to amend a motion to remove that requirement or if a motion to reaffirm the board's prior approval would be adequate.

The board's attorney, Matthew Fitzgerald, recommended reaffirming the prior approval.

"If you're going to override the county's recommendation, you will need to send them an explanation," Fitzgerald said. "You'll need a majority plus one vote, which, if all members here vote in favor, that's fine. You will need to send them the reason you decided to go against their recommendation."

The board did not need to incorporate that decision into the motion itself, he said.

"I think the minutes will capture the discussion that was just had, as well as me interjecting, clarifying that was the reason," Fitzgerald said.

The board unanimously approved both the special use permit and the site plan review.

A major telecommunications company's application to erect a new mobile device cell tower is a fairly straightforward approval process for local planners, and on Tuesday evening, Robert W. Burgdorf of Rochester, an attorney representing Verizon, provided several useful nuggets of information.

It was an initial meeting in the regulatory process with the Town of Batavia Planning Board. The application must still undergo an environmental review and a public hearing, but Burgdorf was happy to discuss the process and some of the technical issues involved in installing a cell tower.

Cell towers are extremely location-sensitive because they have to be high enough to reach the neighboring towers but not so high that there is a spillover of signals into the neighboring cells.

"They've got to be placed so that they can hand off to the neighboring cells, again without interfering," Burgdorf said.

They wind up in a honeycomb-like grid, not too close but not too far apart.

Cell towers generally serve a one or two-mile area and can't be too close together or too far apart.

If the tower is under 200 feet tall—this one will be 154 feet tall—the Federal Aviation Administration does not require lighting or striping.

This down will be a matted steel gray.

"We've learned, and we've actually done studies, that this blends in with our skies in Western New York," he said.

An observation a couple of board members quipped was a depressing thought.

Oh, and 5G doesn't cause COVID.

A board member's question prompted the discussion of health concerns about cell towers. Burgdorf said federal law preempts that as a concern for local planners, which he regrets because it also preempts an opportunity to educate the public.

"This is a radio signal, that's all this is," he said. "It is an incredibly weak radio signal. We've had radio signals around since the 20s, the 30s. The only difference between this and a television or radio station is that those operated tens of thousands of watts, sometimes megawatts. So the power levels, from radio and television, just radio signal is much, much stronger than these. These are incredibly weak. They have to be incredibly weak for two reasons. One is they can't interfere with neighboring cells, which are often a mile, two miles away, and we have to be able to get a return path from the user"

He said that if anybody is concerned about cell phone signals, the first thing they should do is seek to do is shut down radio and television signals.

"The issue does come up, but anybody who looks into it, who's being rational, will see that that's not really an issue," Burgdorf said.

The tower will be located at 9300 Wilkinson Road on a 100x100-foot leased parcel. It will be fenced, and a small gravel road will connect it to Wilkinson. There will be minimal traffic to the location—maybe one maintenance worker a month will visit the site.

The board voted to seek lead agency for coordination purposes under the state's SEQR regulations (pronounced seek-ur, it stands for State Environmental Quality Review Act) even though Burgdorf informed lead agency designation for this project is not strictly required.

The board did it as a matter of course, because that is its standard practice, but board members said they will seek their attorney's opinion.

"It's not a fatal error to declare yourself lead agency," Burgdorf said, so he didn't object.

He said a lead agency is only required when there are other "involved" agencies. In this case, other agencies, such as the Genesee County Planning Board, are only "interested" agencies, so there is nothing in the SEQR process to coordinate with other involved agencies.

"Look, the SEQR regs are a pain. They really are," he said. "They're pretty convoluted and they force a lot of municipalities to really become an expert. It is a pretty intense set of regulations, so for what it's worth, if you declare yourself lead agency, that's not the process, but it doesn't make it defective, so whatever you want to do."

Press Release:

All residents/businesses and local traffic please be aware that Route 5 between Bank Street and Redfield Parkway will experience traffic delays beginning on Monday May 8, while Verizon will be closing one of the two west bound lanes starting at Bank Street ending at Redfield Parkway. This will be about a two week duration.

When Verizon’s operation gets to Route 98, Route 98 northbound will be closed for one day.

Please contact the NYS Department of Transportation at (585)343-0502 if there are any questions.

Photo by Howard Owens.

WBTA provided the interview on which this story is based.

Verizon workers were out protesting on Lewiston Road this afternoon. They are members of Communication Workers of American Local 1117.

Spokesman Phil Rudnick, executive vice president of the union, said a middle-class way of life here and in other states is at stake as the group battles against jobs being shipped overseas and major cuts in pay, benefits and security. They have been in contract negotiations with Verizon since June 2015.

"Corporate greed is the biggest complaint," Rudnick said, "and the retrogressive demands they are looking for are astronomical."

All the while, profits have never been healthier.

He said Verizon made $1.5 billion in profits each month last year; they are beating those figures so far this year, with monthly profits of $1.8 billion for January, February and March.

Verizon wants to send call center jobs overseas, and force outdoor technicians to work a couple of hundred miles away from home for months at a time, plus cut pay and benefits, and obliterate job security.

The workers with the most skin in the game to lose are the ones who built the money-making behemoth one landline at a time.

"We built the infrastructure that gave them the profitability to go into the wireless department," Rudnick said, "and they're making billions of dollars on wireless as well."

The work done by those represented by CWA 1117 feeds all the cell towers the phones work off of, the data networks and DSL files. Now Verizon wants to lay off landline techs and bring in contractors.

"We're just looking for fair, middle-class, stable jobs that we've had not to be taken away," Rudnick said.

The union's concession in millions of dollars in health-care costs was deemed "not good enough" in recent negotiations.

On the line are jobs here, in Buffalo, Syracuse and Albany, as well as other states.

Local politicians have been supportive of the union's plight, the union leader said.

As part of a nationwide strike by 45,000 Verizon workers, there are pickets in place outside the Verizon office in Batavia that spans Jackson and Center streets.

Pictured above are Tom Pacia, of Rochester, Darrin Folger, of Akron, Kirk Myhill, of Medina, and Dave Martin, of Batavia.

Every once in a while somebody asks me if I know when Verizon is going to install FiOS in Batavia.

FiOS is supposedly the fastest broadband internet service available.

When speaking with John Bonomo, a spokesman for Verizon out of New York City, about manhole covers, I asked him, "what about FiOS?"

He said it would be at least five years before FiOS is installed in Batavia.

Right now, Verizon has its hands full, he said, upgrading networks in cities where Verizon has the cable franchise.

"We have to get the work done where we have agreements," Bonomo said. "We've got to complete these upgrades first."

Batavia's cable franchisee is Time-Warner.