Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Fight signaled on radio towers

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 04 May 2004 22:13:41 -0400

Fight signaled on radio towers

Albany-- Adirondack groups oppose plan to put hundreds of communications
structures in park

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau
First published: Friday, April 30, 2004
Adirondack protectionists vowed Thursday to
fight a statewide communication network that
would require hundreds of new towers or other
structures in and around protected wilderness.

"Simply the number of trees that would
have to come down alone would be
enough to trigger what courts would
consider illegal removal or destruction in
the forest preserve," said Adirondack
Council spokesman John Sheehan. "We
are very concerned about the visual
impact this would have on the park."

Meanwhile, Motorola, one of the two bidders on the project, complained
the state set unrealistic, costly requirements for the system. A company
official charged that M/A-Com, a Tyco company that Motorola describes as
an unworthy competitor, will get the New York contract with a low-ball
bid of perhaps $1 billion to $2 billion.

Further, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Elmsford, said he intends to
determine if lobbyists associated with the high-stakes project filed
required disclosures.

John McFadden, Motorola's sales vice president of the northern division,
said the price of the radio system will clearly exceed $2 billion if the
winning bidder does what state technicians designed.

"In my mind it's a wish list that's unachievable. And you had to commit
to a fixed price for 20 years," he said. "We have a hard time grasping
why the state of New York wants to give Tyco a billion-dollar contract."

He said Tyco moved to Bermuda to avoid taxes and has run into problems
developing statewide radio systems in Florida and Pennsylvania.
Motorola, he said, has set up systems in more than two dozen states.

M/A-Com spokeswoman Tori Dillon said her company is based in Florida,
pays taxes and partners with companies that pay taxes. Motorola's
assertions, she said, are rumor and hearsay and that she won't comment
on the Tyco board's corporate decisions.

New York's specifications call for a system that doesn't offer the
flexibility needed to avoid hundreds of new towers in the Adirondacks
and Catskills, McFadden said.

He said satellite service was not an option, but even if it was offered,
the state wants a system able to guarantee 98,000 radio connections
simultaneously. That is too great a load for satellites.

Sheehan and David Gibson, executive director of the Association for the
Protection of the Adirondacks, said their groups oppose the additional
towers in the Adirondack Park.

To get the coverage the state seeks, Sheehan said, the state's plan
would result in unlawful tampering in public lands. Any building in the
forest preserve would require a constitutional amendment, he said,
requiring at least a three-year process of legislative and public votes.

"They're in for a bumpy ride," he said.

State officials plan to announce a winning bidder on the long-planned
statewide wireless network by Monday. James Dillon, the Pataki
administration's leader on the project, said the system will deliver a
reliable communications network for police, fire, and emergency medical
service agencies.

A spokesman for Gov. George Pataki, Todd Alhart, said the governor is
committed to protecting the environment and preserving open space and
the wireless network project has been planned with "careful
consideration" to the potential environmental impact and the need to
comply with the state environmental policies.
"That will continue to be a paramount priority as the project moves
forward," he said.

State planners have urged bidders to maximize the use of existing
structures and minimize the number of new towers that would have to be
built.

The specifications for the project also call for use of stealth
technologies to blend new tower structures into the landscape to
preserve the aesthetic beauty of areas.

Representatives of both Motorola and M/A-Com say many structures in the
Adirondacks and Catskills would be needed to meet the demanding state
specifications that call for police agencies to count on radio contact
along 95 percent of the state's roadways.

Motorola's McFadden said his company's bid calls for more than 1,200
towers statewide, including 400 in the Adirondacks. He said M/A-Com
would require 60 percent more structures statewide and twice as many in
the Adirondacks.
The Adirondack Park Agency has permitted about 50 towers and antennas in
the Adirondacks since 1977, so even a few more would be a drastic
increase, according to Gibson.

Dillon would not provide details of M/A-Com's bid, but said her company
tries to avoid towers and often opts for erecting poles, sometimes
camouflaging them as fake trees.

"We have used pole-mount sites and it does reduce the number of towers,"
she said. "And they are a tenth of the cost of a tower."

Sheehan said the fake trees are sometimes worse than towers because they
detract from the natural hardwoods and evergreens.

APA spokesman Keith McKeever said the agency has frowned on such
structures and its policy calls for using existing poles and towers.
When new structures are necessary, he said, they must be designed to be
"substantially invisible" and use as little land as possible. Some new
towers would require new roads and bunkers for gasoline storage,
McFadden said.
He said Motorola attempted to advise the state that it could develop a
more affordable system with fewer towers. But a committee with the state
Office of Technology wasn't worried about cost, said McFadden.

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=243788&category=STATE&newsdate=4/30/2004

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