Let me know when we're live.
Start recording.
Oh, thank you.
Okay, we're live.
Alrighty.
Okay, I would like to call this meeting of the Bedford Planning Board to order.
Tonight's meeting has been convened in accordance with the governor's March 13, 2020 Executive Order 20222.2, which suspends certain provisions of the open meetings law to allow a municipal board to convene a meeting via video conferencing.
In accordance with the Executive Order, the public has been provided with the ability to view tonight's meeting via video conference,
or to participate by telephone, and the transcript will be provided at a later date.
I'm going to do a roll call of the Board members to make sure there's a quorum.
Is Mr. Chairman here.
Hi, here.
Mr. Cateleado.
Here?
Dr. Lewis.
He's joining me right now.
Okay, let's wait a moment for Dr. Lewis to join.
There she is.
Dr. Lewis, would you please tell us your present.
Dr. Lewis?
Sorry, I've been muted.
I am here.
I've heard you now.
And the chair is also present.
We do in fact have a quorum tonight.
And the secretary has the meeting been properly noticed.
Yes, it has.
So, I have confirmed with the Secretary that this meeting has been doing noticed.
We have to build our legal notice requirements by posting notice on the town's home page
of its website and providing it to the appropriate news outlets.
A link has also been provided so that the public can view the meeting, and I'm advised
that that link is active and working.
Furthermore, our webcast of the meeting is available on the town's website and a video
and transcript of this meeting will be available.
We ask that all men, people, the public, mute themselves at this time until they are directed to speak so that they will be no interference during the meeting.
Before we actually start with the business of this meeting, I have a very sad announcement to make our town council Joel Sax passed away suddenly after short illness yesterday on behalf of the board.
I am sorry. I offer our condolences to Joel's wife and family. We mourn the loss of a
colleague, but more than that we mourn the loss of a friend and even a mentor. Joel was smart,
caring, ethical, and very, very kind. His pain leaves a hole in our hearts. Thank you for your time.
I'd like to now begin the meeting, excuse me, with the first item on our agenda, which is a public hearing.
The Honour applicant is our Jamie and Judith Diamond.
It is an application for preliminary subdivision approval.
This is somebody here to speak for the applicant.
Yes, Charles Montevano, for the applicant and with me tonight is also rich, ladies from
inside into you. Thank you. And there's just someone who's been before the Board of
Art, I echo your sentiments exactly about it. It is a great loss and thank you for the great
comments. This is a summary of subdivision application, but in the form of a lotline and just
And if I could have Rich put the map up on the board,
we'll walk you through it.
It's situation where the diamonds are the owners
of a parcel of property,
consistency of 33.803 acres.
And as a way Rich to blow it up a little bit,
so we can see in a lot of mining chains, right in the middle.
What's important to understand about this application,
it's a exchange that points it out.
The diamonds are acquiring parcel X as shown on that plan from their neighbors, the names, and they are transferring to the names parcel Y.
So it is almost an exact swap.
I think the difference was around 1,400 square feet.
The purpose of that was to ensure that we didn't create any non-informities on the main course.
And the purpose of a lot of my adjustment, as you can see, if you can see within the area of parcel X,
there is already an existing access from the private road to the diamond parcel where you
see that there's a building down there. This has been in effect three years and I think originally
it may have been that they thought that they own the property but in fact it is owned by the means.
So this is to affect Sweden National Transfer of that property from the mains to the diamonds.
And I said it. That's it. I'm not saying I wish there was more but that's it.
Any questions or comments from members of the board?
Questions or comments from members of the audience?
You may unmute yourself to make a comment.
Or ask a question.
It's just not seem to be an overly controversial issue.
It seems quite straightforward.
It's drastman.
Is there anything that you have to add about it?
Anything we're overloaded?
No, this little property swap doesn't really create anything
that we are concerned with.
There's no problem with the cutting-off and access that might otherwise exist or anything like that as far as I can.
No, it's actually the reverse.
It's solidifying and existing access point.
Which is a positive.
This seems extraordinarily simple to me.
Would any of the board members entertain a motion?
How should you prove? Well, before we do that, could I have a motion to adjourn the, to, oh, motion
to adjourn the public hearing.
Motion to adjourn the public hearing.
Close the public hearing.
But that's my fault.
No, that's okay.
I was just back away.
And I said.
Could I have a second?
Second.
Second. Okay.
We have a motion as second.
Is there any discussion?
All in favor of ending the public hearing. I'll take the roll. Dr. Lewis, I, Mr. Cateliano.
Hi. Mr. Tierney.
Hi.
And the chair votes aye.
So the public hearing is closed.
Would you like to see as you have done before a lot of adjustments we can move right to final pay if that would be possible?
I don't see a reason why not. In this particular case there were no issues raised in the
in the public hearing, and we have no conditions on it.
Mr. Austro-Midies, can you see any reason not to move to a...
No, no, you have the authority to do that.
You're basically waving the second hearing.
What I think, Dr. Lewis, did you do the...
What should you approve with no conditions?
Right, so would you like to amend that to approve both preliminary and final?
Women are in the final. Yes, I would like to thank you.
Second.
You said.
I don't care before we.
Can you hear me okay?
Yes, yes, I can hear you Mr Gordon.
I'm just checking with the director of planning.
Is there this there need to be a determination.
Undersecret before there will be.
Thank you.
We do it in a different order.
So there is there is a motion and a second on the floor.
Let's table that and turn to the.
environmental clearance form. They have declared that it is a type two or
exempt action could I have a motion?
Don't move.
Okay. Is there any further discussion of the being a type two or
exempt action? Then I'm going to call the roll. Dr. Lewis.
I, Mr. Catoliano.
Mr. Catoliano, you have to unmute yourself.
Aye. Mr. Tierney. Aye.
And the chair also votes aye.
It is the type two or exempt action moving back to the original item on the on the floor.
Is there any further discussion?
I'm going to call the roll.
Dr. Lewis. Aye.
Mr. Catoliano. Aye. Mr. Tierney. Aye.
And the chair also votes aye.
you have it, and what may be one of the fastest subdivision
of the rules we've ever given.
Thank you very much, everyone, good night, we'll be safe.
Take care.
The next item on our agenda is a discussion of Indian Hill Road, we're here tonight to hear
a presentation from Gunniston consultants on the alternative horizon public utility wireless
communication facility, Gunniston is going to do a presentation on a possible alternative
approach to providing self-service in the village of Bedford in the Bedford Village area.
Before we begin that, I didn't want to offer a clarification on behalf of the planning board,
because in the number of newspaper articles and the like, it's been said that we were implied,
I'm not sure which is the proper word, that we were suggesting that one single tower in the
could, in fact, provide service for the entire town of Bedford.
There was some miscommunication here that,
largely we could never have said that, because there is already more than one large tower in the town of Bedford.
We recently approved, have begun the site discussions for one in Bedford Hills.
near Haines Road, near the Bedford Memorial Park
in the former sewage treatment plant area.
And there are others in the town as well.
I think the confusion came from an argument that we've made
that if we were to, as everybody realizes this began
with a proposal for a tower at Hickory Lane
In the Bedford Village area,
we, the board has had some concerns about the Hickory Lane one, particularly what it covered and where, as an alternative Verizon suggested, another location at Stone Hill, the problem that we have with both of those are one of the problems that we have with both of those is that in both cases,
I think most people realize is not well-covered by cell service, things are far-spotty or in bed-for-village, then, and either Katona or Bed-Ville's parts of Bedford.
And either one of those two existing towers would leave still a significant gap, which leaves the possibility of another second tower coming in at a later date to fill that gap that would be left.
It's been proposed and this is what we are talking about and still very much at the beginning of talking about.
It's been proposed that a location on the edge of Indian Hill Park might actually cover enough of that considerably more than either the Hickory Lane proposal or the Stone Hill proposal.
and cover enough that there would be no significant gap left, although there would still, of course, be small gaps left.
And that's why we're considering it might mean that we only need one large tower in the bed for village area,
but we were never talking about the entire town of Bedford when we talked about that.
So I just wanted to clarify that because there seems to be some misunderstanding about it.
That said, the President of Indian Hill Park have gone to great efforts, and I applaud them
for this in hiring Garnerson consultants to try to give us some alternative approaches
to this and where we have given them this form to make their presentations.
We have a large crowd tonight, the purpose of this meeting is for all of us to see the presentation.
They have requested the presentation go forth undeninterrupted and I think that's a very good idea.
So there will be no questions from the Planning Board or anyone else during the presentation.
And I'll ask my fellow members to do not interrupt the speakers.
We are not going to entertain questions from the public for this meeting.
If you have questions as you go as we go through the discussion, what I would urge you to
do is to put them into the chat or to email them to Kim Kołowsky, they are not going to
be handled tonight.
We will pass on the ones that are relevant to the Anderson, to the Anderson, the ones that
relevant to us. We will look at. So I do want to point out to you because sometimes things get a little wild and willy in the chats for things like this. It can be a little bit like social media.
To keep in mind that the chat in this case is going to become part of the official record of the town subject to affordability and that sort of thing.
And one might want to keep a civil tone in what one puts there because chances are you're
Our name will be connected to it as well. So we welcome questions. We also welcome civility along the way.
With that said, the other thing I'm going to mention is that we are, in fact, going to silence the microphones during the talk.
And then eventually released the microphones of the planning board and our consultants so that we can ask questions at the end of the talk after
the folks from Gunnarston have completed their presentation.
I would ask all of us to watch this within open mind.
We will certainly watch it within open mind, and I hope everyone will pay close attention to everything that is said tonight.
Thank you very much.
And I'd like to turn it over to the folks from Gunderson.
I saw Brian Gunderson's name here.
I did not think he was going to be doing the presentation himself.
So I'm a little bit at a loss for who from Gunnar Sin is going to be doing the presentation.
Brett, Brett Rial, you are going to be doing it. Okay. And you I believe have been unmuted. So I have to work on the mute. And I want to just do some before we start. So I don't mute everybody. And then have to figure out. So these back here. Okay, we will this is this is a complicated situation for all of us.
Bear with us while our secretary gets the system work. We've Brett for you. Thus I am can you hear me. I can
Here's I can hear you right. Yep.
Okay, so that's all who we have unmuted at the moment. I think Ellis had a introductory statement also
actually we had spoken we had spoken to Mr. Cousins and made it clear
that we were not allowing any members of the public to speak.
If you need anything from our town attorney about that, we can have a
steer forward and unmute it as well to discuss it.
But I believe that all.
Thank you.
That's perfectly fine.
Right now, we just have Brett and Jira.
We're unmuted.
You can mute me for that matter.
All right.
So, jumping in, if we did want to thank the town for their feedback, we wanted to thank the planning board also for their willingness to allow us to make this presentation.
We wanted to thank the chair, especially for suggesting that as opposed to just presenting problems that the group, the Indian Hill Park Conservancy presents solutions.
And that's the reason we're here right now.
I was able to view the neat, the last meeting when the 68 Stone Hill Road Craying Test was reviewed.
I must say we were impressed at the chair's time that she took to walk through all of the photos and listen to the feedback from the community.
It seems like the town is really taking a holistic approach to this cellular coverage solution.
We've also noticed the wireless working group put a lot of research into coverage on both the 911 and the cellular.
And it really does look like the town is taking a holistic approach, as I mentioned.
Hopping in a little bit to what it is that we were asked to do.
The goals of our involvement were to number one, make sure that coverage is available.
And I'm assuming everyone can see my screen hopefully if you're not, please give me a head
shake to the negative.
But what we wanted to do is we wanted to make sure that coverage is available.
It's critical to have coverage to the elementary school, to the downtown corridor, and to
that the emergency responders have covers they need in doing their jobs.
The infrastructure that we'll be discussing today is in use right now, including in places
like Medina Washington.
Medina coincidentally, or coincidentally, is Bill Gates' neighborhood.
This is newer technology, it is in use, it is available.
It's also important to understand that small sites do not equal small cells.
There's a large misunderstanding among the general population of the United States
right now that there are smaller sites that are not small cells and there are small sites
that are small cells and we'll cover that a little bit more in depth as we get into
this.
What we're looking at is planned targeted coverage.
How do we cover the areas?
How do we fill the gaps?
And also making sure that we understand that should a large single tower be built or a large
tower solution be looked at.
Building a tower does not guarantee collocation a little bit more on that one as well.
And as the chair mentioned, one tower will not solve the coverage issues in bed for it will require a multi-site solution.
A little bit on Gunners and Consulting's background.
We work on wireless sites all across the United States.
We've worked in some of the most pristine areas.
We understand the need for restrictive zoning.
We also have experience that allows us to provide alternative solutions.
Another unique piece in our background is we do not provide solutions.
We're going to not provide services to the wireless carriers.
which keeps us free from any conflicts of interest that may taint our solutions or our recommendations.
When it comes to 911 type services, we have built 911 networks. We are designing 911 networks.
We understand how the network goes together. We work with our customers on all aspects of that network,
whether it be administration, legal, down to the end users who actually use the system.
Back to the presentation at hand, the scope of work that we were asked to put forth is not to identify specific locations, not to build a coverage model, but to identify if alternatives are available.
We are not making any recommendations as to specific locations in this.
The number one priority for us that we were tasked with is to evaluate if a 155-foot which could become a 174-tower in Indian helpark could provide the town of Bedford with comprehensive cell coverage.
The number two priority was to identify if other structures could provide similar or better coverage as well as 911 communication coverage to the Bedford Village area.
What we found is that there is no single site solution, again as has been mentioned already.
But the multiple solutions or multiple tower sites would be required, and that it would be up to the wireless carriers,
ultimately to provide locations for each of their individual networks.
And each wireless carrier has different coverage needs.
So a single tower that is that may be built is not necessarily solve that solution.
It's been verified by Verizon in their own submission documents that additional towers would be needed,
especially at the 68 Stone Hill Road, and as any proposed single tower will not provide the comprehensive coverage that's desired,
we recommend taking a more holistic approach, looking at the coverage that's actually that is desired,
and then building the comprehensive model before we build any single solution.
What we found is that by utilizing a multiple different types of structures,
Instead of just a single type of structure,
coverage can be provided to the town.
And also hitting the elementary school,
providing the E9-1 coverage this needed,
using the requirements that are already in the zoning code
to use innovative camouflaging techniques
and minimally invasive structures gets us there.
A little bit on that.
So, again, reminding people that cell towers
having a cell tower does not necessarily mean
you will have cell service.
