ORDER-2017-63 : Petition of Mobilitie, LLC to attach equipment to an existing utility pole on W. Foster Street, Melrose, MA

Transcript (~24 min @ 17:38)

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▶ 16:58 Gail Infurna: participation? Second. Alderman McAteer-Margolis makes a motion to open for public participation. Seconded by Alderman Boisselle. All those in favor of opening public participation say aye. Aye. All those opposed? We are now open for public participation. Is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak to to us this evening on our order. Seeing none. Motion to close public participation. Alderman McAteer-Margolis makes a motion to close public participation. Seconded by Alderman Boisselle. All those in favor of closing public participation say aye. Aye. All those opposed. Public participation is closed. We have one order in the Public Works Committee and that's order 2017-63, the petition of MobileLite LLC to attach equipment to an existing utility pole on West Fausa Street in Melrose. We do have a representative from mobility this evening. We also have our city engineer, John Chenna, and engineer, Elena Proakas Ellis. And just to preface, this is a presentation that we'll have this evening. They are using an existing pole, so there is no granting of permit on it or anything, But since there will be something new on a poll, they thought that it would be nice for the public to hear what it's all about. So is there a motion to suspend the rules? So moved. Second. Alderman McAteer-Margolis makes a motion to suspend the rules, seconded by Alderman Boisselle on discussion. All those in favor, suspension of the rules? Aye. All those opposed? The rules are suspended, and at this time I see Mr. Schenna coming up to us. So maybe we could ask him some questions, and then we'll have the representative from Mobility do what she needs to do.

▶ 18:38 Speaker 3: be very brief i just want to give a brief introduction to to this evening it's a little different than what other utilities come forward and ask for a grant to location um mobility rosanna ferrante and her engineering team there are several in that team behind her have been working with our city engineer for several months with coming up with a way to bring their network into our community for future use um if i were to explain what their network does i'd be lying if i understood every little piece of it that's what they're here for today is to explain what they do and why they want to want to come here but the end product of where we are today is very different than when where they started and where they started was they were requesting to put in new polls throughout elrose and that's not something that our department and our engineering division and the administration felt comfortable with given how built out our public ways are. So today is a very different presentation, a presentation that involves putting their equipment on poles that we don't even own. They're owned by National Grid and Verizon, a combination of both. They're only looking to put this equipment, I believe, in two locations, but I'll let the presentation speak to that. I just wanted to give that brief opening statement. think it's a very good example of when government works together with private entities how we can come up with common goals so I'll turn this over to our city engineer Elena Ellis and Rosanna from mobility thank you if you ladies could

▶ 20:24 Gail Infurna: just introduce yourself and then do your presentation and we'll take questions

▶ 20:30 Speaker 9: from the board Elena Perry Casales city engineer Rosanna Ferranti with mobility

▶ 20:39 Speaker 9: senior permitting manager thank you so I'm here more to answer questions as they come up so Rosanna is going to give a brief presentation great well thank

▶ 20:46 Speaker 10: you so much for hearing me tonight I really appreciate everything the city has done so far the engineering department's been fantastic as mentioned earlier we had started at a very different place and we said you know let's work collaboratively let's figure it out and figure out what the solution is we went out we did some site visits we really kind of worked hard to figure out what what will work for Melrose what's acceptable as well as trying to meet some technological needs that the company is trying to achieve so I believe everybody received a presentation I tried to be brief in it just enough to give you a flavor of who mobility is they've been around for over 11 years they're building out all across the country right now we have over 70 thousand locations we're working on so in Melrose there are two proposed sites as a plan and one of them is that West Foster in Maine which is a 25 foot National Grid Verizon pole and I actually have we just built just built our first site in Chelsea locally because we've been working nationally and I brought some pictures so you can see exactly what that looks like because it's live I had like from a couple weeks but really our equipment is very discreet we have no ground space that we need I believe in the pictures in the presentation you saw what a wooden pole looks like with a couple of items on it so I can pass these around because like I said this is just built here thank you

