← Appropriations & Oversight Committee · 2017-12-18 · Appropriations and Oversight Committee Meeting
ORDER-2018-43 : Petition of Centerline/AT&T to attach equipment to existing utility poles located at 2 Hurd Street and 2 Sylvan Street, Melrose, MA
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▶ 1:10 Peter D. Mortimer: Second. Alderman Ferner has made a motion to close public participation, duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. We have one order before us tonight. It is order 2018-43. It is the petition of Centerline AT&T to attach equipment to existing utility poles located at 2 Hurd Street and 2 Sylvan Street, Melrose. Alderman's Worker has made a motion to suspend the rules, duly seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, we are under suspension. Gentlemen, would you please come forward and explain to us what you are hoping to do.
▶ 1:56 Speaker 2: Good evening. My name is Michael Dolan from the law firm of Brown, Rudnick, and Boston. I represent AT&T, and as many of you may know, my client holds an FCC license to operate a wireless network throughout the country and here in Melrose. And right now, there are several locations throughout the Commonwealth where we are having capacity issues with coverage. Demand is very high, new customers, data usage, and some of our cell sites are actually shrinking a little bit, and we've identified two locations in Melrose that we think if we put in a small node antenna on top of it, in each case an existing national grid utility pole, that we can help strengthen the signal in those areas. we're proposing is a small about almost nine feet off the ground a small equipment cabinet that would be 32 inches in height 18 inches in width and a diameter of 12 inches and then on the top of the pole a antenna that would be 24 and a half inches roughly and 10 inches in diameter very minimal visual impact in each of these instances there's a fair amount of activity on the poles that this as I say shouldn't introduce any new aesthetic issues the facility will be compliant with all local state and federal laws and guidelines and we respectfully ask the city to support our application thank
▶ 3:40 Peter D. Mortimer: you very much appreciate that would anybody would you like to say anything without director of Public Works like to say anything would you like to wait till
▶ 3:55 Peter D. Mortimer: you called up please do then please come forward this is a director of Public
▶ 4:04 Peter D. Mortimer: Works Elena Proakis this is our city engineer thank you thank you very much
▶ 4:11 Speaker 3: so this is similar to when we had mobility come in and discuss the attachments that they were planning on doing because these are attachments on existing poles that either National Grid or Verizon owns the rights to AT&T technically only needs to negotiate that with whoever owns the pole since their existing poles they don't have to go through the grant of location process but we advised Centerline slash AT&T to come before the board anyway the same way that we brought mobility before the board to just answer general questions and then also hopefully establish a protocol as to how these will be handled going forward because my impression is that these are part of a larger program for most companies it's not a huge program they're not going all over the city but there are likely to be other locations Verizon has identified probably about five locations in the last year and a half so each time one of these comes forward what we've put in place now with both Verizon and mobility is that the applicant still sends the complete package in through the city clerk's office it still goes up to the full board the alderman including the ward alderman for whatever the locations are has the opportunity to weigh in via our department and then we provide that feedback back to the applicant so I would recommend that we try to implement the same protocol with any company that's coming in to do small cell technology but I did just want to clarify that it's not it doesn't require a grant of location so the board doesn't
▶ 5:46 Peter D. Mortimer: need to do a formal vote thank you very much first in queue we have Alderman Zwirko followed by Alderman Wright oh I'm sorry I thought I say again Alderman Wright please proceed followed by Alderman Boisselle thank you I appreciate
▶ 5:59 Francis X. Wright Jr.: it um just uh to the city engineer first you indicated uh desire to have the ward alderman weigh in on it um i don't recall getting anything before tonight um should have come out when when
▶ 6:14 Francis X. Wright Jr.: it was first sent in directly to me or to the board okay yeah that would come through the
▶ 6:21 Francis X. Wright Jr.: clerk's office directly okay i think the ward alderman needs to be contacted directly as you know of not at&t but verizon put one of these on a poll by gooch park it is ugly as sin ugly
▶ 6:36 Francis X. Wright Jr.: it's it's not something that should ever have gone in without this board being made aware of it okay so i appreciate at&t coming to us tonight it's not the same type of equipment it sounds like um but i think it's important for us to have an opportunity to view the pole view the equipment on a similar pole to get a sense of where it is because if you're going to put these in
▶ 7:10 Francis X. Wright Jr.: neighborhoods there's going to be impact it doesn't sound like much but when you start attaching a cabinet to a pole nine feet off the off the street that could be right at