By that, we mean you may have a Verizon tower, but that doesn't mean AT&T will go there.
There's multiple wireless carriers. Small towers do not equal small cells, because there's
differing technology that's in there.
So what's on your screen right now is model coverage for Verizon wireless network.
And just for reference, you've got the town down here with the building.
You've got the school here, Indian Hill Parks up in this area.
And what we see is yes coverage exists, but it's spotty.
And there's targeted areas where coverage could be built in.
Towers are only one means to do that.
In fact, the communications towers are quite old when they date back to the 1800s.
The current trend is not to build large towers in areas that are populated.
It's to fill in the coverage.
So, for example, if you have a gap in town and you want to build a tower,
you can target that specific area and fill it in
with the utility pole or a smaller structure versus something else
and the same what holds true in outlying areas.
When you look at why a taller tower may not be better than a small tower.
Here's a specific example.
If you build a 150 foot tower in Indian Hill Park,
and you're trying to reach the elementary school,
there's a hill here off seminary road.
And because radio frequencies work largely offline of sight,
you're not able to get across the hill,
and as you move down the tower, should co-locations occur,
the ability to reach the school is even further diminished.
Hopping over to, we mentioned earlier, Medina Washington,
and Medina is Bill Gates' neighborhood Jeff Bezos also lives in the neighborhood.
It is a similar to the Bedford Village area,
because the topography is very diverse.
You have rolling hills.
And in this particular area, just for reference, Bill Gates house is kind of down in here,
and Jeff Bezos lives kind of down in here.
What you find is they're using lower rise structures.
You have utility poles, you have light poles, you have stand pipes, they're using
existing water tanks and even low-rise rooftops from Verizon.
The way those structures actually look when you get down to a granular level, you have
these type of low-rise stand pipes, and you'll see different versions of these as flag poles,
but these are in much smaller types set up water towers that are existing have been used,
and these are surrounded by trees, so that the aesthetic impact is minimized, several different
utility poles, another white pole here that has the cellular integrated on the top.
And then even this pole happens to be a Verizon cell tower that exists, and this one has
been in place since about 1999, if memory serves.
So going back to the model of smaller is not necessarily small cell.
When looking at different small cell networks, they can be poorly implemented as well, and sometimes
not feasible. This particular site comes from Princeton, New Jersey, where they have different
towers surrounding the area. But instead of coming in with a holistic approach, team mobile
specifically is coming in and built a bunch of small cells in less than a one mile radius,
which creates a bit more of a blight than what we would want. What we would prefer to see as a
holistic approach, again, planning coverage and advance, so that when you're building out the
network, you know where you're targeting, and you know what you need, so it's not a piece of
approach.
When looking at the existing wireless zoning code for the town of Bedford, we find
some good things. The code already requires that you utilize existing structures where possible,
you minimize the adverse visual and aesthetic impacts and use innovative camouflage techniques.
Historically in the wireless industry, we do see a model of building the large wireless
towers at the maximum possible as opposed to the minimum possible, and then hoping that you
of additional carriers coming in and co-locating below there.
What is possible as well, though, is building towers at a lower elevation and potentially
extending that tower if a co-locator comes in.
That fits the need of building at the minimum height possible and then working out if you
get the opportunity to co-locate.
One of the other pieces is to minimize the visual intrusion and keeping things in a model
where they're either closer to the tree line or their camouflage
or using existing structures usually fits that bill
and building no higher than the minimum height necessary.
There's a couple of feasts of legislation out there
at the federal and state level that allow for streamlined processes
to extend towers so that you don't need to go large towers.
The downside to that is if you have a 150 foot tower
with no co-locators and you have a tower that is extended
beyond the absolute need, and it seems to miss the intention of the zoning code. It also creates
a double argument. For example, Verizon's contractor C-squared presented a argument that
the 150 foot is the bare minimum height they need. The challenge with that is if it's at 150
feet and that's the bare minimum height, other wireless carriers would not want to take a diminished
position to go any lower on the pole. Of also importance when you're looking at the minimum
height necessary. The minimum height has a lot to do with the design of the network and the coverage
desired. If you go in planning for lower structures and more structures, you're able to design
the network at a lower elevation versus trying to cover something like a sprinkler where you're
shooting out as far as possible. The other pieces blending into the surrounding environment minimizing
the aesthetic impact are a lot easier with the smaller structures, and we were happy to find that
bed for code already anticipates the use of utility structures and structures within the right
of way to provide wireless communication services.
When you look at the model of if you build it will become kind of that field of dreams
thing, what we found is that's not always the case.
These are statistics taken from the most recent reports available from the three largest
tower companies in the United States, keeping in mind that there are four national wireless
carriers and there are a number of smaller entities whether they're wireless internet service
providers, 911 services, or others that would go on a tower, the average tenant per
tower in Crown Castle's portfolio is 2.1, the American tower sits at 1.9, SBA sits
at 1.8, averaging to less than 2.10 its per tower.
Another interesting bit comes from a morning star's analyst report where Crown Castle
had stated that his historically had taken about 10 years to add a tenant to a tower.
So, just building a tower-hope and co-location comes is not necessarily a good model because it generally does not happen across the board.
To the towers that are currently proposed in the town of Bedford, we're aware of three current proposals,
with airs Indian Hill Park with 150 foot-tower, also at 68 Stone Hill Road 150 foot-tower, and 91
Hickory Lane has been revised from a 150 to a 115. Each of these towers do provide distinct
cellular coverage, but as you'll also see, there are some gaps. Before we get into that though,
talking about the 911 coverage. There is a...
Report put together on behalf of the wireless working group by federal engineering, talking about the creation of a tower at Indian Hill Park, as well as several other towers surrounding the town.
And what we'd recommend is, before we look at building new towers, we would recommend looking at existing structures, existing communications structures and existing structures that may provide advanced or enhanced coverage.
So, just taking a quick look at this and again, these are all high-level views.
This is not in-depth engineering, but the current 911 network uses a tower at Kitton
Park, Mount Kispo, Guard Hill, and a utility pole at Indian hills are off of Indian
hills road.
The coverage that you see kind of in this lighter green would be your excellent coverage.
This darker green would be your not as great of coverage and then less coverage of course
below. What we would recommend doing is look first to existing towers and in fact the federal
engineering report does talk about utilizing a tower out here, but there's multiple towers
or structures for example a water tower in this area that could be utilized to add coverage.
And you'll have to forgive the lack of CGI that I use, but when you look at the ability to
cover it if you were to look at the insight towers location. And it put 911 on there, the enhancement
to the coverage would look something like this. If you look at the site above the high school,
you could get enhanced coverage. It looks something like that. And if you use this water tower
up here, you could enhance the cellular coverage even further. So again, not recommending any specific
site, but recommending the use of alternate structures or existing structures to create the
solution seems to make more sense before creating additional towers. As an additional solution,
And first net is a network that was put together at the federal level.
It's currently being managed and run and operated by AT&T, the cost for the infrastructure
or born by AT&T and the federal government, and it provides a commercial grade communication
system that the emergency service providers can't integrate into their network.
When we go back into commercial cellular, there's a few things you'll see consistent throughout
slides, so I want to touch on them briefly before we get too far into it.
When we're looking at the existing coverage, the coverage that you see here in the
green and blue, and let me preface this by saying I've been accused of being colorblind,
so I will say this is green and this is blue, and if you disagree with me that's okay.
The coverage that you'll see here, green is strong reception, blue is fair reception.
The dots are actual drive test dots that were performed using equipment that measures
the wireless signals, this is based on Verizon Wireless's network, so AT&T and T Mobile
may have slightly different coverage patterns, but the green dots that you see here would
be good coverage, the yellow dots that you see would be fair reception, and the red dots
would be very poor reception or drop calls. For reference, and again, this will be consistent
across these slides, the little building here represents the Bedford Village Town area,
the
So as we get into looking at the different coverage, we're going to start with the proposed
tower at Indian Hill Park should Verizon locate on that tower.
And what we would expect from a 150 foot tower, the estimated RF proposal would be what you
see here.
And we outlined that the good coverage of the basic coverage in red.
When we overlay that with Verizon's current network, you see that it doesn't enhance the
that Verizon currently has, but it does leave some significant gaps where coverage would need to be enhanced by other another tower or some other solution.
Important to understand also is frequency matters.
When we look at the frequency that, and let me actually back up briefly by saying the coverage that we're showing here from Verizon comes from Verizon's own report that was put together by C-squared they're engineering firm.
So the modeling that we saw, they were using something in the 700 megahertz band and it's important to understand the frequency does matter because the lower the frequency the farther the signal carries.
So you can see the Verizon Wireless does operate in the 700 megahertz band, but they also operate all the way up into the 19-21-100 frequency band.
The higher the frequency you go, the faster the data typically is carried, but the shorter distance the signal carries.
So how that works is, this is looking at the propagation in the 850 MHz range versus the 1900 MHz range.
Broadcasting from Indian Hills Park over to the elementary school.
And again, carrying through the conventions that we talked about before, the green being the good coverage, the blue being fair.
At 850 MHz, you can see the elementary school in a cut-to-half way through being decent coverage
in great coverage.
When you go up to 1900 MHz, the coverage drops off.
So the modeling that you'll see here is built on the 850 MHz models.
However, it's important to understand that additional coverage will be necessary or you'll
have to model it differently when you're looking for the best coverage.
The multi-site solution allows for that because you can target and surgically insert the
at towers where you need to. To create a tower at Indian Hill Park out of the three proposals,
this would be the highest impact of the three, largely because you have to create a tower,
road we need to be created down this narrow strip of land, back up in here and then over to the
tower, we anticipate it would have to be about a half mile long. The tower itself would create a
tree line, maybe 80 feet above the tree line. Power and fiber would need to be installed, underground,
all the way down that area. It's currently densely tree. There's some talk about the destruction
of animal habitat. We also estimate this would be the longest time to market or the most
difficult site to zone or the longest time frame to get zone due to some of the concerns that
are there. When building a new tower, these, this is a construction build from a recent tower
site. And a road must be created. You have to go in and remove any of the obstructions that are
in the way. Utilities have to put underground debris has to be hauled out. Usually the site
has to be leveled because it's on a hillside. And then the foundation needs to be bored or dug
or however that's going to be created. Once that's done, a reinforce steel basket gets put in the
ground. The concrete gets poured and then the tower stacked and finally the antennas are placed on
the what in this case is to be a faux pine tree. And usually they'll try to disguise the antennas
in some way so that it somewhat matches the surrounding area. From this side, we ran a review,
this is called a reverse view shed. And what it shows is all of the areas surrounding the tower
from which the tower would be able to be seen. And it's not a surprise that it's a fairly large area.
Something we found that was rather interesting is if you can see right in this area, that appears
to be the other monopine that's out in the Pound Ridge area, so you can tell it it definitely
is visible from quite a distance. Switching gears to the proposal at 68 Stone Hill Road. This
is the estimated RF propagation or the coverage that you would get from a tower at 68 Stone
Hill Road. And if we overlay that on the current Verizon coverage, this is about what we would
expect to see where it definitely fills in the central area, but it doesn't even appear to get
to the elementary school or the town.
So it's still leaves significant gaps.
Some side notes on how that works is
it is the closest to the right of way.
We expect that the power and internet are already in the road.
So it would take less to get this one up and running
than the others.
The site does not though intend to really provide coverage
to the town or to the elementary school.
You'll see this this maybe a little for shadowing,
but it doesn't also appear to gain any significant coverage
over using utility pool in the right of way
directly adjacent to the property. Moving on to 91 Hickory Lane. This would be the anticipated
coverage that would get from 91 Hickory Lane. And again, you've got the green being the best
coverage and the blue being the fair coverage. You can see that it does get to the town. It gets
to the school but not as good as you would hope but then the leaf significant gaps. Overlaying that
on the current Verizon network, it gives you a better indication for where the coverage gaps would
again remember, and this is the drive test data, and it would still leave some significant
holes in the town.
91 Hickory Lane would be the second lowest impact site behind 68 Stone Hill Road to
create.
It does provide the most overall coverage, but it provides it more inconsistent coverage,
and it would absolutely require additional coverage solutions, whether it be towers or low
rise type solutions, and it appears also to conclude in this Indian Hill Park.
So, when we get into talking about alternative sites, there's a few things that we look at.
Number one, while in the back of number one, it is important to remember that these are not specific
site solutions.
We're not recommending putting any pins in the map as there may be, we're looking at alternative
types and models that could work.
So the locations we'll reference here are not a reference to a specific recommendation.
Instead, there's something that shows a model of something that can work and has worked in
other locations.
When we look at where the industry is and where it has been, when this information, by the way, comes from CITA, that's a wireless industry group.
When Verizon filed their initial application in 2017, the wireless industry was still primarily using cell towers to provide their commercial wireless service.
Over the last few years, though, the use of smaller structures, whether they be small cells, DASNAT works are just low-rise structures.
The use of the smaller structures is exponentially improved.
There's been a shift in the technology that doesn't necessarily reflect the same infrastructure
that was being used by Verizon when they filed the application.
We have found that utility poles generally can be deployed quicker
because they're already in the right of way.
They're usually already streamlined processes in place,
whether they be from the federal or local levels to either use the existing pole
replace the existing pull with something that will work for the wireless providers.
They offer significant economic advantages as well.
For example, in running a couple of different models using a cost that are familiar to the industry,
the cost of a single tower over a 20-year period when you add in the construction cost,
and there are more significant cost there.
Maintenance and rent, you could pay for five to nine utility pull sites.
So when you add that to the speed to market that the wireless carriers are even the 911 groups can utilize, it provides significant advantages.
Looking now at specific examples or representative examples of non-tower alternatives.
Here are a couple of examples that we used. Again, not using specific sites.
These are simply illustrations. The rooftop of the Bedford Playhouse was looked at.
a 80-foot pole on the water tank property and then 50-foot utility poles at Stone Hill Road,
Long Ridge Road, Old Post Road and Indian Hill Road. And what we found are the coverage is
able to be provided with utility poles consistent across the town in a better manner than what we're
seeing from the towers. So looking specifically at the Bedford Playhouse, if you were to add an
antenna to the Bedford Playhouse, we would expect this outlined area to be the coverage that would be provided.
Overlaying that on Verizon's network, you see you pick up a lot of different coverage, including the town area.
You pick up this, this is Indian Hell Road up here, and of course, seminary road.
And while there are still gaps, we anticipate those and that is afforded for by the multi, or by the multi-site solution.
