A star marks the tower location next to Webb Lake in Weld where AT&T plans to build a cellphone tower. The dark area indicates the cellphone coverage expected with the tower. Screenshot
WELD — The Board of Appeals voted unanimously Monday night, Jan. 11, to send the AT&T cellphone tower application back to the Planning Board.
The Planning Board considered the application during an informational meeting in July. Several comments, complaints and questions were raised then.
A star marks the tower location next to Webb Lake in Weld where AT&T plans to build a cellphone tower. The dark area indicates the current coverage area for cellphone reception. Screenshot
The board met in August to review the application, but no decision was made. The application was approved at the September meeting.
The Weld Cell Phone Tower Information Committee appealed the Planning Board’s decision.
“It’s vital to clarify: We are NOT opposed to the cell tower. We are IN FAVOR of locating it in a less conspicuous viewshed than the one that directly abuts a portion of Mount Blue State Park at the Center Hill picnic area,” committee member Heidi Stowell Nichols wrote in an email Dec. 2.
“Serving on a municipal board of appeals is one of the most difficult jobs a citizen can volunteer to do,” Board of Appeals Chairman Sean Minear read from the Manual from Local Land Use Appeals Board, Maine Municipal Association 2017. “The Appeals Board must decide legal questions in accordance with local ordinances, state laws and court cases. Often those decisions will seem harsh and contrary to common sense to this board’s members and the general public.
“However, this board is bound to follow the law until the law is changed,” he read.
The members of the Board of Appeals are citizens and volunteers, not lawyers, Minear said.
“We care deeply about this town and will strive to do our best at what the MMA manual correctly refers to as a most unpleasant task,” he said.
“The Planning Board needs to press the reset button,” Attorney Steven Wagner of Rudman-Winchell in Bangor representing the Weld Cell Phone Tower Information Committee said. “Grant the appeal, vacate the Planning Board’s decision and remand back to the Planning Board to conduct a new hearing.”
The Planning Board failed to follow applicable procedures, Wagner said. The board tried to be transparent but fell short under the law, he added.
Specific requirements not met according to Wagner included:
• The September meeting was plagued with technical difficulties such that Planning Board members and attendees couldn’t hear one another.
• Roll call votes, required by state law, didn’t happen.
• Planning Board failed to address each of the nine standards included under Article 21, the commercial and industrial structures section of the Weld Building Ordinance.
• Planning Board concluded incorrectly that the deed AT&T submitted showed sufficient proof of right title and interest.
Ted Small, the attorney representing AT&T argued the Planning Board found the applicant met all requirements of the ordinance.
Weld doesn’t have a cellphone tower ordinance and the building ordinance lacks meat, he said.
“The question is if there was sufficient evidence to support the board’s decision,” Small said.
Regarding the lack of a roll call vote, the board voted unanimously and would presumably do so again if a roll call vote was held, he said. In the motion, it cited all nine criteria were met, Small noted.
“AT&T’s application addressed preservation, restoration,” he said. “The project is never going to be harmonious compared with undeveloped property.”
AT&T’s application did not appear to include a copy of the lease agreement, Agnieszka Dixon, the attorney with Drummond-Woodsum representing the Board of Appeals said.
“The Planning Board should review it to assure right title of interest,” she said. “Without it, the Planning Board doesn’t have sound documentation.”
“What the Planning Board did not do, although member Thomas Wheeler was prepared to address them, was go through each criteria under Article 21,” Minear said. The board should have voted on each individually, then voted to approve the application, he said.
The Board of Appeals voted to send the application back to the Planning Board to pull together a new written decision and cure whatever errors may have occurred.
“They acted in good faith,” Appeals member Heidi Wilcox said.
“I feel the same way,” Appeals member Mark Smith said. There are overwhelming issues that need to be addressed, he noted.
Dixon will write up the results of the meeting and present them to the Board of Appeals for approval when it meets again Tuesday, Jan. 19. After that meeting, the findings will be sent to the Planning Board.
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