Village of Saddle Rock Mayor Dan Levy said there is “probably a majority” of residents who would be in favor of having a cell-phone tower, which would generate $100,000 a year over the next three decades, installed in their community.
But during the village’s board of trustees meeting last Wednesday, Levy tabled a motion for the second straight month that would have allowed East-Islip based company Suffolk Wireless to install the 125-foot single pole cell-phone tower in Saddle Rock.
“There is a number of residents that are very apprehensive,” Levy said. “Rightfully or wrongfully, it almost doesn’t matter. When I speak to them you see the fear in their eyes.”
Levy said that as part of the deal to place the cell-phone tower in the village, Saddle Rock would have received a $100,000 signing bonus in 2012 – on top of $100,000 a year for the next 30 years.
“It would have created a substantial tax relief to the residents,” Levy said.
With a minority of residents opposed to the plan due to possible health implications generated from the tower, Levy said his only choice for now is to wait on the proposal.
“If there is 10 percent of the population that is fearful, is it the right thing to do to your neighbor?” Levy said. “We’re neighbors. We’re a small community. This is not New York City. This is not a big town. We’re all living next to each other.”
“Do you really want to wake up next to a neighbor who is not sleeping at night because they feel you did something to hurt them?” he added. “I think it’s wrong.”
The original plan for the cell-phone tower called for Suffolk Wireless to place “a single pole” structure in Saddle Rock, Levy said.
“I was told about 125 feet (tall),” the mayor said. “Everything was going to be within that pole. There was nothing hanging outside. It was basically a stick.”
Levy said Suffolk Wireless would have managed the cell phone tower for the village.
“They were going to install it and contract the cell-phone vendors,” he said.
The cell-phone tower would have been able to be used by as many as “a half a dozen” cell phone carriers, Levy said.
Although village officials knew of cell-phone carriers who were interested in using the tower, Levy declined to discuss the identities of those companies because he said he never got to the point of “finalizing the negotiation.”
“I will not go to the next step before I pass the first hurdle with the residents,” Levy said. “It didn’t make sense to go into the final negotiations with them until we clear up the hurdle here.”
The topic of the cell-phone tower was originally broached last year during what Levy described as a widely attended public hearing to discuss the cell-phone-tower proposal.
“We had the right as a board to institute it and authorize it without asking anybody’s permission,” Levy said of the proposal. “I as a mayor, felt that the right thing to do is to advertise a public hearing and to listen to the residents.”
Levy said 250 residents attended the meeting and “249 were screaming against” the proposal. He said that following the meeting “40 families” signed a petition against having the cell phone tower erected in the village.
“I said ‘in that case we are just going to table it,'” Levy said. “There was a physicist who did a specific study relating to this antennae, in this location, in this village. He tried to explain to them (that there were no averse health effects) to no avail. Nobody was listening. It was the what they call a ‘renegade crowd.’ The anti-establishment.”
But last month, Levy said a portion of the crowd, which was originally against the cell-phone tower proposal began to switch sides.
Dr. Alan Freedman, a Saddle Rock resident who was originally opposed to the proposal, joined with the village Deputy Mayor Avery Modlin to test the health effects caused from a similar cell-phone tower in the Village of Thomaston.
Levy said that Freedman purchased a “radio frequency meter” and after running tests on Thomaston’s tower found that it had a “zero or next to zero emission.” He said that when the meter was placed next to a cell phone, the mobile device created much more radiation than the tower.
“He presented that,” Levy said of Freedman. “Some of the residents who were originally opposing, have accepted that and adopted his welcoming the antennae.”
Still, Levy said that there is enough of a resistance to the proposal that the village will not move forward at this time.
“There is still a nucleus of residents who are apprehensive about it,” Levy said. “My feeling is as long as we have the group of people who are fearful, I think it’s my obligation to try to mitigate it, explain it to them. I’m uneasy installing something that causes fear.”
Levy said that the village will disseminate information about the cell-phone tower to residents in the coming weeks and that the trustees will discuss the proposal during a public meeting “at some point in the future.”
“I don’t know that in the end we’re not going to approve it,” Levy said. “Most likely, we probably will. I don’t know. If we continue in this direction we probably have to approve it, but at this stage I’m holding off because I think that we need to be sensitive to those who are fearful.”
“I have to balance the budget,” he added. “I have to make sure the rest of the families here are happy and content with our decision. There’s a fine line that we have to walk.”