The way that would look is you would put the antennas on top of the rooftop, it would be screened, so the antennas are not visible from the ground.
multiple wireless carriers could be served for a single site, and 911 could also be added
to this location.
I did note in some of the discussions that 911 was actually talked about putting the
equipment on top of the firehouse as well, so there is a lot of different options to do
this.
Generally, rooftop sites have power and internet to the street, so there's limited disruption
in the creation of those sites.
Looking at a utility pole site, and this would be a site that would be on my apologies for that noise.
At 668 Stone Hill Road directly adjacent from the proposed tower at 68 Stone Hill Road.
We're finding that the coverage is not exact, but it is similar.
It uses a lower height pole than what is being proposed as the tree or the tower,
and either structural not be a single-site solution so we need to look at the most minimally
intrusive site for that location. The coverage that you see from the utility pole versus
the tower is shown here. The blue would be the 150-foot pole. This orange is yellow would be the
utility pole. Overlaying the utility pole on the current Verizon coverage you see you pick up
some significant areas with the roadways, and in the town area, the town area is the same
where you still need additional coverage there, but you do pick up some additional modeling.
Putting that side by side with the proposed Verizon tower, and this is what Verizon sees as
their modeled coverage, and this is what a 50 foot utility pole would cover.
The main difference is going to be signal strength.
You have the excellent, the five bars here, and you probably are four or three or four bars
in this area and with the 50-foot utility pole, the signal strength is apparently one of the predominant
concern or the prominent differences. So the utility pole is still providing coverage and anticipating
a multi-site solution you're still able to meet the goals. What this looks like from an aerial view,
utility pole versus where the tower would be, the tower is up in this area. It's right, this one is
right on the road. There's minimal disruptions because the utility structures are already existing,
911 can use the same type of set up by using utility poles and power and internet because
utilities are already above ground in that area.
They exist.
The power is there.
The fibers are there and the components to get that site on air already exist and it can
be done much quicker.
A slightly different type of approach would be to put an 80 foot pole on the water type.
This is the water tower above town. Should a 80 foot pole be used? This is what we would expect the coverage to be from that location. Overlaying that into the existing Verizon network, we took a little different color scheme here where the magenta is the fill in areas, and you can see you pick up a significant amount of coverage that would be provided by using that structure.
And again, it's an 80-foot pull set back by the water tank, so there's limited visibility
from anyone on main thoroughfares that the property is already a non-residential type
use and it's already owned by the city, so the visual intrusion is minimized.
The construction is minimized because it's an 80-foot pull versus a large cell tower, and
power and fiber are readily available.
Looking at a infill type coverage, a gap coverage would be using utility pull on long-bridge
road. And in this particular case, it's a 50-foot utility pole. This would be the expected coverage
if we were to place the utility pole of this location. By the way, all of these locations
do exist, but again, these are just modeled. If we overlay this on Verizon's network, this
would be the expected difference. So you're picking up the town, you're picking up some significant
roadways and affording yourself additional coverage with minimal visual intrusion. The benefits
here the points here are similar to all of the others it's located in the existing right of way
it provides 9-1 coverage should that be desired and should that be modeled and the utilities already
exist in the location.
The other one that we looked at was how would utility poles look if it was
if utility poles were used versus Indian helpark. Indian helpark is unique in that there are already
are some existing locations, for example, here's what we looked at.
So, and you'd help mark, here is modeled in red.
The covers that would be provided by the park.
When I say there's already an existing structure,
9-1-1 currently uses the utility pole off Andy and Hill Road,
and the anticipated coverage for that would be shown in green,
and there's a row or a pole down here on long-bridge road,
just off of seminary road, that would anticipate
to provide the coverage shown in blue.
So, when we modeled this, we decided to use the pull off of old post-road, which is by the way root 121 for those who aren't familiar with that road.
The coverage that would be anticipated to be gained for that location is shown in blue.
And you can see that picks up a lot of the uncovered areas, a lot of the areas that were previously not having coverage and the reshone and red are picked up.
So the coverage there is very similar to what you would get using a 50-foot pole versus a 150-foot tower.
One of the largest reasons for that is the differences in topography.
This is the slide or the topography that you saw earlier on, where you have the tower, but you have the ridge line here.
This is the topography going from the old post-road to the elementary school.
And as you can see, there's no null there, it's direct line of sight, even a lower structure is able to provide much better coverage because, again, as you would say, in the RF world, see the tower directly.
And again, with utility pull, with utility pull in this situation, it's already existing, it's in the right of way, it's screened by surrounding vegetation, so that it's minimally visibly intrusive.
Now, the way that this works is we have to put all of these pieces together.
We don't expect a single utility pull site or a single low impact site to create
the solution that we're looking for.
So as an example, here's what we put together, and a picture of pop up there in a second,
but I don't want everyone to be too distracted by the picture before we talk about how we
get there.
So if we use the 80 foot pull at the water tank that we talked about, there's also the transmission
line easement across or above town. If you put a 100 foot utility pole or if you use a 100
foot antenna in the transmission line easement and you combine 50 foot utility poles from
long ridge road and pound ridge road, you could expect coverage looks something like this
when you overlay it on Verizon's current network. And as you can see, you get a fairly consistent
coverage throughout town that you that rivals anything that a tower would provide.
Moving forward, the question comes up of, okay, if you're going to use multiple utility sites or multiple sites, how does that look?
Are we going to have towers all over the place?
And what we look at is, if we have four wireless carriers and emergency services are planning on adding new sites.
The model before was done using four wireless sites per wireless carrier.
And EMS plans on adding based on the working groups report eight new sites.
So, if all of these numbers come together, that would be a total of 24 poles that would be needed.
Now, just to give a little bit of context of that, I looked at an area between seminary
Hill Road and just up past Indian Hill Road about a mile and a half in this was on Route 21.
And I counted 21 poles or just over 20 poles in that one and a half mile area.
So, there's not a shortage of utility poles, and if the coverage is planned accurately and appropriately, it's not an excessive number.
Getting you a little different view of how the topography looks in the different areas between 68 Stone Hill Road and the utility road, and this is a topographical map.
You can see the different layouts that we have here, and why some of these sites work out better as far as being able to see different sites in different areas and provide the coverage.
other factors and I won't be labor some of these slides that are a little bit technical
just in the interest of time. Some of the other factors that we look at when we're looking
at different sites, the elevation, the ground matters, the pull and the tower height matters,
the overall height from the top of the antennas, the trees, the square mileage that's covered by
the propagation rather radios that are broadcasting. The impact of the roads that need to be covered
any environmental concerns that may exist and the availability of Internet, of course, is
critical because you've got to get that cellular connection back to the network somehow.
We also look at specific comments like if they struggled to reach a target area or if the coverage
is not being provided, this necessary.
Those are all important facts to consider when building any tower, but especially when you're building a lower site
solution or a lower elevation site.
So we also look at those with lower sites, and then we look at similar factors.
And these are some of the data points that we discussed and we looked at when we were building this model.
Another very important thing to keep in mind that I did touch on earlier is,
we've been talking about Verizon's network.
AT&T and T mobile currently have networks that exist in the town area.
Their coverage needs will be different than what Verizon's is.
And as dish network builds out their nationwide network, their coverage model will be different also.
So, any tower that's built would be built based on assumptions of one carrier, and unless all of the carriers are brought together in a format where they're able to discuss their ultimate needs, it's difficult to plan a single tower or any large tower site that will become a multiple carrier solution simply because the coverage models differ.
So, that's the bulk of the presentation on this single, around the site that we're talking about,
but we did want to give some context to different sites that are available.
So, this is a view of different utility pool sites that we've seen all the way from the smaller light pools
to varying different types of utility structures.
And then, even to the flag pool type, we're even standpipe solutions.
Sometimes they take the flag off and just use that as a standpipe.
This is a newer-style pipe where they've got the venting in it that allows for the RR used to be cooled in the radio equipment to stay cooled.
This site here would be a transmission line set up. Sometimes they will mount the antennas directly on the transmission lines.
Other times they'll build a tower immediately adjacent to it, but the visual impact is already there, and adding antennas to it is again minimally intrusive.
Different types of utility pull structures that are currently in use.
You'll see them from some that are within the tree line, to some that are above the tree line.
You'll see these glue lamp poles, they're laminated poles that allow for higher elevations in additional strength
to using your standard round wood utility poles.
The other types that are currently in use.
This is a utility pole with a 911 antenna on top of it.
Again, this is another flag pole.
This is a 65, the flag pole.
This was a 35 foot utility pole, by the way.
This is a two-story rooftop.
These are two low-rise stand pipes that I don't have exact heights on,
but you can see that they're probably about 20 to 25 feet for this one.
I want to say this one's about 35 feet.
And this is a utility pulse with dash antennas that is clearly within the tree height
that is providing coverage to a targeted area.
Understanding if these will work in Bedford.
When we did our research, and it's important to keep in mind that low-rise structures
are not required to be logged in most databases, so these numbers will be grossed like under-reported
generally, but we did find on the cellular range less than 50 feet of elevation. They're
already 11 in use within 50 miles, 51 to 100 feet. They were 83 that we were able to find
and then you go up from there. Public entities are also using these. These would be EMS or public
works type situations, you have similar numbers on the lower, the lower, rise poles there.
Giving you some insight into additional structures that are used to make sure that they
to limit or minimize the view of these church staples a lot of times will have antennas.
This is a church staples in Southport, Connecticut, where antennas are in that pole or in
the steeple.
When we talk about camouflaging the equipment, that's another piece that a lot of concern
needs to be given to because the equipment can grow and it can be very intrusive.
They are vaults that can be used to hide the equipment.
So this shows the vault that's being installed in Los Angeles, California, right off the
beach.
And when they're done with it, the vault is completely underground and not visible.
It's access via hatch and the antennas are mounted on a light pole in this area.
Some other types of structures that are seen that are that are becoming more and more common.
This is a church steeple that was built to house the antennas and the antennas are hidden in there and the cabling can be routed different different ways
This is a rooftop site with a privacy screen that has antennas behind it a clock tower. Obviously
Water tanks are becoming more and more common where these are a fake water tanks is a screen is built at a fiberglass and the antennas are hidden behind that screen
So, you still have the aesthetic appeal of an older water tank.
The building couplers are frequently used when they're designed and custom built that way.
This flagpole right here is in Havashra and the hotel coupler here is in Nanyuat and then
silos can also be used to how's the antennas.
In addition to getting either views of different types of structures that are currently being
We also wanted to create a couple of photos simulations to show what a 50-foot antelate air utility pole structure could look like
And this would be on a long-ridged road anticipating a 50-foot utility pole and this is from 150 feet away
So facing north and facing south. That's what we would expect that to look or look like
We also built one of those for pound-ridged road and again facing west and facing facing east
What the views of a utility pole would look like in those instances?
The next piece would be options for equipment vaults and I alluded to this earlier with the with the one on the ocean side
But generally they can be buried underground in the access either via hatch or a manhole type setup and this is a good example of one that's been installed where the equipment is right here
And the antennas are mounted on top of this light pole there
And as you can see the topography there is very similar where it's rolling that it's not as heavily treated of course as the area that we're talking about
And then just a simple size comparison for different towers, how it looks side by side, the 150-foot tower, obviously, dwarfs, everything else, where it just is a 100 feet taller than the utility pool.
But in addition to that, you can use the 50-foot utility poles, and depending on application, you can use shorter structures as well.
So, those are the pieces that we've put together for this presentation.
I'll turn the time back over to the chair to see if there's any questions that we need to handle right now.
Okay, can you hear me? Oops, I got to turn my video back on. Can you hear me? Yes, I can.
I think at this point, I'm going to ask Kim to unmute the members of the Planning Board and our wireless
consultant
and our town attorney and Mr. Osterman
and have I left anybody out.
Oh, they've been
members of the spokesperson members of the wireless committee.
That would be Kyle and Hank and.
I appreciate.
I do appreciate the presentation.
It's it's very interesting.
Some of it we actually have been aware of.
I was pleased to hear you talking about.
That it makes sense to ask tower people to build, if you're looking for, for a
co-location, if you are looking for co-location, which at the moment dark our code requires
us to do, that it can make sense to ask a carrier to build, build for two carriers and build
with the structure that could then support four carriers,
if necessary, but not put them there right away.
Interestingly enough, we suggested just that
at what the Bedford Hills site that we're talking about.
I think it was at our meeting two weeks ago
and the homeless who's building that site
is looking into that possibility.
We've had rather more success with co-location
Then I guess some other places have from what you've said I know the green line tower has all four
spaces taken. The Bedford Hills one is proposed for two sites already.
There are two separate licensees for the home one talent. There, Jeff, do you know, do you know a
fan, how well we're doing otherwise with collocation? The rapid prison site, I think.
Well, the ones that corrections are more than one carrier, you know, the ones that fox lane,
I believe all four carriers of fox lane, are these the ones immediately on the, or immediately off the freeway?
Well, there's also a set of 684, that's a multiple installation also.
Yeah.
I have seen that some of the towers around the town, especially in the high traffic areas,
where you have the freeways or high traffic counts.
Some of those do have collocations and some of them.
There are a couple of towers that one comes to mind that is near the correctional facility,
but it's not directly there that only has a single tenant.
So it does happen.
It's important, though, to understand or to make sure that going in, it's not, especially
in a remote area or a more rural area, to not necessarily build it for tenants that haven't
even been approached yet, but you have taken a thoughtful approach I've seen with the tower
up by the water treatment plant.
Yeah.
And what happened with the one, it's not something we're particularly pleased with with
one in the one that only has one carrier on it in the light industrial zone, we had built
that one or we didn't, you know, we didn't build it.
We approved that one.
It was in precisely the kind of place where we felt that sort of thing belonged, which was
in the middle of a industrial area by a quarry, then the tower and the prison came by.
We had no control over that, of course, the prison is state property, so the tower went in and went into competition with the one that we had had done, so that's one of the planning issues that can be frustrating for municipality that we have all of these other organizations whose rights and privilege was over right hours.
The reason the one is the one in that we approved is now obsolete is that the prison came in and built it and even bigger and taller tower and licensed it out and we could do nothing about that.
So it was an unfortunate situation, but not that has not happened with any of the towers that have been part of our larger plan.
and it was partly to try to avoid that kind of thing that the town has decided to take a holistic approach and have the wireless committee do the work that it's been doing for the last couple of years.
We've seen that.
