Fallen cell tower could affect assembly debate

PALMER — With the Mat-Su Borough still slowly figuring out what it wants to do about regulating tall structures, a cellphone tower toppled in Hatcher Pass.

“The cell site was impacted by a severe windstorm and ceased service on Nov. 4,” according to an email from AT&T spokesman Andy Colley. “AT&T technicians are working to repair the permanent site and will raise a temporary site.”

Mat-Su Borough Assemblyman Jim Sykes said he visited the tower near Mile 12, Hatcher Pass Road on the Willow side Wednesday.

“The tower fell in one piece, so it wasn’t the tower that collapsed,” Sykes said. “It was the fact that the guy wire pulled the cement anchor out of the dirt.”

Sykes in the past was project manager for a tower that went up in Talkeetna to broadcast that community’s radio station. Sykes said he was told the tower that blew over in the pass was built at least 20 years ago, if not longer. It was a large tower, 188 feet in height and wider that 12 feet.

“It’s not a small tower. It’s not like you see the fire service building there on Seward Meridian (Parkway),” Sykes said. “This thing, the tower structure itself is twice as tall as you are on its side.”

Towers have been a contentious issue for years at the borough. The assembly is currently waiting on a report from the committee it formed to look at changes to tower regulations. That would be the second committee formed to look at towers. The first examined the issues for years before coming to the assembly with a comprehensive ordinance regulating towers.

But in November 2011 when the assembly took up that ordinance, instead of passing it the body tossed out existing tower rules with the stated intention of sending a pro-business, pro-development message to industry.

Then-assemblyman Warren Keogh, whose spot on the assembly Sykes took in the Oct. 1 general election, tried numerous times to institute some tower regulations. Finally, in January of this year, his colleagues decided to go back to the rules they’d thrown out in 2011.

A contention often stated at the assembly table is that towers don’t fall over, but instead collapse in place. That’s not what happened here, Sykes said.

He acknowledged that it’s true what people say, though — this isn’t the sort of thing that happens very often. But he thinks visiting the site of a fallen tower will be useful to him when he has to vote on tower rules.

“Even though these things don’t happen very often, there is what I call a zone of danger anywhere within the range of the radius of the tower height,” he said. “You have a choice of where to put it. It’s not like you have to put it in a specific location.”

According to a memo sent on behalf of Mat-Su Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss by Deputy Borough Clerk Jamie Newman, the mayor has made it clear in comments to the tower committee that he would like to see that body draft up an ordinance that just requires tower builders give notice to potential neighbors.

“He is very appreciative of the committee,” Newman said. “He does not wish to see a ‘maximized’ tower ordinance, but instead, a minimum to provide the public with proper notice on the process of developing necessary infrastructure.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.