Looking to get a jump on the FCC and the Telecommunications Act, Oregon’s Ashland City Council is working to put its own rules in place before 5G comes to town. As the Mail Tribune reports, there are factions in town that believe that wireless communications represent a health hazard and should be strictly controlled. The council meeting was attended by both outspoken alarmist Kelly Marcotulli, and telecommunications lawyer Odette Wilkins, who patched in remotely.
Ashland has stated that its ability to flout the FCC is limited, but Wilkins asserted that if the town can get its ordinances on the books, prior rulings by Oregon’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals could uphold the town’s decisions. Oregon’s legal system weighs aesthetic concerns heavily, advised Wilkins, giving Ashland the opportunity to take a proactive stance on what it considers to be visually acceptable cell tower placement.
“This ordinance has so many holes you can drive a truck through them. If I were representing one of my multinational clients and I produced something like this I would be fired,” said Wilkins of the current ordinance. Marcotulli, speaking as a founding member of anti-cell towers Oregon for Safer Technology, suggested hiring well-known cell tower opponent Andrew Campanelli (Principal of AntiCellTowerLawyers.com) to lay down the gauntlet. The Council took no action on this suggestion, which would cost Ashland a minimum of $8,500.
The City Council next heard from William Johnson, an engineering consultant and professor emeritus at the Rochester Institute of Technology, who also attended remotely. He reminded the attendees that while local jurisdictions have some sway in cell tower placement decisions, they cannot create service gaps by refusing to build in underserved areas, or ban 5G. With the proliferation of cell phones, there is a demand for spectrum, he said, which cannot be met without a sufficient number of cell towers in a region.
“The problem,” Johnson told theTribune, “Is every household now has two to three phones, and everyone wants to use their cellular phone at once. Then there simply isn’t enough bandwidth [from existing towers] to support that.” Of some of the negative claims about cell towers bandied about at the meeting, Johnson stated, “It’s really very easy to come up with misinformation and proclaim it as true.”
Councilors agreed to postpone making a decision at this time.
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