We've seen the thoughtful approach and the comments that have been made, especially with the Hickory Lane with regards to not breaking the view line or the ridge line with the views that would be created by a tower.
and the feedback that you were taking into account from the community is to the impact of the
crane test as 68 stone hill. We can see that the town is absolutely taking the concerns
of the citizens and their constituency into account and recognizing when there is visual impact.
Yeah, and we will be talking a little bit about there were some shortcomings with the
that we will acknowledge with the balloon test, but we'll talk about that at the end of the
discussion here, because we are going to consider doing another balloon test, but we'll talk
about that in more detail later.
The problem we have, at least the problem that I have with it,
and it may be a lack of understanding,
and we've been talking to consultants about
The kinds of alternatives that you have talked about, and in fact, if you look at even the first presentation that our city scape did, it shows that we are looking at small cells.
Now, I understand, I understand would be too strong a word, I will admit.
I do understand that you're saying that what you're proposing are not small cells.
And that made it a little bit more clear to me because when I first saw your presentation
and thought of these as small cells, they contradicted everything that our consultants
told us about how far a small cell could reach.
So I'd like to talk a little bit about what the real nature of these towers that you have
are because our immediate reaction has been that this is what our professionals have told
us smaller, it's what they've told us small cells cannot do.
Now, you're saying it's not small cells, what, how does a 150 foot tower reach the same
extent that a 50 foot tower does so consistently, as your things show?
I'm thinking of that, the one picture that you had with the three,
Let's see, it was Indian Hill Park and the tower by, I'm sorry.
You're fine, let me bring it up. I think this is the one you're talking about here.
I should get my copy of this on my eyes ahead.
Let me touch briefly on the small cell versus the others.
Small cell and let me just bring this one up because it has a picture of a small cell on it.
Smallsill is generally built to have a much smaller radius.
They use as a higher frequency because it's targeting,
putting higher data or reusing frequency in a smaller area.
So the equipment that would be utilized is much different.
You've got smaller antennas.
You have smaller base station equipment.
And again, you're operating at much lower power levels,
which it's not meant to broadcast it to a large area.
They're typically used in commercial areas where it's high density population.
You'd see it like it, for example, in the downtown Bedford area, it may make sense.
When you get out where you have one, two, three to five acre lots,
it's not going to make sense because the economics just aren't there.
So it depends on the situation and what our recommendation always is,
is let's look at the best application for the situation.
If we try to hit everything with the tower,
you're probably not going to get coverage as well as if you use multiple different types of solutions.
So it's small so what we're recommending and proposing for the entire area, absolutely not.
This small so have an application maybe in limited use, but when you have the lower elevation locations
that we're talking about, those use the same type of equipment that a macro site would use
meaning the large platform antennas you have the base station radios.
You use similar equipment you're just using a smaller tower.
Okay, and that was actually what threw me about it.
And there probably is something I'm missing here.
But so the piece of equipment that's on top of the tower is a knitting
the same intensity of RF that the antenna that's on a 150-foot tower is a knitting.
not necessarily. So it's a great question because this is this is something that everyone
runs into. And Kim, if you can unmute Ryan, he can also add some additional insight to this.
But when you model this cell site, you can do it based on a few different factors. Frequency
is one. The power level is another one. The elevation is another one. The topography and what
we call the clutter, the different pieces of foliage or buildings or other things that could
impact the signal. Those are all factors that you look at. So a tower that is sitting at a lower
elevation wouldn't necessarily need to cover, and if you can still, there's still a student
my screen, I'm kind of highlighting a couple. It wouldn't need to necessarily operate at the same
level as something on a mountaintop, but it can still use the same frequencies in the same equipment
and provide coverage to the area. We can't see your screen. We can't see you right here.
I'm sorry.
Ah, well, that's a, we're having something I can remedy.
Can you see the screen now?
Now we can.
Okay.
So I was circling this one here because it's one of the lowest rise pictures that we've got
or the lowest rise pieces of infrastructure.
But you would have normal cellular antennas within that platform, but it doesn't need to operate
at the same radio power, the same ERP is what we'd call it as a tower on a mount
top if that makes any sense.
But now that does make sense. So let me ask something when you met the say that the
one I was talking about and I've almost gotten to it. I can tell you which
that number page it's on hold on. I've got mine. Anybody else gets to figure out I think
I'm sorry, it must be an easier way to do.
Ah, is there it is, it's 53.
53, yes, slides are 33.
So, this one here?
Yeah.
Well, when you say that the Howard Olpos Road is reaching as far as the 150 foot tower,
and you know, what power is it?
Is it act to do that?
What happened?
This one, and I'm going off memory here,
But I believe that this was a 50-foot tower on 150 watts in the 850 megahertz range.
And how does 855 watts, how does that connect like that?
What would have been what would be on the 150-foot tower?
For consistency, we ran them at the same.
So in this case, you're talking about putting, again, as I said earlier, a fairly
high intensity antenna at both at 50 feet. What does that do to the calculations for figuring
out whether or not an antenna meets FCC requirements or the tap on?
That would, good question. That would need to be run generally if you're on a 50 foot tower.
Our experience is that you'll still be within the FCC guidelines generally at those levels
you're well well within the FCC guidelines, but that would, excuse me, that would absolutely
need to be modeled and run by a RFC, it's someone that performs the RF engineering for that.
And you would be in addition to that, so you would meet the guidelines, people will
the guidelines, but still probably be higher than you would for the 150 foot.
From our experience, it would meet the guidelines and logic would say it would be lower because
the farther do you get from the RF source, the lower the RF, the maximal permissional exposure
is the MPs.
How do you want to say something?
I just have a question.
I'm not quite understanding what you're saying, and if you could just go through for me, but
And it seems to be that if you're at just a 50 foot height with the same radiation, it's going to be instead of being like 150 feet above someone's head and 500 feet from their house, now you're talking about making it only 50 feet, you know, which makes like 40 feet above their head and maybe 50 feet from a house.
I know we're not supposed to consider the health effects of the frequency, but are you telling
me that there is no difference in how that effect people?
So real quick, if Kim can unmute Brian, he actually just ding me and ask if he could be unmuted,
he can weigh in on this.
I want to.
I have to try.
Okay.
So to answer the question from a high level, will the RF exposure be more than from a tower that is one mile away?
And would the tower be with the RF exposure be less from that tower one mile away from a tower that's 15 miles away?
The answer would naturally be yes.
From the FCC's perspective though, they'll also look at the maxable permissible exposures, the MPEs.
And if you are 5% versus 7% you're still within those guidelines and again, you're, like you just mentioned, we're not allowed to consider those, but we also want to make sure that it's reasonable.
We're not talking one mile away. I'm sorry, but we're not talking one mile away. We're talking about sites that examples you've given us, where the tower,
Um, at Indian Hill is we put a hundred feet away from any residents, the one on all post
road is, I believe, within a hundred feet of a resident's actually maybe two or just
feet, but I think it's more like a hundred feet of a residents.
So it's found.
Can you hear me now?
Gotcha, Brad.
Okay.
So there's a code section in the FCC.
And I also refer to the bulletin 65, which is the science required for determining this.
So the FCC says anything that is above 32 feet is categorically safe for all of the emissions.
All of these sites. The bulletin 65 goes into more depth, which talks about the horizontal distance, as well as the vertical distance.
In our experience, anything that is more than about four to six feet away from directly in front of the antennas becomes safe.
And we know this because we do this on building tops, all of the time, where we have what's called controlled environment, which are your roof workers, and you'll find that, you know, they're gated or skirted around the antennas out to a certain distance.
And we measure that with attached rad-mans to their belt, essentially.
So those go off if they ever get into that envelope within that six feet area or so.
And then we usually calculate that down into the first floor of a building
so that the top floor of a residence or school or whatever.
We calculated it below the ground, below the roof.
So from the experience level that we have, the knowledge that the FCC bulletin 65, which is the science part of the FCC for non-ionizing radiation levels, and what the FCC has essentially mandated in their order is that, yeah, roughly anything above 32 feet is categorically safe.
Now, and I, and I do understand that in terms of making decisions about these things, we are preempted, we don't, we don't based our decisions on the health issues.
So I'm thinking of this more from a categorical point of view.
You know, part of what I was hoping for from this because as some of the representatives
from the friends of Indian Hill have said, these self-taught applications are among the
worst that we have to be over because we are preempted and so much, and because there's
Nobody who wants them, frankly, sometimes for greater reasons, but often for a
reasons that the federal government doesn't recognize. And it may not be
entirely rational. I am married to a scientist to a physicist. And I do
on a personal level. I'm pretty well convinced that I probably get more
damage from the cell phone I put up to my I years and I do from any
with that far away from. But if we're talking about
finding multiple sites, smaller sites that have all of the same RF characteristics of the tall tower sites, only we're going to have more of them.
Then we would have the tower sites. I think it's something we have to have to consider pretty good.
but that's why I wanted to make sure that that's actually what you were saying.
The one I added note that I would say is that the pole configuration is a single carrier and the envelope
for the near levels for that single pole is from the single carrier.
So you should put multiple carriers on the same pole, it becomes additive and totally collective on the radiation
that comes out of there. So it's not each carrier is independent of each other. They are collective at that point.
But then you have four carriers on all closed road. You're going to have four of these poles in a row.
Yeah, they never become collective.
Yeah, you have separation at that point. Whereas the tower at Indian Hill Park,
you would have did the plan or the goal would be to have four wireless carriers within a thousand feet of at least 10
households. And then you have to add those numbers together, where a utility pole, again,
if you're using a surgical approach to add multiple sites in the only in the infill areas
that you need, operating at the highest rate, the highest levels possible is not required. So it
gives you more control and it gives more flexibility when modeling that. Something that they
account could do is ask the wireless carriers for the exposure level. So ask for verification
and they are complying with that, so that you have that assurance.
Now, we definitely do that on all of them.
We would ask for that on Indian Hill, we would ask for it.
Good.
We'll be asking for it in Homeland, we'd ask for it before.
Mr. Ketoliado, did you want to?
No.
You guys actually covered everything I had a question about.
So.
As for the number of houses that are close on Indian Hill,
that there are a number within a thousand feet,
but in some of the other places you've suggested.
I'm just trying to be clear on what the problems we face are
because I think they haven't been explained to you
as clearly as they could.
If you consider the water towel, for example, in their privilege,
There are a number of houses within 500 feet of that.
I'm not sure how many at this point.
But because the federal bill is a denser place,
but the other issue is you, you've proposed an 80 foot in the one example you've given you
the most an 80 foot tower of many tower.
be well in front of the water tower, wouldn't that be clearly visible from sunny field farm
and from the approach to sunny field farm, which is one of our major scenic areas, would even
us an 80 foot tower by the water tower, do that. If we're on the other, we have considered the water
tower, or lower the soil cell kind of thing, and putting the antenna behind the water
tower. But where you're proposing it, it's 80 feet and it's in front of the water tower.
I mean, we do a balloon test there and find it by doubt that I may be wrong about the visual
and past. So something to keep in mind, and all of your concerns are very, they're important to
But what we're looking at is we're not recommending any specific location as much as we're looking at alternatives that are available.
So a utility pole or an 80-foot pole behind the water tower versus next to the tower is not what we're looking at in this scenario,
because either of those are probably viable.
What we're looking at is are there alternatives that could be used in the answer?
and categorically yes where those replaced would be something that the town and the wire
the carriers would need to work together on. And that and that's the problem. I know that the
public often doesn't understand that we've been looking at these for a very long time and desperately
looking for alternatives and what I have to admit I was hoping and praying for was that there was a
technology that we were unaware of, because, you know, when people said we could use three of
these and take care of all the problems and they could be in these specific places, it seemed
to, it seemed very promising. But what I looked at when I saw this is, but I looked at first,
I have to admit it was a total, I totally misunderstood it and I saw a small cell, I saw what you were proposing, a small cell, and they just don't go as far as you were saying these came. So it was, it was a revelation when you started talking about, when you asked, you sent a answers to the questions and told us they were regular hours. And at first I said, I said, I didn't know you could do that. And then I started thinking about it and saying, I'm not sure I want you to do that.
And I find myself
offering a hope to people that I don't think is likely to actually be fulfilled.
Could you share some specific concerns?
The RF exposure we understand that we also understand it's something that is difficult to quantify.
What other concerns about viability are there on the town's part?
Okay. When you find the gave us a map, one thing that actually showed a possible combination.
And the coverage is very good on the slide that you've got showing right now.
It includes first of all, the 80-foot pole at the water tank at a place that our wireless people had already.
I believe looked at and decided this was a problem visually because of the, because of
sunny field farm, but then you also show a hundred foot pole within the transmission
easement line, which is a fantastic idea, which we spent hours trying to talk nice
to get into letting us do and in bed for hills, I mean, it's, as far as I'm concerned, it's
a no brainer to put even 150 foot tower in the transmission line easement.
I have seen it done in other states, right above the area where we are putting a tower
and that, for hills, there is a transmission line that would have been made of far superior
place, and I don't think there's anybody in town that would have objected to it because
as you quite rightly pointed out, if you're standing next to a massive transmission
What do you care about as a cell tower in addition to it, you're going to try not be looking at it in the first place?
I think we'll not agree to it. We've tried.
We don't have those alternatives.
Then we're back to finding more utility poll issues in different areas that we'll do this.
And
then I look at where you put the utility poles on long-bridge road and pound-bridge road.
And the pictures look fine, but the picture is assumed that you're going to bury all the equipment.
That's an awful lot of equipment for antennas that size.
And varying all that equipment is going to be a major construction job as the drawings of the equipment.
Containers going in indicated and notice they were mostly going in pretty urban areas all paved and the best, but I know you can do it in rural areas.
But how many of the trees around those old are going to be left after you've dug the holes to bury the equipment.
And one of the, one of the things the neighbors, it's downhill, you saw the, you said you watched the public hearing, one of the things the neighbors, it's downhill.
What I've said about was the fact that that power was going to be so close to the road, these are going to be even closer to the road, and I don't think it's likely that they are going to look the way they look in your picture, because when you look at those towers and in Bill Gates's community, there's nowhere near the number trees in Bill Gates's tower, it's a whole different aesthetic.
So,
it, it,
you know, yeah, well at this point, what it seems to me is, you know, I'm not saying that any of these sites wouldn't be possible.
I see on the chat somebody, but they said, we should do a crane test from the water tank.
I think we probably will look at the water tank, eventually if there's something I doubt it will be made to pull and I doubt that it will be in front of the water tank.
