Zoning Board of Appeals Special Meeting June 4th 2025

001Good good evening everyone. Um you're attending the uh zoning board of appeals meeting, a special meeting. Today is June 4th, 2025. It's 6:30 p.m. and the meeting is being held at the second floor meeting room at 14 uh Court Square in Greenfield. Uh chair statement. This meeting is being recorded by the zoning board of appeals. If any other persons present are doing the same, you must notify the chairperson at this time. Anyone else recording? Okay, thank you. Note that the green field recorder is recording. In accordance with Mass General Law Chapter 30A subsection 20 subsection G, no person shall address a meeting of a public body without permission of the chair and all persons shall at the request of the chair be silent. No person shall disrupt the proceedings of a meeting of a public

002body. If after clear warning from the chair, a person continues to disrupt the proceedings, the chair may order the person to withdraw from the meeting. And if the person still does not withdraw, the chair may authorize a constable or other officer to remove the person from the meeting. Not worried about anybody, but that's the general statement from the from the chair at every meeting. Um, so I'd like a roll call of members for the record. Just who's here tonight. Uh, I'll start. David Singer. Peter was Jim W Maloney Charles Roberts Eric Green. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Clerk, uh we have um the continuation of two public hearings. Can you please read both of them into the record and we'll open them at this time. This is a continuation from the newly on May 27, 2025

003application of Rudy Wireless LLC for property located at zero fair use west assessor's tax map lot 7A which is located in the general commercial GC zoning district for a variance pursuant to sections 200-8.7 of the zoning ordinance in order to allow the construction of a new wireless communication structure comprised of groundbased equipment cabinets and antennas antennas mounted on top of a monopole 170 ft in height with insufficient fall zone. Again, continuation from the meeting of March, excuse me, May 27, 2025, application of Verie Wireless LLC for a property located at Zero Fairview Street West Assessor's Map R24, lot 7A, which is located in the general commercial GC zoning district for a special permit pursuant to sections 200-4.9C, 200-7.14, 2000-8.3, and 200-8.4. the zoning ordinance in order to allow the construction of communication structures comprised of

004groundbased equipment cabinets and tennis mounted on top of a monopole measuring 170 ft in height at this location. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Um, sitting on the panel tonight are Peter, Debbie, Jim Win, sorry, you'll be you may be needed and you may be and David Singer. Thank you. Okay. So to get into the meeting, uh first of all, I want to welcome everyone. This is um this is planned to be the last night of any presentations, any discussions. Uh and the board intends to uh close all the hearings tonight when the meeting is over before we do some other business. And then um we will deliberate on uh begin deliberations on June 18th here at 6:30 p.m. Um one uh if if people have uh is she here? Yeah. If if you if if people

005have things that they want to give to the board tonight, please give them to Eric and make sure that there's a copy for people on the other the other group. So if you're giving if it's from the concerned citizens please have copies for the applicant applicants when you give us stuff please I hope you have copies for the concerned citizens so that everybody is seeing the same thing as we are. Um there was a request to uh by the applicant uh whether or not um what the the applicant has a person online his name is Don Hayes and I guess he is here uh thank you I see your name up there Don welcome to the meeting um he is here for a very narrow purpose um I feel that uh he he he he's

006being represented as an expert on the issues surrounding the radiation from the tower. Um, Dr. Chamberlain testified to his thoughts on that. And the applicant has uh Mr. Hayes here or do is it a doctor? Am I saying is Mr. Satisfactory? Mr. Hayes is fine. Don or Donald? Yes, that's fine. Okay. Donald here. not for the purposes of making a presentation, but in the event that any of the board members have any questions. So, I sent out an email and you've seen an email exchange regarding that. Uh, I'm I'm grateful you're here, sir. Thank you. Um, thank you. I'd like to recognize Dr. Chamberlain. I see you there. Hello. Thank you. Hello. That's nice. Um, well, I I remember Dr. Chamberlain gave a presentation at a meeting we had with the committee on man and

007radiation or kmar. I'm glad I'm glad to be I'm glad you said that. So with if there aren't any questions then I'm going to uh Don you're welcome to stay but you I won't be calling upon you to say anything at this time. Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah, I I do uh want to apologize for the um uh uh little nom little sentence after my name that says NIR section uh because of this particular platform in Zoom. I wasn't able to change that, but uh that does stand for nonionizing radiation section of the health physics society uh that I'm the secretary of. So, uh, I I appreciate the time and, uh, thank you very much and have a great night and Ed, it's nice seeing you back there. Okay, we're all set forward. Yeah,

008I I do not have no questions. Okay, thank you, sir. Appreciate you being here. Thank you. And, uh, Dr. Chamberlain, you're welcome to stay, but again, um, I'm I will not be calling upon you to make any more presentations. We're we're closing out the presentations, but thank you for everything that you've done so far. You're welcome. But I thought that I did would have an opportunity to present and talk about coverage maps, computer models, etc. If at the time that the uh concerned citizens feel that they need to make a rebuttal, for lack of a better term, if they would like you to speak to some of that on their behalf, that would be fine. But, um, I don't have you scheduled as a separate independent presentation. All right. I just want to say we

009do want them to present and I've provided mass to everyone. If he's not able to, then I will present all that information, which I'm prepared to do. I mean, unless the rest of the board um wants to form a different opinion, I feel like the last meeting Dr. Chamberlain was invited. It was your it was it was you folks who brought who invited him who kind of led the charge as to what he was going to speak to and you asked him about specific things and the meeting that was his opportunity to speak. Um since the last meeting we had there's been a significant amount of new uh data new information reports that have been submitted related to the propagation maps etc. And it feels critical that we address this because there is a lot

010of confusion and we feel there's a lot of misrepresentation and we need to get at the facts. Well, I understand that you feel that way. But is Dr. Chamberlain an engineer? Yes, I am. Yes. This is why when I teach I've taught for 40 years the area of computer modeling, the development of coverage maps. So, this is my area of expertise and I'm willing and ready to talk about it. He never was able to finish his presentation last time. That's not true. He you you all you Nope. You all decided to go in the direction that you went. I I didn't ask for that. That was other Well, that's that's your that's your side of the ledger. So, um I will I will see about it. But first, we have a peerreview engineer that's here