▶ 22:19 Speaker 10: so every jurisdiction seems to work differently with this type of project some of some jurisdictions have had us go through a grant of location some jurisdictions have us go through DPW and have an occupancy permit issued particularly where they do not own the pole where they own a pole such as streetlights and such then we would typically enter an agreement with the city for that use so here as mentioned earlier it's a Verizon national grid pole it's 25 feet it's located over by the police station you probably all know where it is and we are really seeking to move forward and to be able to attach this equipment which they're really the need for this is because so many people are using data and with the 5g and all this new technology coming out it's just

▶ 23:12 Gail Infurna: that's maxing out the network I'll open up the floor now for questions committee

▶ 23:20 Robert A. Boisselle: member alderman Boisselle well this device interfere with the communications with the police department at all different frequencies different frequencies okay now is there any radiation being released not any no

▶ 23:32 Speaker 10: not I mean I can get you the exact technical the reason I'm asking is

▶ 23:36 Robert A. Boisselle: basically on your submittal on form 6.0 you have a sign indicating notice stay

▶ 23:45 Speaker 10: back so that's an OSHA requirement that is not something that we that's something that we're required to have and it's over at the very top of the antenna so just like any other antenna installation you don't want to step up you don't want to be right in front of it just like if you see them on buildings and such those signs exist there as well okay so basically there is

▶ 24:05 Speaker 10: a low it's very low level because it's a small antenna so it's not your typical installation as maybe you're accustomed to seen in different towns and it's just

▶ 24:15 Robert A. Boisselle: terminology of radio frequency energy may exceed exposure limits uh that it's an ocean i mean i

▶ 24:22 Speaker 10: can get more but we have pushed back on that saying oh this kind of freaks people out to see this well that's what i was asking yeah no no we said you know and they said no this is an osha requirement we have to put that on there it's no different than any other type of antenna dish like i'm sure even dish has some type of you know sign that says to stay away from to not be up close

▶ 24:44 Robert A. Boisselle: right next to it okay thank you very much thank you any further questions

▶ 24:50 Monica C. Medeiros: Alderman Medeiros thank you thank you very much I I'm wondering what is the benefit to Melrose and in doing this so it's right now the customer we have is

▶ 24:59 Speaker 10: Sprint so for Sprint users I don't I'm not sure what carrier the city uses for its municipal services but for Sprint users it allows there's a capacity issue and well Verizon is doing the same thing other companies as well they're trying to offload the amount of data everybody's using on tablets and phones and computers and everything else so this really is a backhaul type of

▶ 25:30 Monica C. Medeiros: capacity solution so for anyone who is living or working traveling through

▶ 25:37 Speaker 10: Melrose who uses Sprint yes that will help there to have that the goal is to have that consistent reliable coverage I'm sure everyone has had that moment where they can't use their phone and they just want to like throw it or

▶ 25:51 Monica C. Medeiros: something yeah this is to meet that and I mean obviously this is a busy area but I've never you know so far I've never heard anybody complaining of having cell issues in downtown Melrose I'm just kind of curious like why was this location

▶ 26:06 Speaker 10: chosen over so the engineers so that's what the engineers do and I'm not an engineer so I don't want to speak out of turn but they analyze data that comes in and how many how often calls are dropped and how often they even I don't call anybody when I my cell phone doesn't work right most people don't call someone unless they're really aggravated they want to kind of vent out but the engineers analyze the statistics of drop calls blocking and so forth and so if it reaches a certain level then that says hey we need to deal with this here and

▶ 26:38 Monica C. Medeiros: need to address it and so the engineers have decided this is an engineering right the place to go and then um i guess to um our city engineer uh is there any we're granting are we actually

▶ 26:50 Monica C. Medeiros: granting this petition right now we're just we're just here so so originally this had come before

▶ 26:54 Speaker 9: the board excuse me as a grant of location for um for a new pole that was uh close to the funeral

