UPDATE Bemoaning their lack of maneuvering room, the Minnesota’s Minnetonka City Council gave the okay for Verizon to begin construction on a series of small cell wireless poles to appear in six residential neighborhoods. The Sun Sailor reports that the final decision was a 5 – 2 split.
One of the councilmen who voted against granting the permit, Brian Kirk, explained the reason behind his vote. “I feel like Verizon just did not compromise to a point where this could be more palatable for our community,” he noted. “I can only hope that the next cell phone provider that comes to Minnetonka will try to find shared property lines … which more or less puts the cell tower in somebody’s backyard or side yard, rather than their front yard.”
“I think that the challenge here is that our legislators have kind of let us down in this area,” said Mayor Brad Wiersum, who voted to approve the conditional use permit. “And I think our hands are really tied, and as several of you have said, we don’t really have a choice to do what we want to in our gut, which is to say ‘no,’ because we have lost local control.”
Whether they supported the measure or not, council members made comments indicating that they were united on two points. Recognizing that a refusal to honor Verizon’s request without sufficient grounds for approval could result in a costly and unproductive lawsuit; the Minnetonka City Council agreed that this was not an expense they wanted to generate. They also expressed chagrin at the note of incivility that they felt had crept into the meeting and pledged to do better next time. As Mayor Wiersum stated, “I always want to treat our guests with respect and if I failed to do that then I apologize for that.”
Hoping to have more say in future tower placement decisions, council members appealed to constituents to contact state legislators to change the guidelines.
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