011and he has been scheduled to speak. So, we're going to have him speak first and then we'll see. Okay. So if you wish to stick around, that's fine. We'll see. And if the board wishes to hear from Dr. Chamberlain, that's fine also. So I'm I'm just saying though that from my point of view, I made it clear what the what the agenda for the meeting was and I'm going to stick to it. So okay, uh we have a peer review engineer here by the name of Michael Wen. Michael, would you step forward? Sure. Let me move my stuff out of the way. Can you can you introduce yourself here? Sure. Yeah. Uh my name is Michael Lton. I'm working with a company called Isotrope. We've uh Isotrope is a company that's been in business for

012over 20 years uh providing unbiased uh objective advice to municipal boards um on RF engineering and sighting issues and uh that sort of thing. Um I personally uh worked um in the wireless industry until November of 2023. um worked for carriers for over 35 years and uh have presented before uh boards and um both on behalf of carriers um on behalf of concerned citizens um on all different sides of the equation. Um I'm also a ZBA member myself in my town. Um and uh so I have a pretty unique um perspective on both what uh you all need to look at as well as sort of um there's a I I've reviewed the videos the the filings. There's a spectrum of information that's been provided here. um everywhere from things that are definitely factual to

013a lot of things that may be um more emotional than factual and more um conjecture than factual. Um and I the the idea of my report that I presented that I I hope everybody's had a chance to read and um I've had follow-up conversations with a few of you um to explain some of the things that are in the report. My idea or the the point of the report is to try to explain a lot of what you've seen and a lot of what's been presented um and try to cut through some of the um hyperbole and stick to the facts of what is actually engineering and what is good engineering. So, so may I help may I inter interject for a second? Um so just for those who are new to uh this zoning

014board process with the cell towers at the last meeting there was some suggestion that um the board um shouldn't rely upon the information from the engineers of the applicant because there was a feeling that those uh that the information from the applicant was self-s serving and um and there were some there were other members there were other people that spoke the last meeting that talked about um things that seemed to put the board in some state of confusion about what about how to uh digest the information we were receiving. So as a result of that um attorney Rosen offered uh to have us have a peerreview engineer come on our behalf and that's Michael Lton is that person and uh there was also a suggestion that there be uh um drop call data provided to

015us because the um one of the members of the group uh that uh testified or or presented last time he said that that was the key information We did not get that information from the applicant, but we got what is it called? The drive by the drive data. Drive data. So, we have drive data. We have the information that was originally presented to us. And what we've asked Michael Lton to do is explain to us whether there's whether this is um whether this information can be relied upon by us and to what extent. So that's and and that's what the report I think lays out, but I'd like you to say it too. Sure. And I'm not going to go through and read the whole report because I think that's unnecessary. Everybody's seen it. um

016the I I'll just go you know highlight some of the important points um you know based on both working as a consultant as an engineer for carriers as well as uh um being in front of being in front of boards being part of boards for quite a number of years um and how wireless applications are reviewed and um decided upon Um and the first point in the report is about RF safety and EME. Um I'm not a safety engineer. uh we have two of them on here but uh in my experience and in u prior um permitting whether it's planning board whether it's zoning board whether it's Connecticut sighting council whatever the uh the entity is um the the the effects of health and safety while concerning to people um are not part of the

017decision-making process for a board um the the FCC requires the applicants or the carriers to demonstrate that they're compliant with the rules and if they've made that demonstration that that's all that can be asked of them and that's that can't be part of a decision-making process. Um it can't be part of anything that is considered as you make your decision. Um so there is one thing though that we have the right to do just so it's clear we have the right to condition this uh project. so that the tower follows what F the FCC's requirements are. Is that correct? Absolutely. Have you had any opportunity to review their information in that regard? Yes. The the So, what you have in in the package um I couldn't find it actually. Attorney Perry sent it to me.

018But um what you have in the in the application documentation is an EM safety report that was done by CS squared uh on this tower um demonstrating and I don't have it in front of me, but that the overall um exposure levels done in accordance with the FCC calculations. I think we're less than 10% uh of the um uh public safety limit. And with that as AT&T's application now, should another carrier, should this tower uh actually be built and should another carrier come along, it's the town's responsibility and prerogative to see see another one of those reports that would show the aggregate exposure um for you know adding on another for if it's if it's AT&T who starts and and the tower is built and AT&T is at the top. If Verizon or T-Mobile wishes

019to add their antennas on, um there should be another another report done that shows the aggregate of of both of the carriers or the three of the carriers or four. Um and and that's important as part of the the process because typically another carrier would just come in for a building permit. Um, and your building commissioner, building inspector isn't going to know to ask for that. Um, so, uh, so the second point that I talked about, um, were the plots and the plots that we're, you guys have all seen. These are the not the not the drive data, I'll get to that in a second, but the the the sort of the blobs and I see a bunch of them on here. Um those are in my view something that an RF engineer not in

020my view in my experience something that an RF engineer looks at every day and within a carrier's organization. Um in a previous uh engagement I work for a company who was responsible for tuning the propagation models for T-Mobile nationally. Um, and the way we did it was, um, there's a a a generalized propagation model that's developed by a commercial entity that sells their tools. And those propagation models are then tuned for the local geography. Um the way we did it for T-Mobile, we collected uh eight sites worth of drive data in any area that we wish to tune and six of that the data set from six of those sites um was used to to tweak and tune the model to be more accurate and then the last two sites were used as as a

021control as a as to make sure to validate that the model was in fact accurate. And the reason that's important is because what um what CS squed has done on behalf of AT&T here is collected drive data which we can look at and compare to the propagation model which I did in my analysis and it looks quite remarkably accurate. um the the areas where there are blue in in the plot which is included in my report seem like they match up quite well with the areas that are white on the blob plot um which indicate no coverage in the drive test and no coverage on the on the prediction. So in my view and if I was an engineer at a carrier and I looked at these plots and I looked at that analysis I

022would say this propagation analysis is valid and and I would I would use it. Um, I would I would consider it valid to make decisions um in the local area on in the in the Greenfield area. Um whether it's looking at potential new sites, whether it's looking at coverage. Now, is this an absolute? Is it the case where if you drive down a road that's that's under color and you drive into a place where it's white, your call will you immediately won't be able to make a call or or surf the internet? No, it's it's not absolute like that. But um the the representation that AT&T has made is that if you're in the area of white, you'll have inferior service and the drive data bears that out. Um, so that's the the my view

023of the the propagation plots that you have here. I mean, they're not no plot is ever perfect, but it's it's as accurate as it can be. Can I ask a question, Michael? Yes. In the report, well, the the inference is that the drive test is the gold standard for evaluating this. But in the report, you indicate driveby testing or drop calls is not the only thing. There's stuff that goes inside of building, stuff that's outside of the drive. Correct. Is is how how should that be padded into our thought process? Because if if we're we're only using driveby data, that doesn't address the issue that you point out the report about someone who's lost from a 911 call or someone who's in building in the center of Greenfield, which is part of your coverage. Yeah.