▶ 27:08 Speaker 9: and so we had asked Mary Rita not to put it on the agenda right away because we didn't think that this was something that was even worthy of discussing it was not a good location and so we got back in touch with mobility and had a meeting where we said well what is what is really your end goal and so they explained to us what types of criteria they have they have to be certain polls they can't have certain cross members on the polls that restrict the implementation of their equipment and they have to be close enough within a certain radius of the exact location where they're identifying the need so we we went back and forth and came up with these proposals to put them on an existing pole and then mobility resubmitted the application with the existing pole and then at that time we looked into it we spoke with the city solicitor and we determined that there really isn't a permitting process because they need to go through Verizon and they already have a licensing agreement to work with Verizon so we just thought since this issue has come up a couple of times since these applications have been submitted technically to the board it would be advantageous to give you the opportunity to ask questions to understand what their equipment looks like as John said there are two locations right now where they're looking at installing the equipment only one location is really has been proposed at this time but when the second application comes in if it's similarly on somebody else's poll it's not going to come before the board so we just thought you know let's take this opportunity to discuss the big picture and allow you to ask questions but

▶ 28:46 Monica C. Medeiros: there's no need for a vote to be to me for a vote and there's and you feel like you've worked everything out enough that there's no need for conditions to be added to this for instance as we often see with real permit yeah given that the

▶ 28:57 Speaker 9: the infrastructure will just go on to an existing pole um and is fairly low profile it's not you know things you see on the giant cell towers that you see here and there so

▶ 29:15 Monica C. Medeiros: my office didn't see a need to have conditions it does look like it's not going to be you know overly intrusive or overly you know ugly if you will um and just on my my last question is we We spend a lot of time dealing with double poles and a lot of frustration over them because we have to Verizon or National Grid, whoever it is, puts up a double pole and they have to wait for all the other utilities on the pole to move over. Can you talk about the experience that mobility has had with moving its equipment when needed?

▶ 29:52 Speaker 10: needed if there's well you know we'll move the equipment i mean clearly so under federal law the utility companies cannot prohibit us from going on a poll unless structurally it doesn't you know we can't gather otherwise they do have to accept our request to be located in the right of way on the utility pole in terms of they need if they need to do work on it we can't it's their poll we can't control it all i can say is our installation does not require any poles or anything it literally takes one day for us to put the equipment up and so if you had to move it it we would we would have to move it we we can't yeah national green horizon would make us you know i

▶ 30:30 Monica C. Medeiros: mean obviously you operate in you have 70 000 locations so i'm sure in some cases you know somebody drives into the pole and it has to be moved and things like that is that do you know

▶ 30:41 Speaker 10: if that's happening on it it hasn't happened yet but we would we we have um we're negotiating with um the state of Massachusetts as well as city of Boston and it's all you know if we're on a poll and it needs to be moved or there's a city need or a state need we move that's pretty much

▶ 30:58 Monica C. Medeiros: the uh the standard of course ask that you know if that oh yes no no you move quickly no I've

▶ 31:02 Speaker 10: heard about the double pull issue across many jurisdictions so I get it I got it thank you

▶ 31:09 Gail Infurna: thank you very much thank you we have uh Alderman MacMaster Margolis for the first time oh thank you

▶ 31:13 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: you what's the range of the antenna a half-mile radius okay so that's why you're gonna want a second one it's really just for no people in Melrose

▶ 31:25 Speaker 10: yes it's really trying to get to the street level that's why have you if you've noticed the technology is evolved from like these huge towers and I'm just coming down down down to the I mean with these you know the automatic cars and all this like new technology coming out that you'll see everybody trying to you know figure out how to manage the usage and you don't have any other there's no

▶ 31:44 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: other equipment in the in the area that you would anticipate interfering with your service at all and I know we don't need to do a grant of location but what about like the installation of it how is it going to be at all disruptive to the sidewalk or pedestrians when you're doing it or anything like that so what

▶ 32:05 Speaker 10: we typically do is get any type of required road detail or you know we manage those permits in some jurisdictions we've had you know we need to get an electrical permit to install the equipment and then we also like I said clear it with the road detail or whatever whatever needs to happen we get

▶ 32:23 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: the right permit and that's something that our city engineer will handle

▶ 32:26 Speaker 9: internally yeah typically the outside contractor like a Verizon or Comcast is working on a pole they call in their own details but any questions that mobility has you can certainly come through engineer okay great so we're we're

▶ 32:37 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: really only going to need to place this on file right we do have a few other

▶ 32:42 Gail Infurna: positive yes thank you we have committee member all the been boys L for the