I think it will be behind it and maybe if you mapped it that way, it would still work.
But what I see is what I'm trying to get across, I guess, is that I don't see these being any easier to put in terms of people's objection to them.
than the tall towers, except that we'll have to do so many more of them, 24.
And I doubt that any easier to do than a single tower somewhere.
Respectfully, I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, no, Fred, I'm sorry. I got a thing to check. I got a degree with our chairwoman,
Again, my line of work is in disruption and I have to agree with her, it is not going to be that simple.
You're in the right way. You are along the thoroughfares of our town. It is going to take.
It's in our choice pass 24 times over and that is one Karen.
She is absolutely spot on.
But to correct that real quick, it's not 24 per carrier.
That would be an on-close.
And something else important to keep in mind is in the right of way, there are multiple options.
So the options are putting any equipment.
Baring is one option screening is another.
Topography, absolutely matters.
And you do have a different type of tree in your area.
In the Pacific Northwest where the example was,
Bill Gates neighborhood, the difference they have is ever grains where it's there all year.
So I understand the concern.
What we're, again, what we're proposing is an option that is viable that does work.
The coverage that can be provided is feasible.
It just takes a matter of looking at it.
Now, are there concerns and is there disruption when you're creating this?
Yes, is permitting a, or is installing a 50-foot tower that doesn't...
Require a 35 foot foundation that has a concrete basket, less intrusive than the tower, of course, it is, because
utility companies replace utility poles all the time. And we've seen at a number of locations where
they do replace these utility poles. So we understand your concern and their valid. What we also do
is we see these go in in a lot of locations across the country, and they do work. But again, what we're
posing is not specific locations, but alternatives that do work, that some of them may not be
feasible based on the specific location that was represented. But again, the wireless
carriers will ultimately determine what their coverage needs are, and then working together
the town can provide a minimally invasive solution that doesn't require multiple large towers
across the town.
I can tell I'm glancing at the chat and I know people are getting upset with me because I'm finding holes in this, and it's not really what I intended to try to do, but
what does that mean?
I think that the difference in opinion comes from, you know, our knowledge of building thousands of sites and what we see on a daily basis since this is our business.
And Bedford hasn't done this yet, so do one or two and see how you like it because it does work, it is one of the better things to do.
And keep in mind that no matter what you do at Bedford Hills Park, you have to build another site or possibly two sites to fill the coverage deficits that are created or left behind.
because of that, one site just doesn't do it.
Now, I understand that, but I see that there is a difference
between a,
sorry, I just got a text message from Diane Kim.
Diane can't don't mute herself.
I see a difference between a small cell, which in Bedford Hills,
for example, is something that I think is being considered
And what you're talking about with it, which is essentially a macro antenna and it has, you know, you say telephone poles are replaced all the time. And of course, they're replaced all the time.
Do they have bolts that have equipment in them that get replaced with them? I've never seen a telephone pole that's had a bolt of the size of the one that you showed in that
That's that vault can hold more cabinets than what you typically find out there for macro cells at this point.
The macro cells that are being built are typically two cabinets, one for battery neutrality.
And the second one for the actual control and internet and all of the radios are now at the top of the towers or the poles.
So they're becoming minimized.
That's just one model of a vault that's done
by the castle concrete.
There are other vaults.
And you can even do more compact on above-site stuff.
So as Brett was saying, your comments, we could answer those.
We could give you more examples.
we could probably take you to see a couple of them in a neighborhood, so as we locate them,
something that's out in your neck of the woods. But these are done more often than not,
and the percentage of polls that are being put in versus large towers is astronomical.
Small polls or small polls? I won't. No, no, small polls. Small polls. And give you,
Here's an example of when I was building out all of the networks across the country for a team
mobile between the years, 2000 and 2004, thousands and thousands of sites.
I was able to build Portland in the surrounding area because they had a code that was similar
years, which allowed for 50 feet by right, as long as you made your 35-foot setbacks from your
property lines. My competitors were all trying to build 150 foot polls or 150 foot
monopoles and 125 foot monopoles in many cases and they were going to take
over two years to get it done. I got the entire city and most of the
surrounding communities done in about seven months because I just literally
bought up a heap of poles and put them in by right and they look great and they're still there today.
Could you see all that that's that's interesting. I'd really like to
I'll picture some of those down. Yeah, yeah, there. They're just like what Brett was showing you.
I used a combination of steel poles and concrete and concrete aggregate poles.
When I go downtown, I use concrete aggregate to match again nature matches as much as I can.
Just in pictures in the more rural areas that she put, it's something that the parts of it that are closer to that word, but that might help convince me that this is more of a name.
And the pulse we were suggesting for the Bedford area being in the tree area is there's a fiberglass pole, a hollow core pole that you can order to length.
specific for the wireless carriers, and they are nature matched, so they go in and you can even replace the power line poles and put the power right on those poles.
So they don't have to be exclusive to the wireless carriers.
Jeff, did you have something?
I'd let Jeff say something in there.
I just wanted to say that this whole discussion began because of an application from Verizon.
So I think it'd be really helpful if we could find something in our region that Verizon has done along this line.
Is there something you know like that?
Well, we're having a hard time getting Verizon to talk to us.
I think it's up to you guys to, yeah, we'd be glad to sit down and have a meeting with Verizon, obviously over Zoom.
But they're not going to talk to us at this point.
They 150 foot full in a park.
But his Verizon done an installation similar to this, like I said,
I don't know about your area specifically, but if you could reach out to them,
we'd be glad to held the angle that's there to the ground.
I'm sure they're listening.
I just want to correct something.
It was on the chat there.
There's no proposal.
There is no cell tower at guard hill.
and there's no proposal to raise one to 144.
That's all radio tower installation.
I believe there was a comment in one of the reports that
had mentioned raising that to 140 feet.
Yes, radio, not so.
Correct.
If Diane, did you want to say something?
Yeah, just going back and sort of reiterate.
We had asked Verizon about putting the
equipment involved and sinking it when we were discussing the other towers because we think
that would drastically decrease the visual impact of these things. And they said in the topography
here that's very difficult because they're often, there's often a lot of rock, but again it
would depend on an individual site but to be able to put in 25 of those right next to a road
and not hit rock would be more difficult here.
We have, we've had these other problems with things in the right of way in this town
that's sort of unique to the town, and that's all being in bike paths in the right of
way.
There are stone walls and trees which have prevented us from putting in what we would really
which is bike trails that are constant with the road all over the town. So these ideas are really great if
some if they work, but these are impediments that we have seen around here.
Again, I'd like to get some more of the technical end of things. It was a problem for me that
the examples of coverage that were used used the same intensity for the 50 foot
hours for the 150 foot tower because it doesn't it doesn't make sense to me
that the lower lower ones would have the same impact, but I may be misunderstanding the
technology so could I ask Mr. Tegley a fairy or consultant to chime in on this
little bit. Is this something we should be looking at more seriously? Does the logic work? Are we
overlooking something here?
I'm wondering, am I being unreasonable in what I'm talking about
of being concerned that these towers are not actually going to match what we could get from the Indian
health, do they? Well, the thing is there would be more of them, like, which was presented
in order to match the coverage, the coverage. And the thing is, I mean, if you remember
that it's all driven by Verizon originally came to the town looking for a solution in
this area. And, you know, they would, they're the ones that are going to have to ultimately,
You know, we can present them with other options or multiple side solutions, but they're the ones that are ultimately going to have to agree on that to do it.
And when you're talking to small cells or if they're going to put utility poles and typically they may need to involve the third party infrastructure, like the Crown Castle, or an infinite to come in and put in to build the infrastructure for a small cell.
We're supposed to, you know, multiple site solutions that Verizon may not be willing to do.
Yeah.
Extend that usually is for small cells directly, not that don't generally build the lower elevation macro sites, correct?
Right.
They're basically a vast network.
And same as the ground.
Correct.
We're talking about low solutions here.
But for small cells, as an alternative, that would be,
would be another alternative, but you would then need a lot more sites,
accommodated additional carriers as well, where the small cells would,
basically like Chairman was saying,
macro sites just had a small lower level.
And the thing is too, I mean, we can identify areas,
but we still have the issue of finding exactly the
locations that will work for Verizon.
Because, you know, everything was saying now speculation on what will work for them, where, you
know, they're only asking for one tower in one location. They're not looking to cover the entire
town right now.
So.
And to be fair, this proposal was in the entire town, either.
It's just a bit of a village area.
But maybe
I should post a question to Alex just to reiterate if Verizon or if the town were to say this is our wireless code and these are the type of instructions that we would need to see.
Would you see a model in which Verizon or the other wireless carriers could build a model using the lower solutions non-dass and months, small cell.
you're still using the macro site, but do you see a model in which they could cover the town
using the URL of Asian towers?
Yeah, they certainly can.
The thing is they would have to identify specific locations and mark those locations and run
their modeling to make sure that it would all work.
I'm sure they could do that.
The question is will they do it?
You know, because this case load that says the town probably can't force them to use the
certain technology when, you know, another type is available, so that's what we're trying
to find the best trade-off where, you know, do multiple sites that could be, it could ultimately
be more visible to the community than one tower, you know, in a specific location, wherever that might
Hickory or Stone Hill or Indian Hill?
I'm wondering,
when you were developing this site, did you talk to any residents who were volunteering sites near them for these small towers?
It's a little preliminary, it's a little preliminary for that simply because what we were tasked to do is find if alternative solutions would work.
Ultimately, the wireless carriers would need to propose the sites.
So getting in front of property owners or other people to talk about something like that was outside the scope of what we were needing to do.
Since we were simply looking at, is there an alternative type of site that would work?
Unfortunately, what people don't understand is it is our scope of what we have to do.
Absolutely.
So some folks who live near potentially viable sites who said, we think this is a good enough idea that we would
invite it here. Because I'll tell you, as soon as one site was identified, we got an Indian hill road. We got an
And then when your report came through,
I have to say this bothered me a little bit.
When your report came through, although you used it,
the site on Indian Hill Road.
In some of your examples on your chart,
you actually said that that one wasn't a good site for ascetic reasons,
and I'm wondering why the poll that you think would be fine at
cold post road and pound bridge road would not be fine on Indian Hill,
you know, aesthetically, maybe something I missed, but, you know, I think.
And it's sand. So two answers on that one, just briefly, you know, number one,
the poll that is on Indian Hill Road was something that was brought up by members of the community.
And to be intellectually honest, it's actually in use currently.
So to ignore that one, it would not be addressing the current situation that exists.
As far as tower locations, what I think we're getting caught up in is we're still talking about specific locations when the locations that we reference were specifically meant to be conceptual and the types of locations that would work.
the actual locations would have to be approved by the town,
and we have to be requested by the wireless carriers.
So if we're discussing those specific locations,
we're not suggesting any specific location.
We were simply modeling options that do work,
showing that other technology or other locations,
and other types of structures are, in fact, viable.
You know, I would like to see us continue to look at this, but I have some, you know, it's, it's, I was looking for something new that I hadn't heard before and I don't mean to to insult you and there is the idea that you would use the macro technology and tennis on a short of site is
I wouldn't call it new technology, but it's an idea I hadn't considered, but my reaction
to it is frankly, now instead of one or two applications in a year that drag on forever
where people are upset and distressed and the rest I'm now going to be sharing meetings.
I'm not going to be doing anything but sharing meetings over placing towers because as you say,
each one has to be chosen, each one has to be argued about.
I don't see the basis for the ultimate that
can made that nobody will adapt to these.
So again, I'm guessing putting this out as challenged
to the community to some extent.
If the community thinks this is a good idea,
I'd like the community to start to actually
suggest some possible sites.
because that's what that's essentially what Verizon has forced us into.
We did. How soon do you think you could get the 150 foot tower built in the park?
No idea.
I think that's, I don't build cell towers.
Well, from the planning and approval timeframe, isn't that fairly
long lead time even if you consider it today. I don't think necessarily so the biggest question is
there is a park alienation issue and that can either take a short time or a long time,
but that would be the most complicated part of it. But I want to be clear on something.
That's
this discussion of the environmental issues and the rest, there is still, there are still
things to be quite a bit in the way of things to be done on that.
But
to some extent what I'm feeling we're left with is either pursuing that seriously
to see if it's possible, which we may find out that it's not.
But pursuing and finding it's possible or we can turn down the other two locations which we don't like.
And get sued by Verizon because I think they would be having a problem if we did that without seriously considering another alternative.
And then the courts will put a tower onto how to stone hill road or in the or if you're
laying, which are sites which for many reasons we think are truly terrible sites.
The one on Hickory Lane actually that we're rejecting isn't that far off from what you've
been suggesting.
It's a monopole, it's a single monopole, one carrier,
basically, we're going to look like a flagpole,
it'll be 115 feet instead of 80 feet or something like that, but it's not that different from what you propose,
and everybody hates it. So I, and frankly, they're right when we did the balloon test for that,
still stuck up like a sore thumb on the ridge. So I don't quite know where, and I don't, from a practical point of view, I don't see where your solution actually makes for the kind of village harmony that I would like to find. And I know people are hating me absolutely hating me at this moment.
It was saying that, but I just don't see it.
And there's another more important
that should happen really to discuss here.
And I think there's somebody who wants to talk.
Yeah, they're going to speak just very quickly about this.
And I have to agree with you.
It's going to have to make.
I think the public needs to understand that in the support,
it's predicated on the approval and you mentioned it,
all of these in unison as a system. In other words, you can't approve 183512. It's got to be
the whole plan. And if that doesn't come to fruition, then the report and the coverage and the
capacity, everything that we're seeing here, it's not going to work. And I just need every return
So is that what I guess I would ask on that front and I'm not disagreeing that it absolutely requires coordination.
Absolutely knowing that a single tower can't be can't provide the coverage across town.
I'm not sure that there's much of a difference because the wireless carriers will still need to provide additional towers to provide coverage.
Whether it's 350 foot towers, 250 or the towers, we would actually encourage exactly what you just mentioned.
Have the wireless carriers come in and present their plan to you to provide coverage to the town.
And that way, it's not oh a tower at 91 Hickory and then a tower at 68 Stone Hill.
Because when you look at the coverage models for both of those towers, they're covering different areas.
So, if you're going to end up with multiple coverage and multiple requirements at the same time,
it sounds like it may warrant bringing the carriers in and asking them for the plan to provide coverage.
I've actually been talking about that.
I thought I saw your, you're speaking like them on.
Now, look at it.
