Cellular Tower Plan Referred to MVC

By IAN FEIN

Adding another twist to the pending lawsuit with Cingular Wireless,
Aquinnah selectmen last week voted to refer the proposed cellular
antennae to the Martha's Vineyard Commission as a development of
regional impact (DRI).

The commission will decide next month whether to hold a public
hearing and review the project as a DRI.

The increased regulatory involvement comes two months after Cingular
Wireless filed a pair of lawsuits against the Aquinnah planning board
for denying a proposed cellular antenna inside the steeple of the Gay
Head Community Baptist Church.

Selectmen decided to refer the project to the commission last
Wednesday, after meeting with town counsel in executive session to
discuss the pending litigation.

"This [referral] is an option that we should have considered
from the beginning, but we did not," said selectman and planning
board chairman Camille Rose. "Because there has been an appeal,
[the special permit application] is still in the process. The decision
of the commission could influence the process - and probably
should."

The town filed formal court responses to the Cingular complaints,
though neither the selectmen nor the planning board have revealed how
far they intend to take the case. "We're just proceeding on
a day-to-day basis, and are still obviously trying to negotiate with
them," Ms. Rose said this week.

Cingular Wireless claims to be the largest wireless company in the
United States, with more than 50 million subscribers and annual revenue
of over $32 billion. Aquinnah is the eighth smallest town in
Massachusetts, with a population of less than 400 and an annual budget
of $2.5 million.

Town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport told voters at a special town
meeting earlier this month that other municipalities - including
two on the Vineyard - had not fared well under similar cellular
challenges in the past. "I've been handed a lot easier cases
to defend than this one," Mr. Rappaport said when pressed.

Selectmen last week also scheduled another special town meeting, for
Jan. 17, to tie up loose ends from the town meeting earlier this month
when voters reluctantly agreed to lay the groundwork for a town-owned
wireless facility at the landfill. At that meeting, Ms. Rose and other
town officials presented additional language to proposed zoning bylaw
amendments that went beyond the scope of the warrant and needed to go
before another town meeting.

The additional language serves to switch the proposal from a
town-owned cellular tower to a distributed antenna system, which is
composed of a garage-like base station that connects via fiber optic
cables to a series of small antennae placed on the top of utility poles
across town. The system is less intrusive visually, and is used
successfully on Nantucket and in Brookline, among other places.

Selectmen at the January town meeting will also request $10,000 to
continue its work with a wireless consultant and begin the bidding
process for the antenna system. Town officials have expressed hope that
Cingular may opt to use the town-owned facility and abandon its pursuit
of the church steeple proposal.

In other business last week, selectmen appointed an ad hoc committee
to once again take up the long-debated topic of installing reflective
road signs in town. Public safety officials say the signs are necessary
and required by federal law, while some residents feel that the signs
are an affront to the town's rural character.

The committee - composed of Ms. Rose, conservation commission
chairman Sarah Thulin and Martha's Vineyard Commission
representative Katherine Newman - will host a meeting to take
public comment, and then report back to selectmen with specific
recommendations later this winter. "So the issue will be resolved
once and for all," Ms. Rose said this week. "We promise this
will be the end."