▶ 32:48 Robert A. Boisselle: second time on your instant maps here that you have or pictures how is the antenna powered by AC where are you getting your power from so there's so we

▶ 33:02 Speaker 10: we tie into power on the pole itself well right where the nearest power is so something does a hundred feet underground so we need to tap into power

▶ 33:14 Robert A. Boisselle: it's not self-powered okay you have a so you have a box about 12 probably 12 feet off the ground and then you have a conduit going into the concrete sidewalk are you saying that the power you're going to go down into the concrete well

▶ 33:31 Speaker 10: so I don't know please we have a set of plans and so it depends on have to go underground sometimes you have to go aerial it depends how it's set up okay I

▶ 33:41 Robert A. Boisselle: mean on 5.0 it looks as though you're tapping the power on the pole itself you

▶ 33:51 Speaker 10: have an AC panel oh okay so then that would be the case here it differs from site to site okay so basically I'm not a construction person so I don't want to

▶ 33:57 Robert A. Boisselle: get to so basically the conduit going straight down as a concrete looks like is a grounding element yeah that would make sense yeah because all of them indicates here they're all going to the ground which goes straight down and it's

▶ 34:11 Speaker 10: shielded at the same time yeah this reference is a grounding riser okay so

▶ 34:13 Robert A. Boisselle: the power is coming off the pole itself all right thank you thank you next in

▶ 34:19 Gail Infurna: queue is alderman's work oh thank you madam chair thank you for our guests

▶ 34:22 Michael P. Zwirko: for being here this evening so curious so I know that you had stated earlier that the engineers were the ones that selected the poll likely due to wireless access and the need I was just curious was there any assessments that were done in the poll itself with the owners either Verizon or national that's in the

▶ 34:37 Speaker 10: process right now so we're going through so we have national master lease agreements license agreements with both National Grid and Verizon and so they're going through the field survey results now so potentially this could move it

▶ 34:51 Michael P. Zwirko: could move well if the poll the quality of the poll is insufficient well if the

▶ 34:55 Speaker 10: if the poll doesn't work which we think it's we think based on preliminary discussions with them it does it's just going through their process which i'm sure you guys know is a process um then we would have to come back and figure out a different solution we did look at the street light that's right next to it but there's there seems to be already an antenna on that we don't know whose it is but we but um so that's why we couldn't do the street light but if that didn't work then we'd have to go back and we'd work with the city again to figure out a solution

▶ 35:25 Michael P. Zwirko: um yeah no i understand it's just it's a it's a funky uh position we're put in i mean we're not here to authorize judgment or or power we're just kind of hearing out what the city's doing so it's i know that you're not drilling into the ground or using city-owned polls it's just it's just an interesting position to be in um so i just had a couple other questions i guess um you said that there's other sites that you're planned for the city we have one other site we're looking at over

▶ 35:49 Speaker 10: by the hospital over by the hospital there's an intense demand for data uh so but over there we're having a little bit of an issue because we know there's no new polls so we're trying to not we're trying to find a poll that works there is one poll there that could work but it may be there might be an issue because it might be on the house owned by the hospital so we're trying to work through that but no we are not proposing any new polls but that's the only other site in melrose is by the

▶ 36:18 Michael P. Zwirko: hospital and is is the position maybe uh miss paracas ellis could answer this is the position that these be on private polls versus city-owned polls no no position right away we would be

▶ 36:28 Speaker 9: amenable to having them put on um city-owned you know street lights or something if that ended up being the best location um and then we would have to have an agreement with mobility for that location and potentially come for a grant of location if it was going to be on a city-owned

▶ 36:46 Michael P. Zwirko: yeah because i i read in your materials that uh obviously this is being a privately owned poll that you're going to pay a fee to uh verizon or national grid for the use of its poll so i would imagine you would do the same obviously if it were the city correct it's a

▶ 36:57 Speaker 10: regulated like utility rate is what they charge so that would be that's the that's the rate that

