‘Eminent domain’ for cell towers?

To the editor:

A cellphone tower was erected a couple of lots away from my home last summer and completely within a residential subdivision. This cellphone tower was erected so close to a neighbor’s home that if it fell in their direction, it would fall on their garage. Not a soul within this neighborhood received any notice whatsoever beforehand that this was going to happen — from the company that will own the tower, the borough, the landowner or the company erecting the tower.

In my effort to learn how this could be, I found out that primarily it was because the Mat-Su Borough Assembly rescinded all regulations regarding tall towers in November 2011, including the requirement to notify nearby landowners, as the expensive two-year effort of a tall tower commission to study the issue was coming to a close. I’ve worked with some assembly members, neighbors, former commission members and others to get some requirement of notification back in borough ordinances so that this element of surprise does not catch others unaware. It has been an interesting fight.

Part of that fight is yet another tall tower “committee,” which is largely made up of people sympathetic to the cellular communications industry. In the tradition of Vince Lombardi and Sun Tzu, elements within this committee understand that the best defense is a good offense. Now some members of the committee are seeking to include cellular communications infrastructure as “essential services.”

While this would require some measure of communication as part of infrastructure construction, it would also allow eminent domain, where the industry would have the ability to condemn private property in order to locate its infrastructure where they prefer. In other words, part of the “communication” that the industry might send you could be “get out” or “move over” because “we’re putting a tower on your property, whether you like it or not.”

Now, I understand that many are tired of government. Most of us didn’t move to the Valley to become active in government. We came to escape such intrusions on life. But, like all predation, there is often little rest for the weary. So, as local political races begin to heat up here in the Valley, I’d like to “communicate” this little tidbit of information to your readers, because I have a very strong feeling that they will not get such information from either the borough or the cellular communications industry — even before it’s too late, as I found to my utter dismay.

See where your candidates stand on issues, including this one, and vote wisely.

Mark Gordon

Palmer