Cell Tower Proposed at Dundee Fire Station to Serve Emergency Needs

Verizon is negotiating with the City of Dundee for the rights to build a cell tower next to the Dundee Fire Department according to the Oregon Local News.

Meagan Dockter, representing Veri­zon, explained to the News why the new facility is necessary.  “Currently Verizon is in need of this tower due to capacity issues,” she said. “What that means, is that there is an overload of people using their phones in the area and the existing cell towers nearby can no longer keep up with the demand of calls coming in, which leads to dropped calls and slow data usage.”

“You will find this happening more often as cities and towns grow,” Dockter said. “You cannot simply continue to update an existing tower after time. You do need to eventually build new ones to accom­modate the increased usage.”

The tower is slated for construction on Northeast Fryer Hill Road at Dogwood Road just east of the Willamette River.  Continue reading

“What we’re also trying to do is reserve space on the tower for emergency com­munications,” City Admin­istrator Rob Daykin told the Oregon Local News.

There’s a certain amount of space avail­able on the tower that the city could reserve to install com­mun­ications equipment for both the Yamhill County radio system and the Wash­ing­ton County Con­­­sol­idated Com­mun­ica­tions Agency (WCCCA) sys­­tem. Both would need to be installed since recently the Dundee Fire De­part­ment has been using WCCCA for dispatch. Newberg’s contract with Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue meant Newberg’s fire service is dispatched through an outside WCCCA location rather than through the local dispatch center (which still handles police calls), so Dundee is also using WCCCA to provide the smoothest interfacing between the two cities, the News said.

Since Dundee has mutual aid agreements with several other cities using the Yamhill County system, additional infra­structure will need to be built.

Oregon Local News said that prior to the council meeting, DFD Fire Chief John Stock also asked that the revenue from the lease to Verizon be allocated to the department’s equipment reserve fund.  Whether or not the tower is to be camouflaged is still up for discussion.

November 10, 2016