072701Whelan urges district to consider FOX Lane tower

By FRANK NARDOZZI

Upon hearing that Nextel Communications had expressed an interest in Bedford Centrals cell tower located on the Fox Lane campus, Bedford Central School Board member Joe Whelan expressed outrage that tire school board had not yet even considered it.

" The board has not addressed this issue as it should have," lie said. "Why it is dragging its feet makes no sense from the, viewpoint of the community,

"There are already land lines there. We already have a road, We already have a couple of carriers on there. it has never gotten on an agenda, starting back in November when Nextel first reached out to the board," Mr. Whelan said.

The board member stated that he had brought the matter up seven months ago at the end of a board meeting, but was voted down 6-1.

"They said they were not going to be concerned because it could open up a chunk of work to be done and we had too much on our plate," Mr. Whelan said.

Arguing for its consideration Mr. Whelan said it was not unusual for a five-year contract with a telecommunications company for use of a cell tower to be extended several times.

$3 million opportunity

With a rental fee of $3,000 a month over a contract period of five years, that would mean a total of $180,000 to the district. If the contract was renewed three times for a total of 20 years, that would produce a total of $720,000 in revenues, Mr. Whelan said.

"If you had five carriers, that's $3.6 million over 20 years," he said. "We're riot talking about chump change here.

"By dragging its feet, I'm very concerned that time is running out and we will disserve the taxpayer by not addressing this $3 million opportunity. Where is our due diligence?" he asked.

"Instead of alleviating the burden on the taxpayer, which is sorely needed, this money is going to be shifted to a commercial enterprise, and not benefit the school district at all," he charged.

When informed about Mr. Whelan's concern, school board President Dot Fallon said, "Those are his estimates, not anything that I could reliably work with at this time, because we have never even taken the conversation that far forward."

'We've not had the time'

"Personally, I have always been open to the discussion, but we have just not had the time or the opportunity to go forward with any cell tower discussion." Ms. Fallon said. "The board has been meeting an unusually great number of times, even through this month.

"Those meetings have all been focused on the facilities plan. We have just had a minimal opportunity to take on any new business. In fact, we talked about next year's goals being minimized because of the extensive nature of the work on the facilities plan that we expect to continue right through the bond vote."

A bond issue for extensive renovations and expansion of the high school, as well as Mount Kisco and Pound Ridge elementary schools, is expected to be put forward soon for a vote in the fall.

However, Mr. Whelan noted that there had been correspondence between Nextel and the school district over the past several months during which additional use of the cell tower was considered.

In it, he said, the district had stated that it didn't know if it was within its rights to co-locate additional carriers or perform the necessary upgrades to the tower.

constraints on tower use

Through a Freedom of information request Mr. Whelan said, Nextel obtained copies of the existing leases with AT&T and Verizon, Nextel then told the ',board member there were no constraints on co-locating other carriers Nextel also offered to bear all Of the costs of any necessary upgrades.

"The answer was foot dragging," Mr. Whelan said. "Nextel is mandated by federal statute to provide seamless telecommunications coverage. They are going to put the tower somewhere else if this board doesn't act."

"This is an ideal situation," Mr. Whelan said. "I personally welcome an open discussion of what would be the pros and the cons. I'm not pushing one thing or the other. But due process demands that this be considered and expeditiously handled without dragging our feet."

'Not a small issue'

Ms. Fallon said, "I'm certainly open and in favor of having the discussion, as I have said before. Finding the time that's really necessary - this is not a small issue.

"This is not a matter that gets handled in a 15-minute discussion at a board meeting. This is going to take an extensive amount of the board's time. I'd be really surprised if it didn't.

"it would be a little bit difficult for me to see us devoting the proper amount of time to deal with this before October," Ms. Fallon said.

The board is set to have another discussion about the school facilities bond issue today, but she noted that only one more meeting was scheduled this summer on Aug. 8. And only one meeting is scheduled in September, on Sept. 12.

"It's a tough one for me," Ms. Fallon said. "I know that the board has been working so hard and so extensively to try and complete the work that we started well over a year ago on facilities, and we're not there yet.

"So, to think about taking on something that I believe will require a considerable amount of time for a public discussion, I don't see it happening too easily and not really soon at all," she said.

Hire a consultant

Mr. Whelan stated that if the board felt that it had too much on its agenda, it could hire a consultant.

"It would be worth paying them a few thousand dollars," Mr. Whelan said. He also noted that Nextel had offered to have a consultant come in at its expense.

"We can't be afraid of the discussion," Mr. Whelan said. "This is our job."