024And and I think that the drive data drive data is very useful. It's very helpful, but you have to be careful because it only shows a small portion of where a user might go. Um, you know, as you say, and as I said in the report, um, indoors, um, you know, a park where a a car can't drive, uh, or, you know, a a undeveloped lot. Um, if somebody's in the undeveloped lot, that's valuable coverage, but you can't you can't model that or you can't collect that data with drive test. you have to so you you can't I guess the point is you can't have an absolutely um all-encompassing drive test that you allow to as a decisionm but we shouldn't discount that as a as an important addition. Oh drive data is very useful.

025Oh no I'm talking about the other issue that's not drive right? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They they they like in, for example, in in downtown Greenfield here, you know, a drive car can't access any any user. I mean, we're here in this building. Um, he's got a phone, there's other phones, you know, th those are subject to attenuation from the building. Um, and that's what a a a prediction like this is intended to to to simulate where the drive data the drive the the drive car would have driven by on the street and not be sensitive. Comment about the the the DBA readings of minus 83. Yes, I was going to get to that, but yes, thank you. Um, so D to explain DBM. um the it and I tried to explain it in

026the uh in the text but it was a little bit backwards uh and not backwards but it's a hard concept to expose closer to zero is stronger coverage so a higher negative number meaning -30 would be better than -40 -40 would be better than -50 so a a a higher negative number even though it's smaller number is is better coverage. So when you look at the the two levels that AT&T has provided here - 83 and - 93 - 93 is a lower standard of coverage. Um - 83 would include some you know attenuation for going inside buildings or being in a car or being in a basement or something like that. Those numbers talk about signal strength. They do. Yes. But if you stop having those get higher, you're going to lose the ability

027for that signal to get go to see that that effort. Correct. Yeah. And that's the premise is as you as you progress down through the levels and you get to the white area, if if you were in a white area and you were indoors, you'd have you'd have a difficult time using your phone or your device or your computer, whatever you wanted to do. if you were um in the in a area under one of the colors and the colors changed in in a few of the maps, but if you were in the area under one of the colors, you you'd have a you'd have a much better probability of being able to use whether it's voice or high-speed data or whatever you're trying to do with your device, you have large volumes of cell

028phone traffic during the day. Does that reduce signal strength? it does um in a way that it doesn't specifically it. So there's there's an aggregate there's the aggregate power of a uh radio transmitter and as an engineer you allocate that power to either your your uh bearers your your users or to the footprint of coverage. Um, and so as as more users, as more demand, as more maybe uh maybe somebody's streaming a football game or something and they're demanding a higher uh bandwidth um more more bandwidth, a higher um volume of data into their phone. that can cause uh lack of resources for other users on that that sector and that site. So all of the traffic that's taking place right now, Greenfield, it's being handled by the existing cells. Correct. For AT&T. Yeah, that's

029right. And and and remember that's the other thing that I probably should have, you know, in to go way back to basics. there there are three or four uh carriers operating in New England. There's AT&T, there's Verizon, there's T-Mobile, and there's Dish Wireless. Um I don't believe Dish Wireless covers green field yet. Uh but um they're go they also go by Boost Mobile now. Um but the So you have primarily three carriers here. anything else like um uh I'm a Spectrum customer and Spectrum is a is is reselling Verizon service. So there's there's three networks um that are serving you. So this is what your your application from AT&T is is one of those networks. Um I believe the other two have uh sites on the roofs of two buildings a couple blocks from here.

030So cell tower gets built at this location. It relieves traffic on some of the other towers and provides correct overall better coverage for the air. Correct. Improvement of better coverage in building particularly um but also better coverage and better capacity handling. Um it would be those would be the values I think and AT&T's engineers you know I I I think they can also uh describe that as well but yeah I mean looking at this there I see value to the site and as I said in my report um you know the it's up to the board to determine what that whe whether that value is significant or not. Um I I you know I can show you where the where the the gaps are, but are they significant? That that's not an engineering question. That's

031a that's a board question. Thank you. Um so those are the plots. Now, um, one of the things that I thought I think is important being on a zoning board is to is to sort of look at things from the top down and and determine if, um, an any application, whether it's for wireless or for a 40B or for a a home that wants to add a accessory apartment or anything. um the the is to look at the zones and look at you know where something is more favorably permitted uh versus less favorably permitted. So that's what I went through. Um and there there there are three or four different categories in your code of uh types of zoning. Um and the the categories that are preferred sites, preferred preferred B or preferred types. Um

032and the and I highlighted a few of the uh locations that were of more preferred type than the location of the application. Um the applicant came back and responded to those and and gave an explanation as to why those those other um higher priority zoning map um types were were not feasible or not useful for them for this application. And you know based on that analysis it does appear that you know from a zoning uh categories categorization perspective this site is well suited. Um and uh I also went through drove out there uh today and I um looked around and it does seem to be a pretty wooded parcel and from a you know from a visibility perspective at least close in it seems like it's also well suited. Um and then the last uh

033last thing I reviewed was the height analysis. Um and basically that's um the the plots um were provided that show the value of uh the height of the site. Um and the bands were 95 I believe 95 115 135 and um upward up to the the total overall is the yeah up to 166 and and it did look like there was kind of a break point where at 95 ft it the site is pretty ineffective. Um and once you go above that to the next height, it it the site is uh somewhat effective. Um and of course uh as you go higher that the the that coverage footprint expands and the value of the site um to more distant locations expands. So that's sort of me walking through the report. Um and then I concluded

034the report with sort of as as a zoning board member, you know, sort of the the um the way I would look at this in terms of the decisions that you know, whether it's uh uh RF related or legal related, the decisions that you need to make and hopefully that helps um sort of frame some deliberation and discussion about you what what what you have the application you have in front of you and you know I'm available to answer questions if anybody has any questions happy to help. No I I just want to com I just I really appreciate this report and the time that you took in putting it together. It was very clear logical to follow. Um I it really helped break down all the information we've been given. So thank you for

