A: The short answer is no. We do get pro forma notification of these, but we get a lot of those at this office. The vast majority of these are non-controversial issues, and we are dependent on hearing from our constituents about those that cause concern, because it is impractical to make that judgment with the volume of boilerplate notifications that we get, not just on antennas but on other things as well.

In the Albers St. case, T-Mobile sent about 6-8 notices, including us and the neighborhood council. That’s just not enough to provide opportunity for representatives to hear about issues. Even though the city’s range of options in this case is quite limited, I want to know as the elected representative when constituents feel they are being adversely impacted. The only way we can do that is by having a broader notification requirement.

Q: Have you been in contact recently with the Albers St. community?

A: My office all works collaboratively as a team on constituent services. We as a team have been engaged in this issue extensively from the moment we became aware of this project and the complaints – we’ve attended community meetings, [Planning Director] Daniel Brumer has stood up on behalf of the neighborhood and discussed what the range of options are, we have extensively researched the facts and the law that are applicable in this case. And we’ve learned, frankly, a lot from this case, about the limited range of options that are available to the city under current law. Our work has informed us about ways that we can make options better. And we are going to be pursuing many of those policy options.

As far as contact with folks in this neighborhood, just last night I was chatting with a few of the people from that community who came to my Holiday Open House. We had a good positive conversation, a group of them are going to be meeting with me to discuss what we have done and what we plan to do. In other areas of the district, similarly, we’ve been very engaged in trying to give voice to the people. A great example is Sunland-Tujunga, where a similar T-Mobile installation is deemed controversial. When we became aware of it, we talked with T-Mobile and gained a commitment from them to work with the Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council in identifying areas of the community where it would be acceptable to have installations. There is a subcommittee now formed within the Land Use Committee that will go around the neighborhood with T-Mobile to find sites that meet T-Mobile’s system needs and meet the needs of neighbors in the area. That’s the kind of cooperation that I would like to see telecom companies have with local communities, because that’s the real answer for getting a balanced solution. It is inadequate for neighborhoods to say, “No cell antennas,” because as long as we continue to use cell phones we’re going to need those antennas someplace in order to have service, but that doesn’t mean that they should be on every street corner, obviously. So you strike that balance by having the telecom companies actually go out and engage neighborhoods through their elected representatives, through their neighborhood councils, through our offices to try to find the solutions that will work for the system and still not be unduly intrusive in communities.

Q: Los Angeles City Council opened a file on this subject back in October 2009 with a motion by Bill Rosendahl. Since that time more than 45 neighborhood councils have submitted resolutions supporting the motion, calling for a moratorium, and urging the city council to draft new rules. Why has more than a year gone by with nothing done?

A: This is frustrating for me as a new council member. This was a process that started before my election. I can’t say why its been over a year since that motion has been introduced and we still don’t have the report back from the city attorney, but I am raising that issue with the city attorney and I hope that we will have a response to that request as quickly as humanly possible, so that number 1, we have a clear and thorough legal analysis of what it is really possible for us to do; and number 2, so we can use that framework as an opportunity to develop new policy for a better process.

Q: Do you support the idea of a moratorium while new rules are crafted? As an example, Glendale instituted a moratorium which lasted for a year and a half on cell site installations in residential areas only, while crafting new municipal rules for installations.

A: The concern I have about a moratorium is the potential risk of significant liability to the city if rights that exist now under current law are delayed. One of the things I’d like to know from the city attorney’s office is whether a moratorium would run us afoul of the federal law that requires permit approval within 90 days or 150 days, depending on the type of installation. I’d like to ask that of the city attorney and get a response to it, because sometimes it does take a very long time to get policy changes done here and I think if we were to impose a moratorium it could raise those sorts of issues.

Q: Do you see a possibility for having an ordinance like Glendale does or like San Francisco is now considering which would restrict installations along the public right-of-way?

A: I know something about the Glendale ordinance. I haven’t seen the San Francisco ordinance yet. If they have found ways to do things that are legally defensible and that better serves their constituents, I certainly want to look at those options and I want our city attorney to look at them as well. The Glendale approach of shifting burden of proof to the carrier to show a need to build an installation in a residential area for system purposes — I think there’s some merit in that, because it doesn’t make sense to unduly fill neighborhoods with antennas that they can’t demonstrate to be necessary for their system. Again, its a matter of balance, we all want to have instant wireless access, and we get frustrated when we don’t have it. At the same time nobody wants to have these installations next door to them, so to find that balance we need to ask the carriers, “Why do you need it there?” If they need coverage, that’s a different situation than if it would be convenient for the company to put an installation there rather than some other place.

