Archive: Around Town

Cell TowerAfter taking more than half a year to get a cell tower approved, it only took one day for it to go up in Mary Searle's field off of Conlon Road yesterday (6/22).  The 195 foot tower was trucked to the site Monday and workmen labored through the week to assemble several sections.  Thursday morning a crane arrived so that workers could assemble the tower.  Last week another crane was used to put the 35 ton utility building in place.

Although the cell tower is being constructed by Cingular Wireless, Nextel will be the first wireless company to install equipment on the facility.  Cingular holds a 25 year lease with Searles.  Once a tower is constructed it is common for other wireless companies to co-locate their equipment on it. 



Work has gone on for several weeks to prepare for the actual erection of the tower.  A road was constructed to provide access before three large concrete footings were installed.  A concrete slab was also poured for the utility building.  Grounding rods were buried and electrical and phone service was put in.


The cell tower was approved last year after seven months in which a Cingular representative failed to satisfy the Town Board's requests for information and documentation.  After five months he was replaced by a Cingular attorney who satisfied the board's concerns about height, coverage, health issues, among others.  In public hearings Al and Debbie Chaffee were the most vocal dissenters.  The Chaffees live near the tower and had researched health threats from cell towers on the Internet.  A Cingular representative told the Board that a company engineer had said that standing in a room while cooking in your microwave oven or watching television with rabbit ear antennae would be more hazardous than emissions from the cell tower.  Construction was finally approved last July, but did not begin until May of this year.


Town Supervisor Steve Farkas says that now that the tower is being constructed he hopes other companies such as Verizon Wireless will also locate on the tower.  He says that will provide better service to the Lansing community without littering the countryside with multiple towers.  Tower owners must allow competitors to co-locate.  Those companies pay rent to the tower owners.


Once the tower sections were assembled a crane lifted each one to the top of the last installed section.  Three workmen climbed to the top of each leg to fasten the sections together.  Then they climbed to the top of that section to release the lines from the crane and then to receive the next piece.  Finally a ladder was fastened into place and Nextel antennas were installed when the tower was completed.

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