035that. Thanks. No, but thank you for asking me. So again, just for people who are either just their time in or just to broaden some of the discussion. So this is this is AT&T coming to us and telling us what their coverage is like and these maps show us what their coverage was like and what the gaps in their coverage is like. Correct. Yes. This isn't a map of the gap in coverage in all of the Greenfield area in relation to all three of the providers. No, I think if you if you had a a Verizon phone or my phone, which is on Charter Spectrum, um my experience would be very different in in Greenfield. Um there would be areas where it would be better. There'd be areas where it would be worse. But it's

036a it's a it's a diff different network and they're not they're not interoperating, right? But but the the point is that this is AT&T coming in saying this is what we need for us. This is this is our gaps. This is our this is how our coverage will materially increase. And in fact in the center of town there are antennas for the other for Verizon and T-Mobile. And and we would we could speculate that if we took a map if we saw a map of downtown with those providers, maybe the strength of the signal might be different. I Yes, it would be better. I mean, I think you I think you'd find I mean I again with my Spectrum Verizon phone, my coverage as I parked across the street and walked in here, it was,

037you know, very strong. Okay. And again, um, you know, I I'm sure that I'm sure we the board has gone crosseyed comparing the map before and the map after and the map before and the map after and the colors and the different colors, the red and whatever. Um, so I want to know if I have seen if I've made it if I've looked at the the comparison correctly and and I'd like others to ask if they need help with that as well. But um it seems to me that the major the the the increase in coverage is clearly around the Rotary between uh Route 2 and 91. And then some of Greenfield uh res Greenfield neighborhoods that are parallel to 91 going north and going south on the east side especially who benefit from that

038from AT&Ts providing that coverage. Mson Street though is it doesn't have good AT&T coverage and will not have good AT&T coverage, better AT&T coverage with this based on the map. And if we go into the eastern part of Greenfield downtown and the to this side of town where it's more this is where it's more densely populated around here, there really is not a significant it's not it's not as valuable. The change is not as significant if if it is if there's any change at all. Correct. That's correct. So most of the significant change happens around the rotary the rotary and then west of the rotary right going well that's actually two but going 2 a okay but that's the area that is going to be impacted the the the most in a positive way correct

039okay any other questions from uh I have one more question if this is the service without the cell tower is at what they're providing for the community right now. That's yes. If you if the cell tower gets installed, does it provide better quality, you know, better service to the area you were talking about? So, by layering this on, it reduces some of the increases the quality of the service sponsors because one of the things that AT&T provides is service for first net I guess or whatever it is. Yeah. So, if this gets approved right now, this is what they have. If this get power gets put in who's that service and everyone else benefits from it but that believes the entire well everyone else who's a who is a customer of AT&T of AT&T or

040First that would be on that network. Yes, it it does it unless Verizon or T-Mobile chose to attach to the tower in the future. Oh yeah, but I'm just right now I'm just I'm I'm trying to understand the cell power is going up for AT&T to improve service over what is presently in in operating. Correct. So by putting that in that that that fills in the gaps that provides additional quality and additional signal strength to the people who are using that. Yeah. And and and if you look in the report I I snipped out the you I see you have this which is the before. I snipped out the after also and it's in my report and you can you can kind of flip back and forth between the before and after and see you

041know what the what the difference it will be if we don't do this is what we want correct yes sir um thank you again for short presentation and for the analysis of this data it's been very helpful um the board formally requested drop call data which we have been told would be gold standard for evaluating the significance of this uh project. Um we did not receive that data and I would like you to comment on how how that would have helped us to make a decision about the level of service that is available now and whether there's a significant gap or not. drop call data I mean as a as a carrier engineer drop call data is or let's say 10 years ago was um very useful tool um in your toolbox to determine whether

042coverage existed or not. Um as as the technology has evolved, drop call data is becoming less and less meaningful um and less and less useful because and I tried to explain it in my report um but it's it's really difficult to sort of explain to I would say a non-engineer in that it's um the way a cell phone way cell phones used to work a long time ago. You had a constant communication between your phone and the site and they were always connected. And when you were on the phone and you were talking there was your your phone was transmitting and the site was transmitting to you constantly back and forth back and forth two links in constant connection. So a drop and and it and it was analog radio and so a drop call

043would end that right. So it was that was the metric that we had to look at when things weren't working the way they're supposed to pretty abrupt you dropped your call. Um now everything is digital and what's happening is this your phone and the the tower or the site the antenna are transmitting back and forth but not constantly. It's it's what's called in in engineering terms, it's packet switch data rather than circuit switch data. So packets of information are being transmitted. So that the site would transmit a burst of data to you. If you're using your phone, it transmits a burst of data to you. You transmit you you your phone unpacks that is the best way to describe it and transmits a burst of data back to the site which unpacks that. And that's

044how and then when it's unpacked, that's what recreates your voice on the other end. Um, so that's similar to data traffic. That's similar to if you're sending an email, right? Because if you send an email, you're not constantly sending the email. you're sending the email and it blasts to the site and then maybe you get a response from your email server that comes back to your your device and you'll get a burst of communication back. That's all by way of saying that a drop call doesn't necessarily indicate anymore that there's a problem. the carriers have much more sophisticated ways to determine that there's a problem in the connection. The the the idea that the drop call data is a gold standard that was probably that was probably valid 15 to 20 years ago. It's no

045longer valid. Um and and so a carrier today will look at things like um with what type of coding. There's there's a whole coding chain of different ways to um to sample and compress your voice into that packet. and a carrier today will look at um which one of those coding chains coding schemes is being used as indicative of the quality of the radio connection. So, and that's that's all data that exists that the carriers have. Um but it's not really drop call data and that's what they're going to use. They they also are able to look at and way back in, you know, 20 25 30 years ago, we couldn't look at where users were when they were using their phones. We had to guess. We would guess. We would say, "Okay, well, there's

046a college that's probably where they are." Or if it's I91, that's probably where they are. Now the carriers can look at where the users actually are and determine by that where they need to improve coverage. Um where people are using their phones. Maybe there's a a community um gathering area or a restaurant where well people use their phones a lot. not saying that's a great idea, but um they you know that the carriers would would know that and they would know that they need to improve coverage in that particular area because they've got a lot of their customers that want to use that. So that's the that's my way of saying that drop call data is is is useful and it can be useful, but it's not as useful as it used to be. And