Q: Is there any ongoing contact between the major wireless carriers and the Los Angeles City Council about their plans for 4G coverage and their build-out to accommodate it?

A: In the broadest sense, only that there is in fact a build-out of the network going on. But they certainly don’t share with us their plans, or the locations we have in mind. They decidedly do not share that information with us, nor do I think there’s any legal way we can compel them to do so. We don’t have any kind of advance notice information about when they will be rolling into this neighborhood or that neighborhood.

Q: That brings up the problem of competition that these companies engage in: if T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, Clearwire, and others all decide to compete in the same neighborhood for business, that could mean a great deal of installations along the public right-of-way. In that situation, who is protecting the residents?

A: Part of the problem we have on Albers St. (in Sherman Oaks) is that it is an existing pole installation, which is being replaced by the new pole. That makes it subject to the Joint Pole Authority. The idea behind that, 100 years ago, was this: we don’t want our neighborhood littered with a bunch of competing poles, so we have one set of poles and anybody who wants to use those poles for whatever appliance has the ability to do that, specifically so that neighborhoods aren’t filled with a bunch of poles serving a bunch of different purposes. You’re right, you have competitors who are trying to broaden their coverage, and are trying to provide the fastest, best, broadest coverage possible. There is some risk of over-saturation. On the flip side, they don’t build these things just because they want to stake out a neighborhood, they build them to meet demand, and as long as there are consumers who demand this kind of coverage, that’s the reason we are getting this kind of build-out. They are investing a lot of money because they are meeting the demands of consumers. That’s why its a challenge for us to find the right policy now.

Q: Do you think current federal and state laws are fair to both residents and industry, and municipalities?

A: I’m a local elected official. I would like to have a greater degree of local control over what happens. That’s a given. I think I have a better feel for what my constituents want in their neighborhoods than a state or federal legislator would, so I would like to have more latitude to represent my constituents, and I’d like local government to have more authority in this area. At the same time, I understand policymakers want a national communications system that works. As the elected representative of a community, I’d like to have more ability to regulate these installations than I do now, and right now it is extremely and frustratingly limited.

Q: Do you agree with members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who have stated that municipalities have to lead in addressing this issue because telecoms have too much power at the state and federal level?

A: The jurisdictional model we are operating with preempts us from regulating in wide areas of this issue. I’m interested in trying to find practical ways to help my constituents: improving municipal law to the greatest extent that we can, providing as much notice to people as we can, working in partnership where possible and as an advocate where its not possible. How I lead is by making sure I advocate within a balance of legal jurisdiction as a city council member for the people that I represent, and then pushing our state and federal government to strike that balance we’ve talked about and allow concerns and legitimate interests of people in neighborhoods to be considered as part of the equation.

Q: Getting T-Mobile and the Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council Land Use Committee together to identify appropriate sites is an unusual approach. Of the communities I’m aware of that have dealt with this issue, usually the two parties don’t end up working together. How did this come about?

A: We have found that if we have advance notice and opportunity, most of the telecoms we’ve dealt with are willing to try and cooperate with us. Working cooperatively with me means working cooperatively with our neighborhood councils and communities. We’ve had some success in that context, getting them in communication with the neighborhood council. I think this is a great model for how other companies can work collaboratively going forward. We’ve also had some success in other circumstances where we’ve worked with a company to get a proposed installation relocated. Companies prefer to carry out their plans without intrusion by elected officials, but the flip side of that is that they want to make sure that to the extent feasible they have a cooperative relationship with us. And as as I’ve said, to have a cooperative relationship with me means having a cooperative relationship with neighborhood councils. I hope that will be the model until we make better changes.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to discuss about this issue?

