"Can you hear me now" is a trick question for cell phone users in the community of Crowley.
A cell phone controversy that touched on visual impacts, health risks and a desperate need for communication apparently came to an end with the Mono
Supervisors’ 3 to 2 vote to deny the appeal of Incline Partners, the firm that wanted to set up cell phone towers in a Crowley Lake neighborhood.
In a long, night meeting, most of the same controversial issues spilled over from the public to the Supervisors. Citizens called the cell tower location “the wrong place”. Incline Partners of Tahoe had leased land owned by snowboard star, Tommy Czeshin in Crowley. The firm wanted to put up as many as two towers for two cell phone carriers on each tower.
Cell service meant good news for the Crowley area where there currently is no cell reception. Residents near the planned location objected with grave concerns over bad visual impacts and fears of health risks from the antennas. The health issue could not come into play at the local level.
The Mono Planning Commission voted 3 to 2 to deny the use permit for this project. Incline Partners appealed that denial to the Mono Supervisors where they thought they might have a better chance.
Mono Community Development staff said that after hours of talk, the Supervisors voted in favor of denial of the appeal with Supervisor Chair Hap Hazard and Supervisor Viki Bauer voting against the denial. Supervisors Byng Hunt, Larry Johnston and Tim Hansen voted for the denial of the project appeal.
The Supervisors had planned a special meeting for Thursday at the courthouse starting at 10:30am. They apparently planned to formally vote on the written decision denying the use permit for Incline Partners.
County staff said that there is another possibility in the works called Vista Towers on DWP property in the Hilton Creek area.
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Please note the hundreds of academic studies proving how hazardous wireless radiation is for biological beings, at: http://www.EMRActionDay.org/science . Telecom companies pay hardly any Federal income taxes, because cell towers and their infrastructures are stipended by the Federal government. Why do we not know how hazardous these cell towers are? Because the telecom companies have deep pockets and the best paid PR agencies in the world. Remember the 35 years it took for tobacco litigation to make a difference? Do you want your children to be affected?
I agree that cell towers can be disguised to the point of being almost invisible. There has been quite a bit of health hazard news about cell phone use safety recently and I believe that may be the concern of some citizens living in close proximity to a cell tower or a proposed cell tower.
They can disguise those towers so well that you REALLY have to look hard to even spot them. I’d bet that if they could somehow install a tower overnight, the ones who oppose it wouldn’t even notice.
The ones who bought in Crowley when they knew there was no cell service that are now beating the drum about it with Hazard holding the cellular banner high, are of the same sort that buy a house near an airport only to urinate and moan about the noise until their demands are met with the closing of the airport.
No difference.
uh, wrong LP. The ones who DON’T want it are the more recent buyers. The comparison to the airport buyers are apples and oranges. Said airport was there first and THEN people bought. Those in Crowley bought and now WANT to bring something to the community, not take away from the community
Man, I never thought I’d say this, but I have to agree with Mr. Deja on this one. Partially anyway. If people don’t want to look at that ugly thing fine. There are a multitude of hill tops in the Crowley lake area. No need to put the thing right next to houses.
I really don’t get this. Doesn’t SAFETY trump all this other BS? Aside from ‘landlines’ obviously in use in the homes, cell coverage is essential from the stranded or injured hiker/boater, a vehicle accident in the night where first response is vital…right down to Search and Rescue folks trying to communicate when other means are down. I think aesthetics is a poor reaching excuse not to go forward with this. Get with it!
No matter what the reasons,seems to me the right decision was made….based on what the Local residents want or don’t want in the area.Maybe they have learned to live in a world with land-line telephones,or don’t need to be talking 24/7 on a cell.
Since they denied this location they had better well have a legitimate back-up plan for somewhere close by – and soon!
Living in the twentieth century was cute for a while, but it’s getting rather old now that it’s 2011.
Talk about slapstick comedy!
Supervisors Curly, Moe and Larry, better known as Dyng-A-Lyng Byng, Tea Party Tim and Latte Larry, blithely refused cell phone service for hundreds of Crowley Lake families because the requisite towers would sully the visual purity of the Juniper Drive Bird Watching Society, a few part-time summer aesthetes from L.A. and a paintball platoon of techno-greenies who stormed the appeal hearing, clad in their Cabela’s finest fatigues and armed with their iPads, MicroCells and biodegradable crying towels.
Hunt who, believe it or not, got his start in politics as a Mammoth Lakes Planning Commissioner and has since elevated himself into the political personification of the Peter Principle, dared not sacrifice his perfect record of ineptitude by overturning those dedicated Mono County Planning Commissioners who initially kiboshed Crowley’s cell phone service last April.
Hansen, who represents the north county, much of which is apparently still awaiting rural electrification, never mind cell phone service, also rejected the appeal. But at least he did so mercifully quickly without the protracted circumlocution of Hunt and his fellow former planner, Johnston.
And Johnston, a staunch defender of the effete exclusivity of The Trails, Mammoth’s enclave for the wannabe rich and famous with its obvious similarities to the Juniper Drive nimby crowd, seemed to base his let-them-eat-cake conclusion entirely on his inbred distrust of anyone who makes a presentation to the Board and his worthless tallying of the public comments, for and against, which in total represented less than 1% of the population of Crowley Lake. Apparently that’s as far as he got while studying Planning 101 at the Martha Stewart Institute of Rose Garden Planning & Quiche Making.
At any rate, many thanks to Vikki Bauer and Hap Hazard, the only two supervisors who understood the priority of the enhanced public safety and convenience of this service for the vast majority of the community over the exaggerated detriment of a few.
Thanks Bing for screwing us again.
They already design these towers to look like whatever local trees are around. and the kickback thing, enoughalready, may be closer to the truth than you think.
If a cell tower that would benefit ALL is a visual blight to a very small few, than why that brown turd of a water tank that is a visual blight to ALL and benefits only a few?
They screwed the pooch on this one.
I don’t get it. Why does Crowley have to stay in the void? Is there no light in the blackhole of the county supervisors. Are they not getting the right amount of kickbacks to vote in favor
of this? I say disguise the tower as a palm tree and bring Crowley into the 21st century.