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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1995
Towers Again
News that the telecommunications bill nearing passage in the U.S. Congress takes away from the county the right to regulate the location of towers for cellular phone companies is hardly welcome.
It is also another example of the falsity of the claim by some in the Republican Party which controls Congress that it is interested in reducing the power of the federal government and turning it back to the states and localities.
Clearly the county now has zoning authority over the location of towers. Just as clearly this bill would take that power away, and instead the Federal Communications Commission would be able to overrule the interests of the people of Rappahannock County in not having the landscape scarred by 250-foot towers.
Apparently the FCC is not really interested in regulating the location of these towers, only in seeing that local governments do not get in the way of cellular telephone companies and their desire to expand this new industry. Indeed it is not the people, or their representatives in local government, whose interests are being fostered by bills like this but the interests of large corporations.
The National Association of Counties is urging local governments to contact Republican Rep. Thomas Bliley whose Seventh District seat includes Culpeper County and urge him to support an amendment that would allow counties some say over the location of such towers as long as they do not ban them or “unneessarily delay” them. Rep. Bliley will lead House conferees in the conference committee to draft the final form the bill will take, and he has said he will support such a clause.
Citizens should also let Rep. Frank Wolf and the state’s senators Robb and Warner know they resent this intrusion by the federal government into the county’s zoning authority.
Rappahannock County has not been seeking to ban communications towers. Instead it has been trying to work with cellular telephone companies to find a location for such a tower that does not overly detract from the county’s scenic views and does improve radio communication from the dispatch center at the Sheriffs Office. It is not likely the cellular phone companies will be interested in working with the county on that if this bill is approved.
County taxpayers need to be ready for large expenditures for improved radio equipment for the dispatch center if this bill passes. Or possibly the county could just equip and the cars and equipment used by deputies and fire and rescue personnel with cellular phones. That is, of course, precisely what the cellular phone companies are hoping for.
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