A: I am reaching out to the city attorney, asking for a comprehensive review of the state of the law right now, to ensure that everything that I understand about the Albers St. situation is correct. I believe it is. Unfortunately, the current state of the law requires very minimal notification on the part of T-Mobile and that’s what has led us to this point. The residents felt like they were taken by surprise. We are frustrated in this office because we have constituents who are angry with T-Mobile and directing some of that anger toward us, even though we essentially had no advance notice and no ability within the bounds of the law to restrict T-Mobile from doing what they did. That’s frustrating for me as an elected representative.

Gay Outlaw, San Francisco resident: I’m a homeowner in the city, and I have lived here for 23 years. I care deeply about the quality of life here. I would like to echo the thanks already expressed for your efforts with this legislation. I’ m here because I have had a crash course in the past week on wireless antennas and how fast and seriously they are going up at the moment in the city. An antenna is being activated as I stand here before you on my street. Do I need to tell you how unsightly it is and how poorly installed it is? The crew has worked until 10:00 P.M. and on Saturday and Sunday, to complete their work…The first thing I wondered is where else are they installing these things? Are we just unlucky on our street? There is one a single block away and two more within a four-block radius. It seems to me that this proliferation goes against any intention to ultimately bury the utilities underground, like in the area immediately surrounding us. While constant exposure to one device might not offend, according to the FCC standards, how about this kind of density? Who is asking these questions on our behalf? are they being asked? The more I research, the more I learn how my hands are tied — how our hands are tied as residents and homeowners as far as what we can do about this.

Sister Joan Hopkins: The three of us who live in this house are outraged that this has gone on with no communication to us that it was happening. At no time were we told that this was going to happen. I personally called city and county offices after this thing was attached. I was told that it was OK. It was not dangerous. I do not believe that. So we do not want it next to our house. Thank you.

Richmond District resident: I have downloaded some of the antenna search.com data on wireless transmitters and towers in my neighborhood. There are 489 antennas within a three-mile radius of my home… There are also 64 towers within a three-mile radius of my home. Henry Lai at the University of Washington is doing research on the health effects of wireless transmitters and towers, and there are animal studies on that and some human studies related to memory deficits, performance deficits, genetic deficits, cancer, reproductive deficits — a whole host of health issues. I’m wondering who is going to monitor the cumulative burdens of all of this technology being added in our city?

Eric Brooks, San Francisco Green Party: The green party position is that this legislation is excellent and every opportunity should be made to minimize the amount of these things that are out there…So many times, we have seen the planning commission approve a placement, and then it is appealed to the board. The corporations will get up and argue that their coverage is not good enough, but then it will be made clear through the appeals process that the coverage is actually good enough and the appeal is upheld. This happens over and over again. So that is the standard. Also, it does not just apply to cell phones. It applies to broadband access. you need to make sure there is not already sufficient coverage for an easy way to get there, and the direction we really need to head, especially in light of the FCC’s recent decision to unfortunately make the internet a two-tiered system is to have a major buildup of underground fiber-optic lines in the city. If we did that, fiber would allow us, to the extent that we do need wireless devices, to operate on very small antennas the size of cigarette packs or smaller, that are hooked into the broad fiber-optic system, and would also allow us to set up so that multiple corporations do not have to have their own antennas. They could look into the public fiber network and all ride without having the proliferation of antennas all over the place. Supervisor Chiu , you are probably interested in that direction. i would love to see you work with advocates that are working with broadband to get that in motion so that we do not need all these ridiculous antennas all over the place.

David Tornheim, San Francisco Resident and member of SNAFU: The carriers, despite their claim that they think there should be more notice, they could provide notice if they wanted to. They could just put little posters up on their telephone poles. I do not believe them that they want to provide notice. We need this This is very important. NextG in particular, I want to point out has an aggressive campaign to put up these devices before this legislation goes into effect. They are not providing notice, even though they have known about this…Basically, they are trying to circumvent this legislation, and these guys are all saying, “Let’ s come up with another plan. Let’ s go back to the drawing board.” and they will just put more of these things up without notifying residents.