You think we've been,
we've been hoping from the mapping that we've gotten from some city
scape and the rest that India would in fact take care of a much larger section of the gap than
and the other two would enough that that what would be left would be areas mostly in
that the village where a small cell technology, something with the bill shorter than 50 feet
and a lot less powerful than a macro antenna probably someplace like the playhouse or
or even the water tower, but something smaller
could help fill in the
musing like in the knowledge and now that.
The capacity of the fire, the capacity of the fire.
Do you think if we did something at Indian Hill that ultimately,
we would still need another tower,
another map of tower in the Bethlehem, the Algeria?
Well, in that area, based on the coverage that Verizon
shows, because originally, if you remember, they
will, at Hickory Lane, a lot of that coverage
was going into Pound Ridge, both those more to the south.
And they've the Stone Hill location is a little further north,
where the Indian Hill is more centrally located,
and would probably provide based on one of the maps that they submitted,
coverage into that village area.
So, I mean, this is my feeling.
And I think I think you raise a very good issue.
We should discuss it and make sure that we're clear with Verizon on this,
that this should satisfy their needs for a tower
in the Bethany Village area, the need, their needs for a macro talent at the village area.
And again, I don't deny that our, um, that our consultants are talking about eventually meeting
a small cell technology, a small cell technology, short of something in the 35 foot range.
I think Thomas, that what they've been talking about?
Yeah, yes.
in the center of the village and potentially in debt for hills and and
Katrina as well. So that's what
we're looking at.
Yes, I am.
I'm not.
Here is one other issue that we haven't talked about about at all.
And I think it's a serious one we've sort of planned
on past to the issue of emergency services.
And I'm wondering whether or not our emergency services
people would be willing to tell us whether the system
that has been suggested here will work for them.
Do you have anything to add about that?
Thanks, Deirdre.
The committee has good evening, everyone.
The wireless facility working group has reviewed.
The information presented tonight.
Obviously emergency services always welcome to new ideas and new technologies.
So for clarification, I just wanted to clarify, get some clarification from Brett, when you mentioned 911, I assume you're referring to fire police and EMS communications. When you say 911, are you saying 911, the ability for a resident to dial 911 and read.
We've always been talking about what you guys need to be safe out there.
Yeah, and similar on our end.
When we say 911, it's encompassing all the emergency services.
So the emergency service providers would be what we were talking about.
Okay.
Great clarification.
A couple questions regarding FirstNet.
I've seen it personally myself.
I've seen it advertised in trade.
in some state agencies discussing it, as far as from what I can see, reviewing it and other
committee members will review the first net site. It doesn't appear to be built out in this
area at all, so I'm not sure if you have any timeframes for that or anything regarding that,
because when I look at the website,
there's no mention at all about this area, the plan for a
build out some of the concerns also with first then a not sure how much experience you guys have with it and using it in some of the projects that you've worked on.
But the initial concerns that we see.
And again, the lack of generator backup power for these multiple sites.
That would be one. And especially in this area, we have an issue with storms, you know, and storms that come to the area.
and typically what happens here is the poles get knocked down, snapped and then there's no power
to the area. So obviously some of the stuff on utility poles for emergency services would be
of concern and also I'm not really sure how many sites that first net would need to build out
just to cover the village along with the town of Befford. So I'm not sure how much experience you've
using this product.
So real quick, before I answer it, Kim, it looks like Brian some
So, when was the last time or how long has it been since you looked at the coverage of first night in the area?
So, did you set your presentation? I was taking a look at it.
Okay. So, AT&T is under some very strict parameters to implement this solution and they have certain coverage requirements.
So, they're working diligently on getting that set up and to put in place. Verizon is you're probably aware of Verizon also has a competing service that they offer.
When it comes to the backup power backup at the cell sites, typically the cellular providers
either have it or implementing the implementing generators at cell sites and first that
operates on the AT&T network.
So the communication sites would generally have either significant battery backup with a
temporary generator able to be brought on site if the power outage is significant enough,
or most of them now have generators on sites.
So all of the first nets got an obligation to do about a thousand sites a month.
Adding the antennas in the radio units for first net exclusively.
And they're putting them on all of the AT&T infrastructure at the point.
They're also obligated to put back up generators or at minimum eight hours plus generator plugs at all the sites.
All of the sites that are in the northwest for example have already been converted to first net.
And all of the sites that I'm aware of up here have already been converted with generators.
So I don't know what their build-out plan is or their strategic plan is.
but we're seeing this hardening of their network far more robust than ever before,
including backing up and numerous sites, not just fiber, but getting back into making
microwave back all, which is, again, it's their backup, their sites are pretty well hardened just
for the first net users, I have experienced in the Tacoma area because Seattle Tacoma has
been experimenting with both first net and their own network and the statewide network.
So they've been involved in it quite a bit.
There's various readings if you will from the fire personnel that varies.
The one thing that's consistent is they all think it works great.
They don't like using any network when they're at an incident scene or a fire scene.
And they all revert to a BHF or a UHF.
Simplex channel is their backup, which is advocated in all of our work with the fire departments across the country.
And what we're seeing from first net is that their radio configurations support that.
that, that piece of it, which we think is essential to the incident scenes.
Right, and also, and you said that was the atleau that you see atle,
Seattle to call my house a separate network, Seattle to call Olympia, basically that
swath in there has a separate network of their own. They've been experimenting with first
that and they also have a statewide network that is here that's run by the state patrol.
They had been using a state patrol for some time switched over to their own virtual network.
And of course, first net and Verizon is supporting product.
The uniqueness about going into this technology is that it's all IP consideration.
And so it's not generalized like you would normally find in a trunk system, which is fairly
early old technology.
In their IP configurations that they've got can transport across almost any platform and
function.
So if they get out of their range, they can transport into the statewide network or on their
own virtual network or the first network, and I'm finding that to be the case in Michigan,
where I'm doing some work up for another 911 County, where the statewide network doesn't
have the coverage that it needs for their own virtual towers, but by virtue of the IP
transportability, they're going into the AT&T and the first net networks.
So, when you mentioned product as well, did they support the cost as AT&T provide the product
to the emergency services?
Or I need to be.
Well, you have to buy the product.
And the product is wide ranging.
The best product that they've got out there
is Motorola wins hands down.
Every time we talk about a 911,
Motorola,
you know, peace, Ken would, you know,
two to one, and they also beat him two to one in price.
So they're more expensive.
But the product is exceptional.
So the product would have to be purchased by the town or the user.
That's right.
Okay.
So I guess the biggest concern and again, very open-minded as an emergency services, you know, the agencies in the town.
Because obviously, you know, right now we run on a system provided by Westchester County, the Fire MS.
We're running a system.
and the county is expanding that system and in the process of an upgrade right now, our police department runs its own system right now in the town and that's an antiquated system that's being explored there's an option to go on the town system future.
But the biggest thing, the biggest concern would be obviously coverage at this point too is because the AT&T infrastructure in the town minus any upgrades would be, you know, of a concern at this point obviously purchasing the product.
We already have a lot of Motorola products that are, you know, all the products, majority of the product for the county for the new system is provided there is some expense for the end user, but again, you know, it's something to be something that we have to look into more obviously the biggest concerns, like I said to you up front, especially here would be power loss, you know, polls being, you know, the utility polls being torn down and a lack of AT&T infrastructure at this point, you know, we have predominantly, you know, Verizon service in town.
But, you know, it's something that could be looked at, I think there's, you know, there's always pros and cons to everything.
Right.
I think you're right in reading that AT&T doesn't have enough infrastructure to fill in the holes.
The competing product with Verizon, I think, does.
When I analyze the UHF and the BHF portions of your network, what I found was,
not necessarily, you have a lot of outbound signal. You've got more signal than you really need,
or you don't need to duplicate a bunch of that everywhere that you go. And in most 911 networks,
they need voting receivers, which is what you've got at the top of the hill now, is just a voting
receiver. It works. It's not a pretty site. I could make that look like dress it up and you could take
to church.
So it's something that's usable, but really you only need voting receivers in a lot of
cases. And again, they don't need to be on megapoles. They can be on telephone poles or even on
top of, you know, the one building in town. And you find exceptional quality out of that.
Right. So just a kind of clear fine. I'm not, I mean, this is something we, obviously,
I think they'll be further discussion, you know, as is continued, but, you know, obviously, you know, we run two different systems now. So fire, EMS are on one system that's run, you know, through Westchester County, let's say trunk radio system and the police department runs an analog system of VHF analog system, EMS and fire also rely heavily now.
And this is where there's an issue was Befford Village, where Befford Hills and Getown of Fire Department and Getown of Befford Hills EMS, utilized MDTs on Verizon. So obviously, that's part of our plan, our emergency operations, you know, the police department also uses MDTs. So there's a lot of holes in coverage and that's, you know, that's been part of our purpose and and function. So in addition to any of providing not only providing residents with access to 911, you know, 911, phone service to make calls and cell phones.
service but also making sure that the police and all the first responders have adequate cell
and data coverage in addition to improving the VHF system for the police department plus the fire
department system. I guess. Well absolutely. So would you regard that for Eisen and the wireless
carriers are an essential part of the 911 system? I wouldn't say not I guess you refer to as 911
system, I guess, because we use 911 here is making that call as well, so I don't want to get that,
you know, I don't want to confuse that with anyone that might be less well.
Yeah.
Last one would be the actual call, but our emergency networks, yes, a part of it.
Yes, the police department uses it, the fire departments and EMS use data, you know, for
the mobile data terminals, you know, the MDTs and the vehicles.
So obviously, the emergency services has made that a priority to the town to obviously enhance
the cell coverage, you know, obviously the residents have wanted it from themselves, you know,
it's seen more like, you know, a lot of people with the pandemic are working home, you know,
using cell phones, a lot of people got rid of their home cell, their home phone service
to use cell phones. So that's, that's what we've come together and and looked at and obviously
our priority is, you know, our committee is working on not only the master plan for cellular,
But obviously running parallel is infrastructure upgrades for emergency service.
Exactly.
So the point I was going to raise was that we ran the cellular including Verizon from
Guard Hill.
And I know that knee jerk reaction is you can't put cellular up on guard Hill because it's
not emergency services.
But in all regards, it is emergency services, both inbound and outbound for the origination of an emergency call and also the support of an emergency call.
So, we ran it. We just want to open that up to say, you know, there's reason to believe that is a viable site.
And depending on how you get there, I know Eric shaking his head, but it's a viable site.
So you're a support 9-1-1, so you're actually suggesting that guard hill should have
itself so.
Oh, absolutely.
When we ran that, that's an integral hole that's left open, that guard hill can satisfy
and you don't have to go crazy on the tower up there.
I don't think they need to be anything but above the trees.
I think that I didn't expect the thing, what you're hearing is that we're working
recommending the use of whatever is the minimal intrusive or the minimum intrusive sites.
Looking at all options, because there are a lot of viable options in the end, Deirdreau,
what I've heard you even say, which I'm pleased to hear is, there are options for coverage
in town that may not be viable outside of town, and I think that goes right in line with what
we're talking about is, let's look at the different options, let's look at the coverage patterns,
instead of defaulting to a tower, let's default to what fits the code.
What is the least interest of option?
What provides the coverage?
What's safe for the residents?
What maintains the aesthetics of the community?
And I think there's an option there that can work.
I, and I'd like to continue to pursue it,
but I think we have to pursue two things together.
I'd like to get you talking to Verizon to see what their reaction is.
I'm not quite sure how to succeed in doing that.
I need some feedback.
I suppose maybe too many years in the staff have made me a cynic.
I don't want to lose some folks who think this is a good idea.
and there are clearly many who do coming forward and saying,
this is where we should put it.
This is okay with us. We'll support a site here.
You're kind of site, not the 12-hour site,
but what they're doing, what they're talking about.
I did want to make sure that people understood
that we're not talking about small self-technology,
that we're not talking about this politics and it's on top of a
Hawaii. I want to see some realistic pictures of what this would look like. If you,
if you had to bury the vault on the road, if it had to clear the trees with a sound in the pictures
that should flow the power's actions or below the tree line, maybe they'll work below the tree line,
but I do want to picture one below the tree line if that actually isn't what will work.
Because that's to be at, I'm going to be very honest with you, that's what we get from Verizon,
when they do a visual analysis.
It's why we tried to do our own visual analysis because what we get,
that is the target of those who would stand and stand in front of the tree
and take the picture of the balloons in front of the tree.
And that sort of thing, we've gotten pictures of designs of towers that don't mesh it all with what the reality is.
We don't want that.
We want to see what these will really look like.
And if they're because all of the kinds of sites you're suggesting, which are the practical ones to,
suggest they are all in the right of way. And unlike where you were able to put in your
powers, as you said really quickly, in the town of Bedford, every one of those towers is
I'm going to require a permit. It's must we change laws and I don't think that people are going to want us to change the laws to not require a permit for cell towers anymore.
Agreed.
I mean, to be absolutely honest, it would take a load of quite a lot off of our backs because we wouldn't be involved in it anymore.
But
I want to see, I know why Indian Hill Park is not practical.
It's going to be very difficult to do something there, whether
and I'm only going to continue to support it if I continue to be convinced that it
is the only reasonable alternative that's out there.
I'd like you to convince me that yours is a reasonable alternative, but I need more realistic drawings or examples, something that really fits here, and I need you to sell somebody in town, not just on the idea that it would look nice in the next neighborhood over, but that it's something that's acceptable in their neighborhood, assuming their neighborhood is,
a neighborhood that will provide good service.
We're absolutely open to working on some of these.
Some of these are a car before the worst type items, but I welcome the drive on your
end and I understand your concerns because you've heard so many different things from
different people.
We would absolutely love to talk to Verizon and that could kick off the next steps of
understanding where their coverage needs are and where a utility pole we need to be placed
to fit their needs. We have some good ideas but ultimately they're the ones that we need to
request that that if we get in touch with them and we're able to have some of these conversations
we could take steps on what you're asking for. If you can if you can talk them into that we also
have a problem called the shot clock which I'm sure you're familiar with since it's part of
We have to be able to talk about an alternative that we feel that is ultimately doable.
We don't have to have it settled by then, but it has to be something that the courts will accept as an alternative.
So we have made the legal criteria of being.
I'm trying to remember the exact words.
Eric, give me some help here.
Eric is gone too.
I think he's muted right now.
So, we did just a quick question while Eric's getting unmuted.
When the shot clock is in consideration,
generally that's only after an application has been filed.