047if you have it, it can be one tool in the toolbox, but I'm going to always index to a a propagation plot once I know that that propagation plot is valid and accurate to the measurements to some level of measurements that have been taken in the local area. Was the drive test data accurate? Yes. Yeah. That that that the drive test data would correlate. That's that's the point of it to me. I didn't I didn't look individually at each each spot on each road and say, "Okay, well, is there coverage here?" The point of the drive test is to validate the predictions, the blobs that you guys are looking at by AT&T. Yep. Um, what about map is the predicted coverage once the cell tower is up. How is that propagated? If it's theoretic, it's

048the same thing. I mean what what basically what what these tools do there's input data which is um this the height of the antennas the type of antennas the orientation of the antennas the power levels of the radios that are connected to the antennas the all the gains and losses in the radio chain from the transmitter if it's at the bottom or if it's at the top and uh and then additionally there's a terrain database which you represents the the hills. And then there's a typically a morphology database which will re uh represent whether it's a road or whether it's a treed area or whether there's homes there or whether there's you know a dense urban area or a medium urban area. There's a bunch of categor categories of that morphology data and all that

049is used by the tool to develop a prediction plot. And the prediction plot that you see that these these plotches that's all done um based on all that input data to create a simulation of what the coverage is and the simulation the same process is done for things that exist and for things that don't exist. So if the drive test confirms the existing conditions we can infer that the predicted correct fairly accurate. Correct. Yeah. I mean as as an engineer you want to say the first question is is my prediction model accurate in this environment in Greenfield or in you know in western Massachusetts or in you know whatever whatever you're responsible for. Is is my prediction model model accurate? If my prediction model is accurate then I can rely on it to do whatifs.

050You know what if I built a site here at 170 ft or 166? What if I built a site over there at 120 ft? What if I built a site here? You know, what if I put antennas on the roof of one of these buildings that the the carrier has no way of knowing exactly what that will cover specifically until they there's there is a way, but it's labor intensive. Um, but they can they can use the prediction tool to show what that site should cover based on the same process of analysis that you've used to show what you currently are covering. Does that make sense? Yeah. Thanks. Anybody else? We're good. Um, great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for everything. Uh maybe stick around for Oh, yeah. No, I'm

051not I'm not bleeding. All right. So, I want to talk doc Dr. Chamberlain, you there? Yes, I am. Hi. Hi. Um I first want to say I didn't mean any disrespect to you before. Um I was taken by surprise by the request. Um, and my question to you, however dumb it sounded, was because I thought you I guess I I didn't really think about it, but I thought your expertise was more in the area of the health related field because of the the radioactivity and maybe you had a, you know, a PhD in in in structural things, but I didn't realize that you were also an engineer. And if you are, then my question to you is, do you believe you have the expertise to comment upon what Michael Lton just said? Absolutely I do.

052And Okay. And if you do, I want to give you a brief opportunity to respond. Let me make a brief. First of all, I'd like to thank Mr. Lton for his presentation. I think it was very clear. Uh covered and answered many of the questions that I had about the report. Uh the only places where he and I disagree is one the the value of dropped call logs. I've seen them for other sites and they're very convincing. You see that people go into a certain area and all of a sudden the call disappears and I've had it happen to me and I'm sure it's happened to you when you've taken road trips. You go in into a valley and the the signal drops out and that is what goes into a drop call log. So

053if there is a place where you can't send or receive a call or if you have your call is interrupted it is logged and that is very valuable in proving that you have a problem. Uh the other thing is I'm hearing from people in the area they are telling me that they're able to go into the areas that are declared as being uh gap areas and they're able to place calls download videos and all that. So that causes me to question how the the results of the maps are interpreted. So those are two things that raise red flags for me in terms of justifying a new tower. And I'd like to go over some data. Starting off with what was presented in the the report. And so I'm assuming that you can see the report

054right now. The peg page from the report. Do you see the the map? Yeah. You talking about uh the Michael's report? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We have we all have in front of us. Oh, no. But I'm I'm clicking on it. There it goes. Oh, you're going to show us. Yeah. I'm going to show it. Just it might as well have it up. So, there are areas here that are marked in white that indicate. Now, I understand in in the report that it says now that even if you're in some of the white areas, well, you can still make a phone call, which to me means there's no gap in that area. And I've worked in with sighting around the country. And so in most of the places I've dealt with, most of the communities I've

055worked with, if you're able to to place a phone call, well, it means that you aren't in a gap area. So it's so like I say with Mr. Lton's presentation, it's maybe our definition of what constitutes a gap area. So that's something else. is I get the reports from the community members, I look at know the absence of a dropped call log. And then the third piece of evidence which I want you to consider is that if you look at what uh AT&T reports to the FCC and I'll I'll explain what this plot is. This is called the uh as you can see the FCC broadband map. this is what they report f that AT&T reports and it's unlawful to misreport information but this is what they're reporting to the FCC as coverage so in

056a case where they're asking for a tower they want to show as much gap area as possible when they're reporting to the FCC they want to show as much coverage as possible and so when you overlay the t two maps you say well gosh were places that are showing up as being gap apps in what is is being submitted to you, the zoning board, isn't showing up on what they are presenting to the FCC. So, that is a place of major disagreement. And so, my conclusion based upon what I'm seeing is that there is no real justification for a new tower or it doesn't have to be a macro tower. There are other ways of of working with this. For example, you're reporting lack of coverage around in a certain area in your town. You

057can put up smaller lower power antennas to cover those maybe very important areas without putting up a brand a new and very tall invasive uh tower. So, I'm wondering if that is something that is being considered because I don't see it in any report saying, "Oh, we're looking at another alternative that is not a macro tower. Okay. Is is that okay? Are you are you finished? No, that that I said I'd keep it brief. Very good. Thank you. Any questions from the board? Um I actually I have a couple questions. You say you've spoken to people in the area. Are they all on AT&T that you've spoken to or are they on some other carrier? They are on AT&T. And you might recall that the map I showed is for AT&T. I I was able

058to click in fact I can show it again and and you can look at this map up again. I have another question on the map. Okay, here we go. And are I'm assuming you're looking at it right now. Yes, thank you. So on this map on this map here, if if I'm reading the the map correctly, it says percentage of area service. And to my to my eyes, I mean every everyone's printers, everyone's screens a little different. It looks like it's saying for this area it only has 40 to 60% of coverage. Not that the coverage is 100%. So I can understand how I would say this map is valid in this area. 40 to 60 or 20 to 40 depending on what color. Okay. Actually, maybe I should Oh, I'm sorry. Our service and

059not that everyone who's in there is service. Uh actually I'm looking at the scale down here and it says uh for this color coding is associated with 80 to 100% coverage and if you were looking at the lesser uh it would be 40 to 60 but in this area and if you and I encourage you to go to the map it's easy to find uh and it is just FCC broadband map you can you when you put your cursor on these uh pentangles they give you the percentage And so in these for all of these it shows up as 80 to 100%. So what's being reported by AT&T to the FCC is that we've got coverage in this area. It's not a gap area. And so as I mentioned this is my my concerns with

060Mr. not concerns but questions I might have for him is what's considered how do you interpret the data you get? So uh if you are requiring and this is is something that I've done a good bit of work in also inbuilding reception that's a whole new ball of wax so to speak some buildings you like a wooden structure signals go right into but if you go into others they are blocked the signals are blocked by steel for example so if you have a steel reinforced building with low E glass and metal roof you could have a tower right next to it and you're not going to get reception And I've experienced that. Uh and so to claim or to say that you want to have or require that you have inbuilding coverage is just facious.

