A community appeal of LA County Planning Commission’s approval of a cell site on top of the commercial building at 2540 Foothill Blvd. (southeast corner of Foothill and Rosemont) has the support of the Crescenta Valley Town Council and will be heard by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors at its afternoon meeting, Tuesday, May 26, 2009. Case documents are here.
Glenn Workman, who submitted the appeal, expressed strong disappointment in the Planning Commission decision. “They should be there to support the community. I thought that was what they were there for!” he said. “If we have outside businesses who want to put these things up all over the county, the county should be involved in deciding where to place them.”
In previous hearings, Workman disputed Sprint-Nextel’s contention that they have a coverage gap. Workman went around with a Sprint phone and found excellent coverage in the area. He says the company’s claim of poor results doesn’t mesh with its own finding of a 96-97% coverage range.
Workman was outraged by the Commission’s allowing Sprint to talk about their network technicalities and the need for additional wireless 911 emergency coverage for almost half an hour, when he was allowed just two minutes to raise all his objections to the proposed site.
Wireless providers’ attempts to use 911 coverage is a red herring that the Glendale Organized Against Cell Towers group debunked. Wireless 911 coverage is inferior to landline 911 coverage; further, any cell phone (even one with a discontinued contract) will connect to any provider’s wireless signal if it attempts to connect to 911.
Workman also asked why the applicant wasn’t required co-locate on sites nearby, and listed several existing sites in his petition. He believes that government has to force providers to co-locate, because no telecommunications business (or any other business, for that matter) is going to willingly allow a competitor to use its own facilities and take advantage of its existing lease arrangements.