▶ 37:06 Michael P. Zwirko: we would pay for the city as well well and the reason the reason i asked that is because i know that we levy taxes on polls within the city of melrose um whether or not they're owned by verizon international grid and those fees are come back to individuals who myself get their cable through Verizon that's a small fee so we bill property taxes on the polls then Verizon very smartly bills it back to the consumer so the value of this particular poll in my mind has gone up so I would just hope that the city officials that are going to allow these to be placed on the polls understand that the value of said poll has gone up and therefore said taxes should be levered accordingly I don't have a problem with this at all it's like I said it's just a weird position to be in you know the city's gonna move forward on this you know I would hope that Public Works and engineering division would come before us if these were to crop up more regardless I don't know if they'll be a proliferation but again where society and technology is going and the use of data I mean five years ago people cared about their minutes now they care about data so you know it's it could be something we see more of you know I'm glad that you've done a lot of homework and that this company is doing this across the country so a lot of the issues you've heard and dealt with you you're not coming here as your you know this is your first project so I appreciate that I just wanted to raise those so it's on record but I wish

▶ 38:33 Speaker 10: you luck and no we're trying to work with the city we're trying to work with jurisdictions we're not you know we're trying to figure out the solution for this date i mean it's like not nobody wants that the infrastructure and the equipment but everybody wants the the benefit consistent you know and so it's really such a balance no it is

▶ 38:47 Michael P. Zwirko: but it doesn't seem that intrusive on the poll itself and i think this is a good this is a good

▶ 38:51 Speaker 10: um a good location and to me it's all about location right so if you start there and then you know height and then discreteness you're moving in the right direction that would be my personal opinion but all right well thank you i appreciate that madam chair

▶ 39:07 Gail Infurna: also the ultimate um next in queue i have alderman um Medeiros for the second time and then president

▶ 39:17 Speaker 1: gone i'll defer to president khan okay president yeah thank you when i first heard about this issue um from mr shenna several months ago i said the last thing we need is another poll on the street in melrose i appreciate the applicant and the engineering and public works departments working together so that we don't have another poll in the downtown area i think this is a good solution

▶ 39:40 Speaker 11: uh i hope it will continue i hope other vendors will uh will take advantage of this type of

▶ 39:45 Speaker 1: opportunity we don't want any more polls double single or otherwise in melrose so if this works

▶ 39:51 Speaker 1: and allows you to do what you need for your customers uh this is a much better solution

▶ 39:54 Speaker 11: than having us vote on a grant location on a poll i moved to place disorder on file

▶ 40:04 Monica C. Medeiros: thank you on discussion thank you thank you very much madam chair I just two things and just came up with Alderman Search comments I don't recall us taking a vote to tax telephone poles here in Melrose perhaps that's happened and didn't require our vote I'm wondering if perhaps either the city engineer or public works director knows it off the top of their head and you

▶ 40:37 Speaker 3: confirm that tomorrow with the chief assessor let you know but it's not it's

▶ 40:45 Monica C. Medeiros: not something that we would do right no definitely so if if perhaps so we can

▶ 40:49 Gail Infurna: get that answer John if you could just send out a memo yeah I can forward the

▶ 40:54 Speaker 3: information myself or I'll have the chief assessor send something out himself directly to the entire board I appreciate that because I did have a

▶ 41:02 Monica C. Medeiros: question about that from a constituent today as well so and John when you speak

▶ 41:07 Gail Infurna: to them and have them could you just make sure Mary Beth Harrington our city clerk get that so she can put it into the IQ m2 and and just last but not

▶ 41:17 Monica C. Medeiros: least and I did want to ask just as a request and I'm sure it would be probably considered but since this location is still pretty close to the funeral home and that maybe if you're able at all to before the work is done to confer with them to make sure it doesn't conflict with if they have any

▶ 41:38 Speaker 10: kind of big services going on oh absolutely we'll coordinate yes we can definitely reach out and make sure that when we it's like I said it's a one-day installation so we'll just make sure it's the right day thank you thank you

▶ 41:48 Gail Infurna: very much that's it so you know for the questions we had a motion that was to place on file that was duly seconded all those in favor all those opposed that order will be placed on file thank you very much for your presentation this evening and answering your question motion to adjourn Alderman Wiesel makes motion to adjourn seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis all those in favor adjourn say aye aye all those opposed public works is