061It it doesn't work out. You're not going to get that. And then there's another question I wanted to ask Mr. Lton and that is in making the drive test, where was the antenna? And maybe he could say a little bit more about the equipment he used because that's very important. If you're in a vehicle with low E glass and you roll up the windows, your signal pretty much goes away because you're somewhat in what's called a Faraday shield that blocks electromagnetic fields. So, how you perform those tests is very important. Can you answer that question? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, I can't directly answer it because I didn't perform the drive test. Uh AT&T's engineers performed the drive test. Um, so I I don't um and I did ask that question and I do have the

062answer in my email but I don't recall what it was. Do you want to answer is please introduce yourself please and welcome Martin Latin Cedar Systems on behalf of AT&T. The test was done with a unity uh gain antenna on the roof of the vehicle. Um the data was collected by a calibrated scanner inside the vehicle. Excellent. What was the brand of that scanner, please? PCTL. Okay, great. Great. Well, I'm glad you were here to answer that question because that is oftentimes a concern and what you just said is allays those concerns. Thank you. Michael, can you help? It's like a physical chairs. I'm sorry to say. Yeah, it's okay. Can you help us? I'm I'm I don't want us to be the dueling engineers, but I want to I want to whittle it down

063if I can. Um, so the FCC maps, can you help us understand if what they mean? And uh yeah, can I also add one point, can you throw the maps map up back on the screen? Oh, I sure will. And I'll be able to flip back and forth. both maps. You want his either one is fine. Okay. But I'd like him to answer the question. I just want to point out something before he's asking the question. Okay. Uh I want to point out I have it just the top right corner of the map. Oh, you want to go to the other map? I'm No, this one's fine. The top right corner. You can see there's a choice of either and you have the printed ones in front of you either outdoor stationary or invehicle mobile.

064I just want before any questions are asked and anyone gives any credibility to the maps. These are outdoor stationary. So somebody's standing in their yard and this is this is what again presuming these maps were even accurate. It's an outdoor stationary map and I just want to make sure that that's clear. I wanted to make sure that Mr. Lton sees that before. And that's different and that's different than the drive test. Of course it is because that's a vehicle when the vehicle is moving. So that is also different than why it's negative 83 dB and 93dB because those are standards that regulate um in building uh in vehicle coverage not outdoor in the middle of a field standing there in the wide open open field. Okay. Not moving while you're on the phone. Okay. Thank

065you for the clarification. Um, as far as the FCC maps or I would include in the in the uh um analysis or the description of this, there's also if you go on to AT&T's uh website, you'll find that they have a map that um will probably tell you the same thing. There's great coverage in Greenfield. Everybody should sign up. Everybody should buy an AT&T phone. This this comes uh uh these these maps are produced and um put these put to national entities um for a reason and they come up quite often in zoning hearings like this um often with by the similar people um and most of the boards that I've uh talked to worked with discussed um basically uh and there's I I believe there's law around this as well, not a lawyer, but

066um that that the these national showings of coverage are are not considered accurate um and are not are not valid for um any kind of sighting level determination. Well, but also these are uh reported the data reported on these maps are provided by in this case AT&T. Notice that AT&T is selected and so what's in the purple pentagons is AT&T reported data. So I'm being told just the opposite that these are the a gold standard. So for me, okay, I I can't agree with that. Okay. Okay. Okay. We're allowed to disagree. I guess that since we have different opinions that we've heard from both of you, they're both experts and that what which way it goes is going to be up for the board to deliberate. We have our opportunity. That's right. Thank you. Thank

067you. Okay. So my my final thing is that with no dropped call log, with reports of coverage by people in the community, by the map that we're looking at right now, I don't believe that there's sufficient justification for a new tower and that's where I'll leave my my comments. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for to taking the time to attend our meeting. Really appreciate. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Byebye. Oh, hold on. the other control. Yeah, I have I I have a question. Dr. Chamberlain, come back, please. Um, Dr. Chamberlain, are are are you qualified to comment on the safety of a collapsing tower that has been proposed for this site? Not really. I've heard the arguments. And this is the Are you talking about the one that collapses? Yes. Ra that

068folds rather than collapses right over folds. Yes. Yeah. Um, I've heard the arguments and I'm not qualified to really comment on it, so perhaps I shouldn't. Thank you. Welcome. Mike Lton, are you are you qualified to I am not a structural engineer. I do I have seen analyses like that in the past and I know that um if you look at uh a various town codes um the fall zone that's required here um is is among the higher um 100% and plus there are some that are more than 100% but there are also some that are 20 to 30% of the tower height um because of that very thing and that's in various jurisdictions. That's what I've seen. I'm not a structural engineer, so I don't know how the towers are designed to do whatever

069they're doing um or whether there's any situations where it's actually happened. We also had a peer review of the tower, you know, for that purpose. So, if you wanted to go back to Yeah, I just thought perhaps there was some question, Mr. Chair. Also, we do have our structural engineer if anybody on the board is Dominic is also present. So that if anyone does have questions this evening as the structural Okay. Maybe not this second but yes. Thanks for letting us know. Um any other questions of Michael at this point? Thank you again. You can go away. Thank you. You never know. Uh the board want to continue break. What do you want to do? Um I'm I'm good right now. I don't know about you guys need a break. A little longer. Okay. I

070think somebody was trying to get your attention. I don't know if you're recognizing anything. Yes. Uh well, it it the problem I'm having is that at this point I want to have this be an organized meeting around people speaking from the public versus people the other people speaking. So is if is it something related to kind of summing up how you feel about the tower? Is it something that's relevant to right now? what was shown on the screen that the gentleman here commented on. Right. But from where would you be coming? I mean, you're not you're not what was being said. But I know but you're not an expert really, are you? No, I just I'll give you a chance, but it won't be right now. There'll be a time later when you can give

