2018-06-07 Hearing Transcript - Cellco Partnership dba Verizon Wireless USE 17-074

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feet away from the residents. Given the recent activity in Puna, you know, we got all these earthquakes, and now we got lava and, you know, monopine towers were supposed to be supposedly if they fall, they fall down like this. They crash down. But, with all these activities that we have that I cited earlier, I'm really worried about that tower falling down on the nearby residents. That's my concern, and if I have to—that was one of the, I would have that as a reason for denying this permit. CLARKSON: I'd like to say that I concur with that concern. I've only been involved in one or two tower applications and in all those cases, all the neighbors were identified, told about the proposed tower, and had no objections. And, any successor owners would have been able to see the cell tower, know that it was in the neighborhood. If they wanted to buy the house next door, so be it. That's fine. They know what they're purchasing. But, to me, to put a cell tower in a place where it could fall over and hit any one of three different houses is not appropriate. I personally think that they should be located unless all of the neighbors are perfectly fine with it. I personally think that cell communication is a very valuable public utility, and that there may be ways to condemn or otherwise acquire property in suitable locations. But, I just wanted to say that I'm going to vote against this application because I just don't like the fact that it would be putting their neighbors in a situation where they have to worry about a cell tower falling over on their house for whatever reason. Now, you say that that's very unlikely, but I don't think however unlikely it is that is a risk that a neighbor should be forced to take by my action, and so I won't take that action. Is there any further discussion? Would you like to respond to, Applicant, to the discussion? MARTIN: I would. Mr. de la Garza has explained to me that Verizon if they are forced to move this site that they will not be providing service for this area. So, it's not a choice of moving it to an inappropriate location. There are just not enough people there to support moving the tower to an area where it's not going to cover as many people as they need to have it cover. Rural areas are very hard, and that's the reason why they haven't been covered prior to this. CLARKSON: Okay. MARTIN: It's just not cost effective. CLARKSON: And, you're not willing to go to the expense of acquiring enough land to site a tower so that it has a 150 -foot radius around it? MARTIN: There's no way that you can do that. These properties—if you, we actually did target, we did try to target areas that were vacant, and this is what we came up with. This is the best we could come up with. I sent letters out to every large vacant area within the coverage objective, and these are the only people that responded, so I don't have the option of going to another place that has a bigger fall radius. The only place is the park, and the radio frequency engineer said that won't work. CLARKSON: Okay, well, try offering more money. EXHIBIT A 12