Do we have one or multiple applications right now for the
towers and questions?
There are multiple applications.
You don't have to file.
Nobody tells you that.
We've heard that.
There has been recently a agreement regarding,
you know, I told him of the shot clock as the chair said
March 31st. If certainly Verizon could convince, could be convinced to extend it longer or could agree.
That's understandable, but as we understand it right now, it's not something that has been made
an option right now. Okay, and is this for both sites the 91 Hickory and 68 Stone Hill?
Yes. Apparently, nobody's actually told you or some people simply don't believe. We have been talking
about this and studying it and looking at it as has a wireless midi since 2000 and 17.
17. Yes, we understood we understood it been going on. We were not
we had heard conflicting information about the applications to add us. They can understand the
frustration when people assume that we've never seen a camouflage.
And just that kind of thing, it's, and I know at one point I was told that as I talked about this cell tower, people felt that and probably still feel that I was tired of it.
They're right, I'm tired of it because I'm tired of hearing people tell me this thing over and over again and thinking it's new.
I'm not tired of looking for an option that will really work for the town of Bedford.
And if you think that it ends me that people in this part of Bedford Village think this is the best approach and are willing to get behind it even in their neighborhood.
And then that would go a long way towards my looking more seriously about it.
But I have seen, I have seen nothing that has convinced me of that just yet.
And, you know, it.
So people believe that and feel that way about it,
even understanding the strength of the signals, which I realize the federal government says we're not supposed to look at.
and consider, if they're willing to take the federal government's word for it, it's fine.
And not be bothered by it, if it's their house, but it's 100 feet, because that's
Deedra, if you could just, if you could just be so kind as to direct Verizon,
you know, we would be glad to talk to them and work through some stuff with them, but we don't
want to do it in the absence of your wireless board either.
In the 911 stuff, you know, I use that as a general term.
I would be glad to work with anybody from that group, even if it's the county.
Yeah. That's fine to understand that those meetings are open meetings.
I'm not quite, I did notice you said you,
the open meetings should be closed meetings.
Well, I think we just need it, we need to get the ground pounding work out of the way so that we can go through designs and stuff and then come forward with the results as a public meeting.
But you can do it as a public meeting.
Like this one, do it on Zoom so people can watch, but they can't complete it.
They can see what's done.
So it's done in the light of day.
You don't have to, you can mute the microphones and still need the open meetings law.
Yeah, yeah.
Why?
Diane, did you want to say something?
Oh, you have to be unmuted.
Yeah.
Can you unmute Diane?
I'm not used to running meetings quite this large.
Is that work?
Okay.
And this is going back really and sort of echoing what Tom was saying.
But I think it's important that we've been asking Verizon from the beginning for what they
would like to do to aid in our planning.
And we are working really hard as a town
on the wireless committee.
And it was not, has told us repeatedly,
they are not bound to give us a long plan with the application.
So when you add that to the issue of trying
to get 20 people would agree to have this next to their house,
But I don't know if I can succeed in convincing Verizon to talk to you, but I think Eric, is there any reason why we can't ask?
We can reach out to them and ask, but again, as you said, I don't think they can be forced to do what they have to agree.
Yeah, what is the term I was I was looking for when it's what the court case is talk about the best.
These countries have all tried to look at the traditional alternative.
Well, at least in this alternative, I know well.
But we keep looking for the other one was the feasible technology.
We've all technology that we can ask.
We can ask them to consider alternative technologies.
Originally they told us we couldn't ask them to consider that.
were convinced that we can't ask them to consider alternative technologies as well as the
feasible. So, I think if you think that this was something feasible, they have to
do you think that you're in a position now where you're going to be forced, come March 1st
or whenever the date is, that you're going to have to approve the 68 Stone Hill or 91 or
We're going to have to make a decision by that. I don't know what decision we're going to make.
Okay. I have to have been no decisions made at this point.
No, I get that, but you're up against the clock.
And it looks like you haven't got it.
Benford Park as an alternative either.
So you're almost into either either proving or disapproving.
I'm one or both of those sites.
I wouldn't say I would not say that at all.
And I'm great.
Okay.
Just, I do want to be clear about that.
I know people are going to be very unhappy to hear that.
Will we, will we be in a position to say something definitive?
I don't know.
And, and you're, can I just say one thing?
And this goes back to Brett something that you said earlier.
I want the public to know we did not default to a monopole in Indian Hill Park.
We analyzed and derived data, in conjunction with our consultants, within the wireless facility working group and the data and the information said certain things to us in that group.
And that's where a lot of this comes from.
So again, I want to say to the record, we did not default to a monopole in Indian Hill Park.
And I think that's very very important.
Joe, did you want to say something?
I got caught off before. I know you had suggested guard hill. Our committee has looked at that, but there's a restrictive deed on that property that does not permit sell communication.
So the town in the as there's a restrictive deed from the owner of that property.
So I just want to clarify that with you.
Well, as I understand the restrictive deed was for emergency purposes, not restricting
cellular per se.
It expressly prohibits private providers from being on there.
And it's a Westchester county is involved with that as well.
And there are other reasons I can explain why that that site is not available for a private provider.
Okay, would it be okay to ask that you send a copy of the deed or your document?
Don't see that that would hurt.
I don't think it's going to be particularly popular for
in town to suggest scarred Hill, but if you would like to look at the deed or welcome to.
I don't see it. Am I speaking out of turn?
I mean, there are multiple emergency services providers up there. It's a Westchester county tower that is going up on there. They control the tower and the town doesn't have a lot of say about what goes on that tower to be honest with you on this far as providing you had a few, you know, so there are there are numerous issues that are involved with the guard hill site that really make it unavailable for a private provider.
And I understand that, you know, if works with the plan that's been presented tonight, but it is not an option, you know, for various reasons.
And that's not a, you know, sort of we're falling on.
It was simply one of those proposals that could be feasible should all the other pieces of line.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I've thought about that once or twice, too.
Usually figured out that it's not really there.
I think there are a lot of other alternatives, so if we can get in touch with Verizon, I understand
there's a list of Verizon contractor on the Zoom meeting and she should be able to put us in contact
with the RF engineers at Verizon.
We may be able to make some headway on these things that you've been talking about.
Maybe you can really convince Verizon that this will be something that can be done quickly and
efficiently.
But what she says is true, it ought to be in there interested to do it as well.
So yeah, and I note on that front, I believe the town actually does have the ability to specify certain parameters around this.
So if the town were to say we require this type of a site or this type of an elevation,
there may be a little bit more wiggle room than was being used.
I know that you've looked at a lot of different pieces of this.
So, the next step for us would be to definitely sink up with Verizon and have a conversation and then we can come back and have further conversations on this.
But I think, you know, one of the reasons I mentioned doing this in a public forum is that if it just becomes another passing it around to another neighborhood kind of thing, it's going to be a problem.
So you have to, you have to figure on having people agree that this is something they are comfortable with in the areas that you end up suggesting.
Because absolutely.
You're going to find multiple.
One, I'm sorry, Diane.
But she's come rewriting what you were saying 20 million as opposed to one is how far to get people to a breeder.
And I am absolutely clear, it's never been discussed as a 24 to 1 ratio.
Drop it.
Yeah.
It's not those are multiple tower sites.
So the one tower is not, that's the one starter because Verizon and the other wire
of the carriers will need more than one location.
Well, we actually, we're not sure about that.
If you're talking about some small, small cell things in that for village, yes.
We can told that with the, with the, with the Indian Hill one, they will not need another macro tower.
Has that come from Verizon directly or did that come from an alternate source?
That, that's come from our, our consultants.
Okay, Verizon would need to be very clear and specify that in Verizon can't and wouldn't say that would never need another site.
We have not seen Verizon keep it into that in any turn.
Well, they, I mean, they're not going to say it about any any system, but if the point is, if we have a good argument to make for it, then
they still have to prove that they have a gap that they cannot fill any, any other way than putting in a tower.
It looks to us from what we've seen that within the intel we will produce a situation in which that's the case.
I'm not sure that's entirely accurate unfortunately and I respectfully disagree but are
understand by the federal guidelines say that you are not allowed to require them to prove
a gap because a gap is not the only determining factor there is capacity there's proper
issues. So we're really quite aware of that and one of the reasons why we're talking about these
small cells for the town centers, which is where the capacity issues are likely to be greatest.
So, you know, I, I'm not quickly somewhere and I may have misunderstood what was being said in the chest, but somebody talked about what happens when the satellite cell service takes over.
We better make sure we've put a disassembling approval in every single permit that we allow,
because I would much rather see a satellite system doing it.
I don't think that we can suggest to rise in that they switch to satellites tomorrow in order to accommodate our needs.
I think that the right way I think that the tower system was it's done decision to make,
which probably shows how little I know, but I, if somebody wants to suggest building a satellite
cell system in time to get us out of this, I'm more than welcome to the idea.
And we can all agree that you should put a decommissioning provision in the permits that something
it's absolute necessary.
Yeah, and it's something that we have.
Yeah, we're ready, I'm already house,
a satellite system up and operating,
and there is another one with lower
orbiting satellites that is in military use right now.
But I doubt if you're going to see
that as a replacement for the terrestrial base systems
in any time soon.
I thoroughly agree.
I was just mentioning that it was mentioned
in the chat as something of an alternative?
What we do see a great deal of is there's over about 800,000 sites that are going to be built
over the next five years and almost all of those are going to be in the realm of what we've
been suggesting, which is anywhere from 30 to 60 feet in height and put into the neighborhoods
that's in order to get what we call nomadic service.
Nomadic service is the use of the phones in your homes,
your residents, and your businesses,
and the roaming services, which are your highway
and your streets, and so on.
That's generally called roaming.
Almost all of the usage and requirements
that wireless carers you're seeing is nomadic services.
I, the 300 pound guy on his couch, likes his nomadic service.
Now, I mean, we've often said to people who tell us that they don't want, you know,
they don't need the cell service.
They're just fine at home.
If we ask them, are you willing to throw out your cell phone?
You know, there's no.
And that's something else people have to realize.
But I have nothing in her. There's a certain look. And the home has, you can do Wi-Fi cell
calling. So, absolutely. You know, you don't need to
sell power for the home house. And the reason they have Wi-Fi calling is because the cell
services so bad in most homes nowadays. It's fine. It is not a necessity to supplement that.
Yeah, I personally I can't wait until the time when there is an alternative to cell phones.
And there is a part of me that has argued that we're busy building 20th century technology to serve a 20th century world.
We're building our electrical system on the basis of 19th century technology because all those telephone poles that we've actually been trying to get rid of, by the way, by having them buried but now apparently that's going by the way, so we're putting all of our electrical systems on 19th century infrastructure and that's not working real well for us.
these days since storms are basically taking those poles down on a regular basis because they're
so weighted down with other kind of technology. But then so what I do like about your proposal
is at least you're not, we're talking about putting up new new poles, not dangling it from the
wooden poles that can. Right. And in Deeter out in our county, the column county public utility
industry has almost 100% changed out all of their polls from wood to fiberglass polls.
Just for that, just for that simple reason that wood polls, the age worse and clearly
look worse and are less, you know, applyable, if you will, they break, they break, they have
problems.
So we've changed over to the fiberglass polls, they look just like wood polls, they have
or we use them in it works.
But I agree with it.
The whole poll is a problem.
What we did find on one of the questions that I think was asked
was the fiber lines and stuff.
And we were successful at finding more than an abundance
of fiber along the routes and stuff that we were looking at.
So we didn't find a lacking of connectivity to do back home. Our proposed plans.
Is there anything else that anyone has has to say or add to this? I
don't think so. Anything.
So what you would like us to do is at least talk to Verizon. I can't guarantee anything
because Verizon doesn't listen to us about a whole lot, but we can approach, approach them and ask them to
and you talk to you. I, Joe, are you comfortable having, we've been to some people talk to
the wireless committee, as long as it's in an open session.
It's okay. So, if you want to
meet myself and locked out here. Yeah, we'd absolutely love to have an open discussion and open
dialogue. Um, but again, I think it's very important that it, that the public be able to not
necessarily participate in the discussion because that will make it very difficult to get anything
done. I do understand that, but yes, Joe. Um, he's moving again. Yeah, Kim, you've got to unmute him again.
Doing well with the sign language though. Yeah. Kim's working on it. He's
muted. Thank you. Sorry. I keep getting muted. Absolutely. You know, you know, like I said to,
you know, our committees open minded, there's a lot of things that, you know, I wasn't
going to go into technical stuff tonight about the voter receivers and comparing in our infrastructure.
So I think that, you know, we definitely welcome a conversation with you to, you know,
for you to understand our system and kind of talk to you about the ins and outs and and look at
the comparisons of first net. And, you know, like I said, we already have sites. We've had federal
engineering working with us because again, we have, you know, the goal of improving the police
department's site and making sure that they have, you know, in building coverage, there's
parts of the town right now that our police officers can not communicate on their two-way radio
back to headquarters to request backup. That's a problem. So, these are the things that we're trying
to fill these gaps. And that's, again, that police system is separate in a part from the system
for the first responders fire EMS, which is being built by the county.
So I think definitely an open dialogue, open discussion, we welcome it in all again, because
I think you'll understand a lot of the problems that maybe you need to this area with some
of the systems that you've used another part of the country that may not work here.
But again, our ultimate goal is protecting our first responders and making sure they can
to make that call to get additional resources to get back up, and that's a big thing. That's a big priority.
And this is separate in part from a resident picking up the phone and dialing 911.
I'm absolutely right.
If I made, if I made chime in, when we do talk, this is Kyle Carlton, I'm one of the commissioners over in Benford Village.
I would like to talk in detail with you about your discussions of hardening the systems and things of that nature.
because I know given up here in Bedford,
where we deal with power polls being snapped all the time
from either cars driving into them,
or more frequent and stronger storms uprooting them,
eight hours is not gonna be sufficient to sustain
the type of communications that we have come to rely upon.
So when we have that discussion,
I really would look forward to talking to you
about hardening those systems,
because as Joe just said, not only a resident,
where I represent the taxpayers, animal residents,
So I have my personal vested interest.
I'm also so hard to protect my first responders.
So I want to ensure that they have everything they need as well.
That's absolutely Kyle.
And I'm a two-way guy first and foremost,
because I love this stuff.
But I can tell you that I've got a broad range
of experience in keeping sites on the air.
All of my years with team mobile and AT&T,
I would say that in my portfolio I easily had 50,000 generators across my networks and that's, and that's, that's not bragging, that just is fact.