▶ 7:25 Francis X. Wright Jr.: somebody's living room window so I would like to get a better sense of what these things are gonna look like firsthand and I'd like to know where I can do that so
▶ 7:38 Francis X. Wright Jr.: I don't know what our opportunity is to hold this in committee I don't know if this is just a courtesy they're presenting to us that's what it sounds like you're telling me and that's my understanding from the city solicitor as well from the time verizon dropped when the last one in my ward as well heard street b in my wood and that's when we established the
▶ 7:57 Speaker 3: protocol with how verizon was going to handle it was in response to that yeah it was irresponsible
▶ 8:07 Francis X. Wright Jr.: of verizon at the time um so i appreciate the effort this is a step in the right direction but I think there needs to be a little bit more effort I think I need a direct message to me saying hey what they're gonna put this in your water at this location here's what it looks like here's a similar one here's where you can go out and see one because I anticipate that if you drop one on a residential neighborhood which I'm not sure this is based on the address to is is closer to the corner of west wyoming but if it's right by those apartments i mean those people
▶ 8:51 Francis X. Wright Jr.: have a quality of life i want to respect as well um that this could be uh aesthetically displeasing to somebody so um i think we need to work with everyone uh if these things are going
▶ 9:06 Francis X. Wright Jr.: to go into our city so um i look forward to working with you again in the future thank you
▶ 9:10 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you mr chairman thank you alderman wright um alderman inferno did signal me when the gentleman was speaking alderman boycelle so i should have called on her first so alderman
▶ 9:22 Gail Infurna: inferno you're next and then you're up on the bus thank you very much mr chairman um i am i'm also the ward alderman for the two sylvan street one although in one of your pictures you had two sullivan streets so you might want to just kind of note that um and i i agree with a lot of what alderman Rita had to say the good news is on this one that the residents were notified that i have not heard anything from them it is across the street from a resident's home so and between the by the armory there so i don't think it will have that visual impact that may happen down the road with a lot of these as they come up into different neighborhoods so um seeing that the neighbor you know that would be most impacted which is really a very wide street away from the particular poll that it's going on um had no objections and have not heard from him you know um i i i'm you know would go forward with that with the caveat of of the information that alderman
▶ 10:26 Peter D. Mortimer: wright had to say so thank you thank you alderman aferna alderman Boisselle please just reference in
▶ 10:30 Robert A. Boisselle: the material that you submitted to us you have the 3d antenna patterns which is the electro electromagnetic radiation there isn't going to be any effect or you're in that 1700 to 5 000 megahertz area so there's no effect on any biological or no our our facility will be
▶ 10:48 Speaker 2: operated in compliance with fcc law which has jurisdiction over that issue we uh conduct the a emissions test for each of these sites and we have to be within those FCC guidelines and in this particular case we are a small fraction of the allowable levels.
▶ 11:08 Robert A. Boisselle: Okay. Last but not least is the picture of the Hurd Street pole. I counted while we were discussing here at least 27 wires coming or going off this pole. Do you expect to have any problems in mounting this particular device on this pole no the the
▶ 11:27 Speaker 2: contractors have become quite skilled at navigating some of the existing wiring and the the equipment cabinet will be below that web of wires if you will and then our antenna will be on the very top of the pole which will be able to be installed with a bucket loader and then we can just feed the line straight down from there we we do everything in in concert with the the utility and uh have to work within their guidelines so if they want us to do anything in particular to make sure we uh are very sensitive to whatever wires there may be whether it's telephone or electric what have you we will
▶ 12:11 Peter D. Mortimer: follow all their procedures okay very good thank you very much thank you kevin thank you alderman boycelle and madam clerk would you let the record reflect that we have been joined by alderman Medeiros as well for this meeting seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard
▶ 12:25 Peter D. Mortimer: I would respectfully suggest the proper motion would be a motion to recommend to place this order on file as no grant of location would be required at the full board it seems like the ultimate disposition of this order would be to place this order on file but I will leave that to your wisdom around the horseshoe motion to place on file Harlem Inferno has made a motion to recommend to the full board that we place this order on file duly seconded by alderman Tramontozzi ozi is there any further discussion seeing none all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this order will be recommended to the full board to be placed on file and alderman's work always made a motion to adjourn duly seconded by alderman Forbes all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed hearing none the committee on appropriations is hereby adjourned thank you one and all