A 185-foot communications monopole that was planned for a wooded area in a Springs neighborhood may end up elsewhere, possibly on the Girl Scouts of Nassau County's Camp Blue Bay site.
Camp Blue Bay's director of camping services suggested at a noisy and chaotic East Hampton Town Board meeting on Tuesday that a portion of the 170-acre camp site on Flaggy Hole Road could house a tower to serve the hamlet's emergency and personal wireless communications needs, despite negotiations for such a tower having previously proven fruitless.
With few other alternatives and a plan to put up a 150-foot tower at Camp Blue Bay seemingly scuttled, town officials had identified a 6.9-acre wooded area bordered by Crandall Street, Lincoln Avenue, Norfolk Street, and Fort Pond Boulevard as the only realistic choice. The new location drew uncompromising opposition from adjacent property owners since it was announced last month, and many of them have attended the board's meetings and work sessions since then.
The Girl Scouts have not said no to a 185-foot tower on the Camp Blue Bay property, Laura Bissett-Carr, the camping services director, said Tuesday. However, after meeting with Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc in 2018 "to discuss whether we would be amenable to build a larger tower," the organization reached an agreement in 2019 with American Tower, which operates wireless and broadcast communications infrastructure, allowing the company to apply to the town for a permit to replace a 60-foot tower now on the property with a taller one that would house emergency communications equipment.
That agreement cut the Girl Scouts "out of the process," Ms. Bissett-Carr said. After becoming aware of the tower proposal off Fort Pond Boulevard, she reached out to American Tower, but had yet to get a reply as of Tuesday. "I don't have all the answers, but generally speaking, we are all for helping the emergency communication system," she said.
The town was trying to negotiate a contract with American Tower to have a site there, Jameson McWilliams, a town attorney, told the board. "But a lot of the language in the proposed documents referred back to the underlying contract" between the Girl Scouts and Verizon, which limited any tower that Verizon could build at the property to 100 feet. That agreement, which the town is not a party to, was later amended to allow a tower of 120 feet, she said, and include an option for Verizon to assign the contract to American Tower. "That's how American Tower is now involved." But the parties were unwilling to allow a tower of a height needed for emergency communications, she said.
In an email on Tuesday, Matt Peterson, American Tower's vice president of communications, declined to comment.
The town is nearly finished upgrading its emergency communications infrastructure, with Springs the final hamlet in which a site for a tower has not been finalized. The board last month announced a plan for a 100-foot "cell on wheels" (telecommunications equipment mounted on a truck known as a COW) to provide emergency communications and cellular equipment on a temporary basis while a permanent, 185-foot monopole is designed and constructed.
While more than 20 people spoke against the Crandall Street plan on Tuesday, East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo, Kevin Cooper, the director of code enforcement, David Browne, the chief fire marshal, and Ann Glennon, the chief building inspector, emphasized the urgency of finding a location in Springs.
"The difficulty we're facing right now is that our ability to complete the upgrade of our emergency communications is stalled because we can't get a tower that will provide enough coverage," Chief Sarlo said. Springs, he said, is an "extremely challenging residential area" with very few appropriate sites given its population density and commensurate residences within a tower's "fall zone."
Abandoning a plan for a tower at Camp Blue Bay is "not a matter of the town not wanting it there," Chief Sarlo said, but rather "a matter of American Tower and the property owner not being able to agree on contractual terms" allowing a tower of a height "that's going to make the system work properly." It has left emergency personnel in "an extremely difficult position," he said.
A lack of cellphone service reduces a code enforcement officer's effectiveness, Mr. Cooper said, and can render his or her job dangerous, given the potential for late-night confrontations with "angry, unidentified, undocumented, or intoxicated" people. Five or 10 minutes "can mean the difference between life and death" in the case of a medical emergency, he added.
The only solution, Mr. Browne said, is "more towers, or another tower somewhere. Nobody wants it close to them, I understand that, but we need these communications." An inability "to connect to this lifeline is beyond distressing."
The town could exercise eminent domain to acquire a portion of the Camp Blue Bay property, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, but a number of residences would be close to a tower there, some even closer than residents near the Crandall Street site.
"We're committed to try to find the best possible location," he said. "We haven't committed to any particular location yet. But at this time, the Crandall Street location is the most promising that we've identified." The town will "see if there is a path forward" with the Girl Scouts, he said.
