Wireless Plan Flawed
by Dale Tyler

On Sept. 17, the Mission Viejo City Council will consider a proposal from ATS. This proposal purports to be the draft Wireless Master Plan for the city. Unfortunately for the taxpayers, who paid for this self-serving report, what we see in the 197-page document is little more than a sales pitch by ATS, consisting of mostly boilerplate and pretty pictures.

When ATS first came before the council at the behest of Councilman Frank Ury, its representatives were asked to find a way to market the city parks, open spaces and other city facilities to the various wireless carriers who serve the cell phone needs of city residents. Secondary to this objective was the idea that the City Council needed a cover story for the proliferation of cell towers in the city. Some recently constructed cell towers are attractive, like the clock at Marguerite and Trabuco, although it would be nice if the clock actually showed the correct time, while others are the typical ugly monopole types with nondescript buildings housing the equipment. However, it is clear that there are many of these installations in the city, and ATS wants us to add many more.

ATS makes many misstatements of fact in its report, such as the sentence on page 9, where the report says, “As part of issuing these frequency licenses, the FCC mandates that the Carriers should provide seamless coverage throughout the licensed market area.” Now, we all know this is clearly not true. Carriers have maps that show coverage on their web sites, and their contracts disclose that “coverage is not guaranteed in all places within the coverage area” (from a Verizon Wireless contract). So ATS is trying to mislead the council into claiming that they (the council) are obligated to provide sites for seamless coverage. This is not true, and ATS should know that it is not true. Further, nothing in this plan will absolutely guarantee that cell providers will actually spend the money needed to provide completely seamless coverage in the city. In fact, I have been told by two different carriers that they do not to intend to provide such coverage in any area that is not perfectly flat. The carriers themselves admit that it is too costly to get to 100-percent coverage.

ATS also attempts to engage in scare tactics to frighten gullible members of the council into approving its plan. An example of this lies on page 10, where ATS claims, “Local governments regulate but cannot restrict the placement of wireless communications facilities from sites such as schools, residential zones, and public right-of-ways.” Note the use of “schools, residential zones … . ” ATS wants us to believe that if we do not allow cell towers in parks, then carriers will place them in schools. Lance MacLean, a council shill for ATS, said much the same thing at the Sept. 4, 2007, council meeting. The trouble with this is that the city can regulate the placement of cell towers as long as it does not unfairly restrict placement. ATS also tries to raise the bogyman of lawsuits on page 10 by claiming, “Recently, the courts have struck down restrictive ordinances or ordinances that are ‘so onerous’ that they are in effect restricting the development of wireless networks ... .” It is true there have been cases where nearly complete bans on cell tower placement were struck down, but reasonable regulations have been upheld many times. Again, ATS is trying to mislead the council and the residents.

ATS does get the goals partially right on page 13 of the report.

1. Mandatory collocation and tower sharing on a nondiscriminatory basis by all cell service providers should be required.
2. Requiring the use of the best available tower hiding “stealth” technology.

However, it adds two undesirable goals, both designed to make ATS money by insisting the council adopt its plan and by stating that the city should sell access to parks and other city facilities for cell towers.

The last two goals are the crux of the problem with the ATS report and really the motivation for this entire process. ATS is a private company that is in business to make a profit. It should be commended for a masterful sales process assisted by Ury and MacLean and its creativity in getting the Mission Viejo taxpayers to pay for its sales pitch to the council. The only question is, will its shills be able to convince their fellow council members to go along with this farce?

We all need to understand what the city's role should be in accommodating cellular service providers to deliver service to residents and visitors. First, the city has no responsibility to guarantee cellular coverage everywhere in the city. Second, no one has a right to cellular coverage at every location in the city. Finally, if the city feels as if it needs to indirectly increase taxes on residents by requiring cellular carriers to pay fees, it should do so by collecting a franchise tax on cell phone bills, not by becoming a landlord for cell towers.

It is my belief that the city needs to develop a process for cell tower applications that would balance the needs for residents to be aware of what is being planned and provide a predictable process for the cellular service carriers to get their cell towers approved.

One approach would be:

1. Allow for ample notice by mail to anyone living within 1,000 yards of a proposed site and any residence that would have a full or partially restricted view of the proposed location and schedule at least two public hearings on any proposed site at Planning Commission meetings.
2. Require construction such that all of the major carriers that serve the city could be housed at the proposed site without further expansion.
3. Require the use of the best available tower hiding “stealth” technology to minimize the impact on views. Supporting equipment would have to be located underground or hidden from view in existing structures.
4. Restrict construction in city parks and public facilities of cell sites and work to relocate existing cell sites in parks.
5. Restrict location of cell sites in areas zoned residential under the city's general ability to restrict commercial uses within residential zones. This would not mean that cell sites could not be immediately adjacent to residential zones in commercial or industrial zones. In nearly every case, a cell site need not be located precisely in only one location, and a nearby commercial location would serve nearly as well.
6. If all of the foregoing conditions are met and residents’ concerns about appearance and noise are addressed, then the city should issue a permit with no further delay. This provides the cellular carriers the certainty they desire. We should also seek to have a timeline for approval that does not exceed 120 days, including all public meetings.

What the city should not do is be intimidated or fooled by ATS's sales pitch and adopt its suggestions to place cell towers in parks or other city facilities. Parks are for recreation, and that should remain their sole purpose. The city should also sever ties to ATS and stop paying it money. ATS representatives fooled us into paying for their sales pitch, and we should not be fooled again. It would be interesting to see what campaign contributions ATS has already made and who it will pay in the future.

The red herring about the city making money off these sites is an attempt to provide cover for politicians and bureaucrats who already have too much of our money to waste. The fees that we would receive from these sites would go to various wasteful schemes that our City Council and city staff are so well known for. Every capital project in the city costs from 150 percent to 300 percent more than projected because of the supposed need for gold-plated fixtures and the like. Giving the city more money is like giving a drunk a bottle of booze.

A copy of the proposed plan can be obtained from the city's web site at http://www.cityofmissionviejo.org/depts/cd/mvwmp9.pdf

Please send an email to the City Council at cityadmin@cityofmissionviejo.org and communitydev@cityofmissionviejo.org telling council members not to approve the ATS Wireless Master Plan.