That's just a lot of generators.
And as we went through Katrina and the other places, I can tell you that easily 20% of the generators would fail on a regular basis even though they're maintained.
So they don't always start, and you have to go through that kind of problem for a while.
I'm an absolute believer that you need the hardened, and I just, again, a 911 facility.
You need the hardened it, and there's a metrics to use.
That's also, you know, in the fire code metrics, on hardening, but, you know, what do you need to harden,
and or, you know, what don't you need to harden is more important.
I can speak to that. I'd be glad to help you guys out. My first priority is got to be with, you know, this group that we're working with and keeping them tempered to point where we're talking about the solutions that the wireless community can bring to solve this problem. And that's that's what I do best.
Yeah. Well, I appreciate your help with it. I just want to make you understand it a bit from our perspective as well and the realities of what we have been dealing with since for the last couple of years that we we are seriously involved in trying to find a workable alternative.
In fact, so forgive me if I'm wrong about this, but I think the notion of a tower in Indian
Hill Park really started with the fact that that's not that you would originally felt
it was an ideal location for the radio tower for it.
Yes, the ready and existing tower there, and it's federal engineering did some mapping.
obviously as a part of our discussions and that's where this came from was obviously our plan
like I said to you before was running parallel. Cellular was running one track, emergency communications
two-way was running on a separate track. But obviously it would make sense to co-locate
just a little bit easier when applicable and when possible to do that. So federal engineering did
mapping for us, a various sites throughout the town.
Indian Hill already has a voter receiver up there.
There's a voter receiver.
Obviously, that you had in, you know, like Katona.
There's a voter receiver in Mount Kisco.
And there is the main transmitter that is on guard hill.
And that's the, for the police department system.
We're not talking about the fire control, sorry,
Westchester County emergency system.
So this is kind of how this discussion came up.
And there was, you know, questions.
And the planning board had asked what sites the emergency
you know, wireless is looking at for emergency radio communication.
And that's basically where the discussions came along.
Yeah. And Joseph, we even looked outside of the township borders
for other facilities that were very helpful.
So, you know, that are already built. And we did find, we did find three facilities,
at least three facilities that would add in and fix some of the coverage
polygons that we saw in the 450. Yeah, we have as well. So obviously the PDs
we have system we've looked at you know other sites because we can obviously
co-locate and work with that we have agreements with other towns to work together.
Westchester County has other towers are getting put up. You know we obviously looked
outside of the town because they're you know the way the size of our town and
orders. We, you know, that we board of the town of Louis Carl, the town of Pound Ridge,
the village of Mount Kisco. So we did look at that stuff. I mean, you know, we're not done,
you know, we're, you know, far from done, but this was initial again.
We were trying to meet the goal of, you know, solidifying and fixing the police departments network,
while also making sure we have a townwide, you know, our goals have a townwide 400 frequency
for the whole town of Bedford, only separate in a park from Weshis to County's radio system. So that way,
every single town agency, police, fire, DPW, EMS could all be on one channel during a storm or other town
Okay, I think that we can probably bring you to a close at the moment with the understanding that we will.
Eric, I guess we have to talk about how to approach Verizon about this about at least asking them to talk to you.
I will say, I don't know if they will, but I hope they do,
to see if there's something from their point of view that they could accept looking into, but I think one thing that they probably would look for is some indication of an acceptance of this approach by someone who's impacted by it.
In other words, a petition with hundreds of signatures on it for, again,
against something is powerful, but without a petition saying that they're for something else,
I don't know.
We need to find sites that are feasible.
So if anybody out there has a suggestion of a site that is feasible,
can even be a starting place for one of these smaller ones.
Watch what I, what I say because I
won't bet for village, are probably doable. The ones we're talking about, but the ones in
vector village aren't the ones that that are the problem for this. The playhouse site, I don't believe
anybody's soft to the playhouse people, but I think that, you know, from my perspective, that's an
sense idea. I think something smaller and more hidden behind the water
tower certainly something we're looking at. I just don't think it belongs
where it will go over sunny field farm but that's something we could test out
with a balloon test or something to see what the impact would be. But the problematic
sites are the ones out in the rural area where the smaller
types of, and 10 is maybe not fit
in quite as well because it's not an urban enough area.
But if we can find something like that, then we should look for it.
But we have a kind of constraint that people have given that.
And to clarify the time constraint is deciding whether the town would accept one of the
to current proposed hours, correct?
Okay, so it's kind of up and up or down situation,
yes or no situation that has to be made,
come march.
To make a decision.
Correct.
To make a decision, not not.
I mean, we are free to make whatever decision
we'll be able that we can defend and court.
But we have to make a decision.
On that note, I think if no one has any objection
will end this part of the meeting. The one other thing I did want to address and the only
reason that I have kept it close to public input is that I don't think the people will
object to what I'm going to say about it. We do get a letter from the Indian Hill group talking,
I actually, I believe it was from, the letter was from the attorney for the, for the, for the,
for the, for the, friends of the, and he'll park, but I believe the report was actually from the Gunderson
Corporation about the balloon test we did, I'm going to say a front, it was at everything we hoped
it would be. And so, we believe we do, if, if we do go forward with the, with exploring the possibility
of Indian Hill, we will need to do another balloon test.
So that's the starting point.
There are a couple of things about the article that I'd like the report that I'd like to clarify.
So let me get my notes here.
The first point you made was the the photos provided by IHPC Shield of Williams
Tethered to be caught in the trees.
That was one of the problems in one of the reasons that I do think that we would be
wise to, I think, really require to review the test that wasn't that you,
however, it
It is true that the engineer did add 10 feet of, well, to it to try to make up, make up for
that.
That was a difficult way of doing it.
The comment was made in your letter that shortly thereafter, they took the 10 feet away.
I was one of the people who was doing the photography for the balloons and we
have before another comment. We were in fact in touch the attacks with each other.
I was told when the 10 feet was added and I was told when it was taken off. I had
actually finished taking all of my photos by the time the 10 feet was taken off.
It wasn't shortly. It was actually well over an hour later that the 10 feet came off.
Nonetheless, I think it still is a less than precise way of determining the proper height.
It was a serious attempt to give us honest measure as possible.
And I will say that what I heard, when we went around for this balloon test,
For myself and for the member of the town board that was with me doing the kind of places I did it, we were treated very cordially and I appreciated that.
I was very disturbed to hear the extent to which those who were doing the balloon test were treated with anything but courtesy.
The behavior of some of the neighbors was so poor that some of some of the neighbors actually thought that thought out some of the volunteers who were doing this later and apologize for the behavior of their friends.
This is, everybody who's doing this is a volunteer for the town, and I wish people would
at least recognize that.
You don't have to, well, I'm going to leave it at that.
The next item is that not a way of any communication between parties, control and the blue
test of what's photography, photographing the balloons.
We were in communication.
I assume everybody else got the message as I got the message when the balloon was
I just texted me and I was in the communication by text for most of the day I was told
when the 10 feet came down. That's the only personal assurance I can give but I don't believe
I was the only one who was told about it.
As it appears, the balloon chether was not accurately
pre-measured but was measured incrementally by hand while releasing the balloons. Actually,
what I'm told, and I believe this photographic evidence of this, what what I was told is
that it was pre-measured and that we have photographs of it light out in the parking lot
to measure.
It was measured when it was taken down. And if I'm right, Michael, Michael
Anthony, were you the one who actually measured it coming down with the together?
I was with Tom when we all measured it.
Yes.
Okay.
So it was measured coming down.
And then as the observer supported the supervisor and engineer increased the life.
And then shortly thereafter returned it.
It didn't seem like a very short period of time.
I managed to visit most of the places that on my list.
The next one, the size of the blooms used was significantly smaller than the specifications
announced by the town.
This week, we really need to apologize for, there was a typo, there was never any intention
of doing it with a 15 foot below.
because we had been told, this was the first time we did the balloon test on our own.
We can surprise and stand up before.
We had been told that a 15-foot balloon would not work for a balloon test.
You seem to indicate that it would have you ever used a 15-foot balloon for a balloon test.
We would tell the balloon would take it, but if it's possible, we would ask for that.
that first earlier one had been told that the balloon would simply float all over the sky at 15 feet.
Just to quickly answer that question, yes, it is possible. In fact, there are firms and there's one nearby to your
facility that could provide a professional test and they have a balloon of that size that they
would raise, they actually use a winch to get it up and down so that it provides that visual
representation, and then they follow it up with a photosimulation of the proposed
power overlaid on that. So you get a full representation of how that would
look. If you could give us the information about how to contact them, that would
be very, absolutely. You know, it's not the first time we've been given bad
information. I'm not, I'm not talking about your information. I'm talking about
the information that you can't use a 15th book alone. Understood. But we had never
intended to use a 15-foot balloon, that was a typo and all the other material that went on.
It was always a five-foot balloon.
Now, it didn't end up in five-foot balloon.
There, and that's also another reason why I think we do need to redo it, because of the
difficulty of getting the material in, and to some extent, because of the distraction created
by questions about whether they could enter the property properly and that kind of
They did not manage to, they, they couldn't get enough helium into the balloons to, to fill it, and so they were undersized.
I think it could probably about three feet.
And, and frankly, I don't think that was enough.
We didn't think it was enough when Verizon did it.
for the first ticker-related loan test.
But we've done multiple loan tests at almost every one of these sites, so I don't know why this one should be any different.
And I think I think it's incumbent on us to do another balloon test.
So I don't argue at all with the comments about it being less visible.
One of the reasons we didn't worry is much about that is because you're quite right.
the balloon test should be followed up with photo simulations of the tower, and so what's
really most important about it is that the balloon gives you the height of the tower,
which we all did see the balloon, but again it makes more sense to do a fresh test that
everybody is actually considering,
I see somebody saying why not sense, and we didn't catch
the typo until we got this letter, we didn't, when we first saw the notion that we had said
that it was 15 feet somewhere, we all said, what do you mean? We never meant 15 feet and then we
looked back at the correspondence and saw that there was a typo we hadn't thought. All I can do
is apologize for that. I can't change it. Well, that's not all I can do. I can also say that we're
So, that's not far as I think that they're on.
I
think that's about all that we can do at this point.
Oh, I guess the one other thing is that if you have any other suggestions, if you're
consulting firm has other suggestions about the way to do the balloon
test. We would welcome. We don't know if they have to be reasonable. We can't spend half
the chance money on it, but within in reason. And the one other thing that people should
be aware of is that the Parks and Recreation is going to be wearing a footpath, just a
So that we can get into the park without going on private property, because there have been complaints about the town, including during the balloon test, the town having to go on private property because of the underbrush on our access.
So there will be some trimming done as minimalism.
possible but having a path put up through what has always been intended to be the access route to the
part. So, you will see sometime in the next week or two that will happen. Now, we should
we still should discuss the the bulletin test results that we have and we will do that at a later
day, we didn't want to do both of them together. I understand that you have, in fact,
I've seen the presentation that the neighbors have put together, and I think it's legitimate
for you to show that. But we haven't finished putting ours together as well, and I think
it makes sense to do that all in one go-round. So we will be doing that, but we'll be doing
it when we're all fresh and not at the end of the movie.
That's fine. Brian did request that he could get unneeded again. He had a comment on the
balloon test. Sure.
Sorry, Kim. I'm not trying to drive carpal tunnel your way.
There we go. Okay. Sorry. So balloon tests are very difficult at best. And getting a large balloon
adds the extra poll. I disagree with whoever said that they catch wind. There is more
obviously there's more surface area for the wind, but the poll on the balloon chain itself
should be about 60 pounds or so, and then it can be fairly straight at that point. And the
critical element to me on a blue test is the exact spacing between the upper and the second
balloon so that we can use calipers and actually use that measurement as an exactness for
all of the other dimensions. And we use a picture of caliper caliper in order to gauge that.
But without that then you're just guessing at heights and other other measurements.
Okay well that's that actually is an excellent suggestion if you if you could get us the information
the the people you're recommending the work with and we'll look into that and
probably consult with you before we do something do a second go around with it.
Yeah if it's okay will you melt that over to you?
That would be great.
So, at this point, I think I'm going to say, bring this letter B, you mean two equals.
Jeff, is there anything else that we need to do tonight on this matter?
Okay.
I appreciate everyone's coming.
I know you didn't hear what you wanted to hear.
We are still going to look into these things.
I guess maybe I was hoping too much for a magic bullet.
This isn't a magic bullet, but it still is something worth looking into.
And I ask you to take seriously the challenge I laid out, which is that part of finding
solutions is finding people who think the solutions really, who believe in the solutions
enough to be part of those solutions themselves.
And I will be very interested to see if that becomes a reality.
I look forward to the challenge.
But I want to remind everybody that it's not our job to find sites for Bedford.
It's not our obligation to do that.
Yeah, but we're willing to do what we can.
And I think you ought to let Susan Hoffman just give a couple of comments on her presentation.
Not necessarily to give the presentation, but she put a lot of effort into that, into that work.
And I know she did, and she's going to be given an opportunity to do the entire presentation.
But we made it clear quite early on that we were not going to do the actual discussion of the balloon test today.
We were told that that was perfectly acceptable.
And nobody said to tell this anything about Mrs. Hoffman's presentation until I believe it was late morning or early afternoon.
And we haven't had any time to put together hours.
It does not make sense to have two separate meetings on the presentation.
I assure Mrs. Hoffman that she will have the opportunity to present her work.
And I do appreciate the time she has spent on it.
But we're not going to do it tonight.
we're not going to change our policies at the last minute when we had what we thought was an agreement.
So thank you and I apologize Mrs. Hoffman,
but I think I promise you you will have the
opportunity to do it and probably to an audience that's more awake than this one probably is at the
The next item on our agenda then is to simply consider our next three meeting dates, I believe.
And if somebody can get the agenda out, you can tell me what they are.
The next date is February 8th, the 22nd of February and March 8th.
Okay, can you roll Mondays and we all discuss seven PM?
And that's okay with all of you Diane, does that they all work for you?
And Michael, you can get your seven on Monday, it works for me. I think that's the last thing on our agenda.
Um, could I have a motion to close the meeting?
Don't move.
Is there second?
Second.
Thank you.
Everybody in favor?
Hi.
Anybody opposed?
The meeting is now closed.
Thank you all for coming.
I suspect we will all meet together again in the not to do decent future.
Take care.
Thank you.
Tonight everybody. Good night. Take care.