Francisco De Costa: If you go to any civilized nation, you will not see electric poles and such nasty equipment as you saw the last time again and again and again. What the service providers do is they invest millions of dollars in Washington, D.C., as lobbyists and come over here, do the same in Sacramento, and come over here on the local level and try to bully us. What perturbs me is DPW, and I know there are some people here from DPW that know me pretty well. If somebody comes and puts a little graffiti thing, they will find you about $300. And you have these nasty, dirty looking things on our electric poles. They are disgusting. Lowering the property value. They do nothing.We need to find out what is the relationship between the service providers and DPW? And secondly, who gives them the right to go inside somebody’ s house, even though it is public right of way, and put these nasty things on these electric poles that in the first place, such things should never be put. These are huge boxes — not all of them, but most of them. You have heard here from Eric Brooks and others that we can do this underground. we can use fiber optics. The city lost eight years ago when we allow Comcast to do the underground, and we did not do it ourselves like other states. Our city does not have the foresight. Now that we have allowed these rascals to come into our neighborhoods and destroy the aesthetics, now, we are planning what to do. It is a bit too late, but not too late. I’ m in favor of this legislation.

Jeff Cooper, Richmond District resident: As of last week, I am a proud landlord of a new wireless facility right outside my house. Last week, we had a crew come out and install a wireless thing on top of our light pole, which sits right outside my bedroom window. I was able to finally find a copy of the permit that was pulled, and it is actually at my address. I was pretty shocked to find out that you can hold a permit of somebody’ s address without notifying the residents that a permit has been told of their address. I have three primary grievances. I strongly support the legislation, but the first is just notification. We need to notify residents, especially when it is right in front of their house. Second is the overall quality. These claims of public safety and in the aftermath of a hurricane or earthquake. If you come outside in front of my house and look what they have put up there, there is no way that thing is going to survive a hurricane or earthquake. It is going to fall over and start a fire, so I have strong concerns about the insulation quality, and I want to make sure that the committees or whoever is in charge, there is a permitting process and that these permits are reviewed and the quality of the work product that is done is reviewed. When I remodeled my kitchen, I had a city inspector come out weakly to make sure I did everything right, and I hope that is happening here as well. My final grievance with the current system is just the overall lack of information. Whenever there’s no transparency, I get worried. I have no idea what they put up in front of my house. I have no idea who to call or how to find out. What is it for? What does it do? Provide citizens with a little bit of information about what is actually being installed. This happens to be 20 feet from my bedroom window.

Richmond District Resident: There is so much equipment going in, and they have come in, honestly, under the cover of darkness. It has been a very strange experience to listen to these trucks in the rain at 10:00 at night installing the equipment. It just does not smell right. Everything that has been addressed today by those here in support of the legislation — I echo that, and I also think that the way this project has been handled has increased our sense that something is going on, trying to bypass citizens’ concerns over the safety and the aesthetic quality is very significant issue as well.

Supervisor Mar: I would like to thank everyone for speaking from the industry to the many residents, not just from my district, but for many others around the city. My office is going to work closely with Mr. Sanders and others in the city attorney’ s office to look at potential next steps, and I also wanted to say that from what supervisor Avalos’ office has expressed to us, there have been good conversations with the industry. The visuals that people put up today and last week are horrifying to me. The lack of public notice and lack of community input into the process is outrageous, and I do feel that the public right-of-way is a place that the federal government and state government have some say in, but we need stronger protections. This not only raises the issue of safety, but also aesthetics and whether these boxes on utility poles are necessary and desirable, but it is a process that should be a community one from the local level in my opinion, but I know we have to be careful and legally defensible in what we propose, but the legislation before us is reasonable, and I do think the two-year appeals process makes a lot of sense to me. I wish it could be a shorter appeal, and I do think the industry’ s concerns have been listened to. On the claim of discriminatory treatment, I think that is totally ridiculous. That was made by one of the industry representatives. I will just say that from so many residents in my district that have raised concerns over a long time, I hope there is much more we can do at the local level to protect the right of people to create more livable communities, and I do think that the proliferation of the antennas has been fast and furious, and it is really shocking at how they are being done, and I hope this legislation is a small step forward, as others said, to really protect our neighborhoods rights to have a say in beautifying our neighborhoods and to prevent ugly and dangerous boxes from being put up all over the place. Thank you.

Supervisor Chiu: I just want to express my thanks for all the stakeholders that have been working on this issue. Obviously, I think there are some larger pictures that we have got to deal with. I know, certainly in my district, there are similar issues that my neighbors have been concerned about. I want to express my support for this legislation, and I’ m happy to add myself as a co-sponsor to it.