071your title and I'd be happy to give them. So, is that okay? Okay. Thank you. Yes. Uh, same thing. So, so Andrew Wman, Sunset Square, thank you for coming. So, I find it a little surprising because I am an ENT. All right, I'm going to I'm going to I I'm sorry to cut you off. There'll be a time for rebuttal. We're now we're going to go in sequence. We have to This is This is the only way we could do it. And I'm happy to hear from people, too. Don't Don't get me wrong. Yes. I guess what I'd like to suggest is close out their presentation, open it up. But I we do this. It just I agree with you. Totally muddies the So you hear we're saying this is we it sequentially is what

072we want to do. This is how we planned it. Whether you agree with us or not, please respect our position on that. Okay. So Michael and Ned, you're it's your turn to sum up. And if you want to rebut anything and take a little space. Okay. So I I I think what I'd like to do uh is to follow up on Mr. L and Mr. and I'm sorry, Dr. Chamberlain. Uh since AT&T is really looking to address their coverage and that's what you just heard, what I'd like to do is uh give the floor to my colleague, let him address coverage concerns so that it consistently flows with the discussion that was just had and then I'll provide u Vid's uh kind of finance final analysis and presentation if that would be good with the

073board. Okay. Thank you. Nathan Ed Perry from Brown Running. Again, I don't know why everybody says I'm not an attorney, but but uh so first of all, let me since it's on the top of my list, uh and Dr. Chamberlain mentioned it, let me show you the map that I provided for. Now, at the last hearing, which I watched and listened to, Mr. at Campanelli made some comments about these broadband maps being some kind of bait and switch that I did. And I'll tell you, I was pretty pissed off with that. There's no bait and switch. This is on the FCC website. I pointed out to Michael, as you pointed out going forward, that what I used was the environment of invehicle mode. We acknowledge if you're standing outside, you're probably going to be able

074to make the call. And that's what the first FCC map says. This map which you have in your packets is the invehicle coverage. I pointed that out to the board and I asked you to take a look at it and you'll see that it kind of reflects exactly what our coverage maps look like. Why? Because our coverage maps are correct. Now the one regret I have and I put in my letter was I wasn't here at the beginning and I didn't know that you guys had never dealt with a tower under the ordinance. If that were the case, it probably would would have been a little bit different approach, at least from my perspective on the coverage stuff because it is confusing and I've been doing it for 28 years and I get confused by

075it. But we left this vacuum of information that's AT&T, our presentation that's, you know, on us, but we left this vacuum of information and it got filled like they always do. They got filled with these crazy conspiracy things and it's hyperbole. And I'll tell you, the comments that were made at the last hearing were insulting. Now, if you take a look, I provided Martin's uh resume, he's been doing this for 30 some odd years. He's an engineer. He's an electrical engineer. He's also has his NBA. And for somebody to say, the coverage maps that we provided, I don't see him on the screen, were done with crayons by my six-year-old. They're baseless. 90% false. But he said 90% false. Now, after listening to everything he had to say, and I'll be I'll be brief on

076this, but I'm flustered about it. Okay. After everything, get it out. Get it out. I sat there on the video. I mean, as a fellow attorney, I apologize to Marin. That's horrible. Look, it Alana may have her opinion on things. I don't disparage her. She has her opinions. That's what that's what this is about. Present your opinions. We don't take knocks at anybody, but the idea that they would attack C squed or an engineer and I'll tell you, we offered to bring Don Hayes in and the first email I saw an attack on Don Hayes. It's like I I know you all saw in the email, it's like what's this about? Like, are they going to attack me next? I mean, they're doing their job. Don Hayes is in the industry. You get wireless experience

077by being in the industry. If you're a fireman, you put out fires. So the idea that that we just take these attacks and things are just left and I'm sure you're sitting there saying, you know, all these maps probably BS, but as I put my I hope you all read my letter. I took a lot of time with it. Why would we build this type that we built? It just it doesn't make sense. I know people don't want it. They don't want to see the infrastructure. They don't want the health issue. That's what this is all about. So, why would AT&T, and I told you that I just did one in Pittsfield, we're just we're completing the build. We're we're investing over a million dollars, like $1.2 million for all the cost. I put that

078in my letter. Why in God's name would a with a company, a public company who when I hear the comments are just in this to make money, why would we spend 1.2 or 1.5 million to invest in something when our customers are already happy? They're not happy. If I knew you didn't have experience with the tower, maybe that's where you have a discussion about a peer review. That's where you do a drive test. But I got to tell you, the first time we had the request for the drive test was at that last year. So I sat there and watched was I went to drop calls. We, you know, you made the official somebody made an official, you know, pronouncement. We want the drive test done. We did a drive test. We're not we don't

079come in here adversarial. We're looking to get your approval for something. We have to prove our case, but it takes time to develop this. So, you know, unfortunately, we spun our wheels a little bit at the beginning. You had concerns. I'm sure you had questions like, you know, why are they doing this? But it makes sense. I mean, why would we invest in something like this? But I'm going to get off my soap box now. So, right now, we have you have our coverage maps. Drive tests are done to validate the coverage maps. As you heard, I do have Martin who you heard briefly. Uh he's here to answer any questions about any of the AT&T coverage maps, drive test, how he puts things together for AT&T. AT&T doesn't operate 1G, 2G, 3G. That's all

080been I I've you listed all of this stuff in my in my last letter to you. We have 4G and 5G. There'll be six to you at some point, but it's not like we're connecting to the telephone service anymore. We're connect we're you're making your voice calls over voice over internet protocol or something else that I don't need to know. I don't even know how it works and can't explain. It's not like we're connecting to the old, you know, ma bell and we're getting switched through the network. That's not how it works. So, the idea that somebody comes to a hearing and and just throws this stuff out there, it's not evidence. its argument. You can argue against it. You can argue that it's ugly. You can argue that it doesn't belong there. But I

081have yet to hear an engineer say that we don't have a gap now that we've proved it up with a drive test. This drop call thing is just frankly a distraction. It's a silver rider. They won't give us the drive test. They know we won't give it to them. That's why they wave that little shiny object. AT&T. I've been doing AT&T for 20 years. Never given drive. never given drop calls. Sorry about drive test. We do drive tests all the time. AT&T's made the corporate decision unless there's something that requires us to submit it, it's not getting submitted. And I think that going to the drive test is exactly the validation for the coverage maps and you can see exactly where the gaps are. So a car drove around with an antenna just like it

