400ft Radio Tower!

I attended the June 16th workshop on the subject of the radio tower and listened carefully to the presentation made by the city staff and the public comments made by the community.  It is regrettable that the city failed to adequately engage with the community until this late date.  We should not compound that mistake by stubbornly forging ahead with the tower and insufficiently addressing the community concerns.  That approach does not fully solve the public safety problem and will leave a wound in the community.

Given that we are where we are, the question is what is the proper course of action now.  The answer lies in studying the coverage maps.  I assume that one of the maps provided is for upgrading the equipment on the existing tower at Jones Bridge and Morton Road, and the other coverage map is for a 400 ft tower at State Bridge and Medlock Bridge.  Looking at these maps shows some improvement in coverage with the 400 ft tower; however, some areas in Shakerag and Newtown are still left with inadequate coverage.

Mayor Bodker has stated that this decision is a tradeoff between public safety and cost.  The Mayor has also stated that his primary concern is the safety of the residents.  He has expressed his concern that a citizen may not be helped in a time of need due to our current inadequate system.  In light of those comments, I do not see how we can explain to the community that we purposefully are not providing public safety radio coverage to portions of the city in order for the city to use their money for other purposes.  Especially, in light of a mid-year budget that has $1.4 million of additional money and proposes to use $300,000 to replace pavement reflectors that will only last until the next ice storm.

The course of action I would like to see the city follow is to upgrade the equipment at the existing location at Jones Bridge and Morton Roads now, not waste $500,000 on a 400 ft tower, and this time do a more complete study of alternatives to provide full coverage to the areas of the city not addressed by that upgrade.  This plan is an improvement over where we are now, and ultimately results in a better solution.  From the presentation at City Council and the information available to the public, I am unconvinced that an adequate and sufficient study of better solutions and their costs has been performed.  I agree with council members Davenport and Zaprowski that we need more options, and these options should be driven by the need to provide full coverage, not cost scrimping.  I believe that if we demand it, creative engineers will find a solution preferable to what has been proposed so far at considerably less cost than is being “guess-timated.”