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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

American Tower or Clemis Tower ? An Update as finale to this afternoon's 4pm Planning Commission Meeting..


 Click here for agenda pack
Below you will find:
  • A transcript of Mayor McClures' remarks about the Tower made at the Jan 8th 2012 City Commission meeting. 
I have a couple of things that I just wanted to bring up. As you know at one of our last meetings we approved having a consultant for the cell tower discussion  

(Editors note: here the Mayor explains that it is not as yet certain how the final decision will be made.  She says It could be a City Commission, Planning Commission  or combination of the two decision.  The reason for this uncertainty she will explain later is due to whether or not the tower will be an American Tower with twevle more more stories and capability for other wireless  carriers to piggy pack or a  smaller Clemis  only tower)
  I wanted to give  an update of where (were we are at) as a Member of the Planning Commission and as a member of the sub committee that was looking at this.
As you may remember the county contacted American tower last year (Editors note: The contact was actually made in mid 2011) because they wanted the Clemis system fully operational. There are some dead spots by our DPW lot. So (Clemis)  contacted American Tower . For American Tower to make the tower commercially feasible they eant to put up a 120 or 140  foot tower with a number of carriers. That was sent to the Panning committee and the planning  Commission did a sub committee on the issue. It was determined that such a specialized thing with detailed engineering that we should hire a consultant and City Commission approved.

So those are the things that have been discused . Is it just a Clemis issue or is an AT and T  issue.( Editors note, The reference to an AT+T issue is unclear. A similar reference was made the Planning Commission Chairman at the November meeting. We think it either means poor AT+T coverage in the southern part of the City or the fact that American Tower wants to carry the AT+T  Signal amongst others). If it is just a Clemis,( Oakland) County Issue that can be separated out from having a 140 foot tower ,,, That is what we are discussing now, If the consultant (advises us) that it can just be a Clemis Solving Issue, a very basic monopole or lattice tower (can suffice). (A workable Clemis solution)  might be able to on one of the  existing  Towes . Tight now it sounds other wise would have to pay $300 for study to see of  DTE is a structure (that would work), Or the consultant has said for 20 or 30 thousand dollars we could build our own tower, The question is would Clemis pay us if we built our own tower....City Manager Cravens is going to set up a meeting  with the sub committee, our consultants  and the county  to get  more fleshed out detaills on this. At the same time we  confirmation that we don't need to solve an AT+T problem. From what  they (?) tgave us the AT+T problem is more in the southern portion of the City which might be solved by putting a tower equipment on Christ Church Cranbrook .
  • A copy of the Planning Commission meeting minutes of the November and of October 2012 meetings that dealt with American Tower. Due to lack of Agenda items the commission has not met since November 2012. The minutes are interesting because for the first time they separate the the components of the Tower proposition. 
In the very beginning July 2011 the interested parties and particulars were 

  •  Clemis (a county wide emergency communications network) and
      American Tower appeared before City Commission.Clemis said the City of Bloomfield Hills was a dead spot for emergency wireless communications that needed to be rectified. A communications tower was required.
  • Our Public Safety Department concurred and gave a presentation of their on own emphasizing the need for such a tower.
  •  American Tower said the would build such a Tower at little or no cost. The City would also relieve a small monthly check for leasing the land. The only fly in the ointment was the size of the tower. To recoup it's costs American Tower would next to build a tower of 120 to 160 feet or 12 to 16 stories high. That would allow American Tower to sell space to other cellphone signal providers.






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