On Sun, 26 Mar 2017 01:14:13 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:

I worked in CATV, Broadcast and Two way radios. The City of
Middletown Ohio's first tower ordinance banned ALL towers, and outdoor
antennas. No exemption for the local AM radio station, CATV headend, or
even the police and fire departments. Their faulty reasoning was if no
one had an antenna, everyone would have to pay for cable, and they would
make more money off the franchise fees which were based on the number of
customers.

In the early '80s St. Louis, MO sent our CATV manager an order to
take down their tower and Sat dishes, for the same fool idea. St Lois
was a real mess. They split the city into seven areas, and gave seven
different companies a franchise. They also wanted to make cable
customers pay a large fee to pay for the entire costs to operate the
landfill, and all garbage collection, since watching TV was a 'luxury'.

We do things a little differently on the left coast. The county cell
tower ordinance was inspired by the local drug dealers in about 2000.
We have a rather large local amusement park. Nearby is a residential
slum and ghetto. In the middle of this area, on top of a small hill,
is a two story dilapidated building with a small market downstairs.
It's also the exchange point for most of the local drug deals.

Two of the cellular providers decided that if they purged and
disinfected the rooms above the market, it would make a good location
for cell sites. They then applied to the city (not county). This
information was eventually passed to the various drug dealers, who
somehow (correctly) deduced that a cell site located in the middle of
their stomping grounds could be used to accurately track their
movements around the area. So, they organized a protest movement,
which turned the first public hearing into a circus.

At this point, someone in city government decided that such things as
tower ordinances was really the job of the county. Characteristically
interested in more powers, the country agreed and decided to write the
tower ordinance. A temporary summer intern was hired by the planning
department to research and cut-n-paste an ordinance together out of
pieces he found on the internet from multiple sources. At the end of
summer he returned to his studies, leaving the county with an
inconsistent and incoherent mess.

The only problem was that they didn't know that it was a mess until
after the squabbling began. Every possible organization with an
interest in cellular, towers, land use, aesthetics, historical
preservation, electro biological effects of RF, and alien visitations
became involved. The original drug dealers probably attended the
initial planning department hearings, but were lost in the ever
expanding circus atmosphere.

Unfortunately, I was volunteered to represent the interests of the
local ham radio operators. Just one problem. I had recently survived
some major surgery and still felt rather lousy. Sitting for hours in
a crowded meeting room and lecturing morons on basic RF concepts did
not seem very appealing.

After the first circus meeting, things settled down to business during
the second meeting. Every group cut up its piece of the ordinance for
special attention. Speakers of all types and abilities presented
their case before the planning department board. There were the usual
comedies, such as one lady who after denouncing cell phones as a
health hazard, had her own cell phone ring while she was at the
podium. Several speakers presented seriously erroneous technical
information about RF. However, the real problem came from one of the
planning department members, who decided to add cell site density and
exposure limitations to the ordinance. Since nobody was interested, I
decided that it was up to me to deal with the problem.

When my turn at the podium came, I presented the board with a
simplified explanation about the relationship between transmit power,
data bandwidth, and range. Any two can be traded for the third. If
cellular radio was going to progress, it would need to increase the
data bandwidth. Power was not going up because the batteries in the
handsets would die too quickly. The obvious answer was more cell
sites and denser concentrations of cell sites. Otherwise, the county
was going to be locked into the technical backwaters of 2000. (It was
also illegal for the county to pass such a technical requirement as
that is the domain of the FCC, but I let county council tell them
that). The density and exposure clauses were quietly dropped.

I was sitting next to someone who obviously was an attorney. We
talked a little and I discovered he was there to represent AT&T. When
I asked why he said nothing during the hearings, he answered that the
important points would be settled after the ordinance is passed
through the usual exemptions and amendments. He was right.

Several meetings later, an ordinance was hammered out that was
sufficient to present to the board of supervisors. They did not want
yet another public circus, so they rubber stamped it on the consent
agenda. Nobody complained.

The next step was to pass it to the Coastal Commission, who's approval
was required because many of the cell sites were within the coastal
zone. What we got back was something that resembled bloodshed. There
were so many red marks, corrections, changes, and re-writes on the
various pages, that I barely recognized the ordinance. The Coastal
Commission had passed it on to what I believe was someone with
considerable experience in writing ordinances, who cleaned it up. I
was impressed. The planning board and board of supervisors were less
impressed, but accepted it anyway.

http://www.codepublishing.com/CA/SantaCruzCounty/html/SantaCruzCounty13/SantaCruzCounty1310.html
13.10.660 thru 13.10.668.

In the last 17 years, the ordinance has roughly doubled in size.
Exemptions and exceptions are added regularly to deal with
non-compliant technology and organizations. Life blunders on.

If adding a cell site in your neighborhood requires a tower ordinance,
you have my sympathies.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558