STODDARD — Cell phone users waiting for reception where Route 9 passes through Stoddard will keep waiting.
Wireless network provider AT&T’s plans to extend its digital reach in the area — now a cell phone dead zone — is still hung up in a debate between the company’s representatives and the residents of Granite Lake.
AT&T wants to build a 150-foot tower on top of Melville Hill, in a location that would be visible from around the lake.
That debate raged on at a public hearing at Stoddard Town Hall Tuesday.
Citing concerns about aesthetics and conservation, residents of Stoddard and Nelson argue they should have a say in how cell phone infrastructure is developed in the area, and they want the company to build two smaller towers in different locations.
“The issue here is local control of our community, and not having big government and big companies coming in and telling us what to do,” Stoddard resident Kristen A. McLaughlin said in an interview earlier this week.
But company representatives say building the less obtrusive towers residents would prefer would drive up the cost of providing coverage.
The zoning board must make a decision by the end of May on the company’s application for a special exception to build the tower on Melville Hill. The board first took up the proposal in November.
Looming over all the parties to this debate is a federal communications law, which says local governments cannot prohibit a wireless carrier from operating in its area. But short of taking the question to court, what constitutes prohibiting coverage is subject to debate.
Geoff Jones, chairman of the Stoddard Conservation Commission, spoke against AT&T’s proposal at the hearing Tuesday night. The company should build multiple small towers instead of one large tower on top of a prominent hill, he said.
About 35 people attended the hearing.
Stoddard’s hilly terrain, scattered residents, and high volume of protected land were all reasons to look at multiple small towers as a way to provide optimal wireless coverage, Jones argued.
“One cell tower isn’t going to do justice to this community,” he said.
To build a tower on AT&T’s proposed site, workers would first have to extend a road to the top of the hill and lay new power lines to bring electricity to the site.
Building the new road would disrupt animal habitats, Jones said. Sixty-three percent of the land in Stoddard is under conservation.
Jones showed a projected coverage map of the proposed tower and pointed out that it wouldn’t give cell phone service to the northern portion of Stoddard’s residences.
As an alternative, he showed a map of the coverage from a combination of two proposed towers that the residents prefer. The two towers together would cover Route 9 and more of Stoddard that the one tower on Melville Hill, he said.
But AT&T’s lawyer, Stephen D. Anderson of Cambridge, Mass., used the same maps to argue against Jones’ alternative proposal. Two towers would cost twice as much, he said, but the total coverage area would be smaller than the company’s proposal.
“Certainly we’ve never said we could cover the entire town with one site. We’re saying Melville Hill provides the best coverage of any one site,” Anderson said.
Zoning board Chairman Beverly Power pointed out that much of that larger coverage area is protected forest with no houses and roads.
But Anderson said people also use cell phones in the wilderness, such as when calling for help when threatened by wild animals.
“Things happen in the woods,” he told the board.
Speaking after the meeting, Power said this application from AT&T is the most difficult proposal she’s seen in more than two decades on the board.
“The zoning board is very sensitive to the concerns of the Granite Lake residents, and we have spent many hours reviewing this,” she said.
The board has hired a radio frequency consultant to review AT&T’s proposal as well as the alternatives presented by tower opponents, and they have looked at projected coverage maps for more than 50 sites. The proposed Melville Hill site provides the farthest-reaching coverage, she said.
But board Vice Chairman Fred Ward said he did not agree that the Melville Hill plan gave the best coverage.
AT&T’s plans may also be facing a challenge from another quarter.
Nelson resident John J. Cucchi told the zoning board Tuesday he has been in touch with representatives of the Dakota Sioux, who object to the plan on historic grounds.
At the turn of the last century, Granite Lake was the home of Charles A. Eastman, a Native American leader who helped found the Boy Scouts of America and established numerous Native American YMCAs.
The Native American group is concerned that the proposed tower is on a site of historical significance, Cucchi said, and representatives will be visiting Granite Lake next month.
AT&T’s representatives said the historical site review is a federal process separate from the zoning board’s permitting process.
The public hearing will continue Thursday, May 5, at 7 p.m. in Stoddard Town Hall.
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