082would be a dropped ball and said where is their coverage and where is their not and it validated the bets the the health report is the health report we're at like 2.5% of the maximum that's it we've proved our case health is off the table emissions are off the table I agree it's this collocation they're additive they have you know come to the city prove their case that they still comply. All we have to do is comply and we and we, you know, comply in a significant way. We always do because power is so high away from the ground that it's six feet, you're just not getting enough power down there. Now, we provided a bunch of maps for the alternative sites. Uh I I don't want to go through all of them. I think

083it makes sense if there are questions for me, questions for Martin, we can answer them unless you want me to run through each of them. And you know, we provide it. I don't blame you. I shake my head now, too. Um, but the bottom line is we have validated what we've been saying since the get-go. And all of your all of our filings have been validated. They've been confirmed. You hired, we paid for Mr. Lawren to review it. He validates it. I don't care if somebody's outside with their cell phone and says, "Well, I have good coverage." That's not the science. That's not the engineering. Inbuilding is significant. Now, if you look at all of the case law, at least in this circuit, inbuilding is, you know, where we're headed. Everybody wants their phones to

084work, whether it's, you know, penetrating a brick building, a uh, you know, why in God's name would you want to be inside your house? You don't have landlines. I've sent you a statistic on all the reports. You know, 80% of people have don't have landlines anymore. 76, I think it was. Um, so why would you want to be in a situation where when I go in my house, I can't use my phone, so I have to go outside. So we're trying to maximize coverage and that's where you get this 83gative 93 and I can't explain what it all means, but I know that if I'm outside a building and it's 93, it's not penetrating the building, 83's got a better chance of getting inside it. Lastly, FirstNet. So AT&T provides we went through this ad

085nauseium. We we provide firstn net service for first responders. The your own fire chief came to a hearing and said he has issues with firstn net. Frankly I don't know what more you need when you got your fire chief saying we have issues with our first net service. We've proved the gap. So the gap is a gap for firstn net. A gap is a gap for the AT&T service. I know we have some people they don't some people don't live in town that are objecting to it. Some people don't live near the tower. Some people can't see the tower. So, we know where that's coming from. And in my opinion, that's a health related thing. And I don't think anybody hides that. But let's be clear about what the objections are. I didn't see the

086balloon test. You all saw it. Whoever attended it, I'm told that it wasn't physical from a lot of areas. Now, as I said at the first hearing that I attended, the tower is not invisible. 170 ft. You're you're going to see it. If you're standing next to it, you're going to see it. If you're far enough away that you can see it above the tree lines that have an angle, you're going to see it. But you saw the, you know, results of the balloon test and you have a, you know, good sense of, you know, is this a good location? Is it the right location? Did we comply with your ordinance? So, we can talk about all these gap things. Did we comply with your ordinance? That's what we come out and I think that's

087what Michael's going to deal with and with that quipating. I I just want to say one thing if I may. Thank you. Thank you. Um it's a it's kind of it's it's within the realm of the sensitivity piece, your emotional feeling. I'll tell you what it feels like for me. I'll speak for myself. I don't this is no indic this is not an indication of where I'm going to come out in the vote but um our job is to defend our community people and her group have real concerns about health. Yep. The rules of the federal telecommunication act. It's not a level playing field. Uh you have a lot of power in this process. Good for you. And you know, that's the way it goes. That's the way this country works. But I I'm not

088going to apologize for their disparaging you or AT&T, but I want you to know that you might want to take a minute and see what it feels like to be the person who's in the neighborhood worried about something being jammed down their throat. So, I have a lot of respect for this group. I don't always agree with them, but I'm going to say a word for their benefit. So that's my response and I think it was more person chamber not people living near it. I get that. So but just if you could just walk away with a little empathy. I I do for them do this all the time. That would that would that would make me feel better. I will. You want us to feel better that you you were uh abused in some

089way. I'd like us to feel better that you understand that this is a community that these people have a right to their feel. I get it. Okay. Thank you. Can I can I make a question before Michael gets presentation? I spoke with Mike Michael and I asked him a question. With what we have now for service, is there a risk of poor service or reliability or whatever? And he his indication to me was yeah possibly it still might work you know but you know with the service we have now you know it may not provide the quality of service you might ask. So then I asked if we add this does this increase the reliability in you know quality of service and his indication was yes it will but it may not be marketkedly different

090in certain circumstances and in his report he basically says he he's defined that the there is gap in coverage there will be an improvement but that doesn't necessarily he he's not in the business to make a statement about substantial service. Okay. So with that, Michael, if you could kind of address his report about him being an engineer and can't make it make a recommendation about whether there's a substantial lack of coverage. Certainly. Okay. Let me do this if I might. Um that is going to be part of my presentation this evening. So if it's okay with you, I can either jump to that first or I can make it up in the middle. However you want. I just at some point I'd like you to because I had that conversation and I ended up knowing

091technically everything was find confirm but in his reports as an engineer I can't help you with making the decision whether the service is substantial or not so so I'm going to make a presentation this evening uh I made seven copies of the presentation I was thinking one would go to Ire one would go to Elena and five would go to the voting board members. But since there are actually seven board members sitting at the table, I think that it should be circulated to the seven at the table and I can make sure that we get an extra copy to Eric and or Elena. Uh in that uh Eric in there there are thumb drives. So I want you to have those as well. So what I did is um and I'll explain the presentation in

092a minute, but to the extent that we reference additional documents that have been submitted over the course of the past six meetings, I put them all on a thumb drive for everybody. And my theory was that way everybody doesn't have to print a ton of stuff, carry a ton of stuff around. Um, you have one document and you have everything that I have in front of me this evening, but to the extent that you want to take it home, look at it over the next two weeks before you come back and deliberate, I thought it would be easy to put it on a thumb drive for everybody rather than uh kill a tree and print out a whole bunch of these binders. Um, but the memo I printed out so that if you want to

093have it in front of you this evening, you can. If you want to turn it upside down while I speak and just we can talk, that's fine as well. Um, so with that, let me Okay, so first of all, thank you. I I do have to say uh noting that the board has not had an application under this bylaw and that you only have one cell tower that was built before the bylaw. I appreciate um everybody on the board. Your questions have been respectful. They have been thought out. Uh they have been considerate. and knowing how many hearings I've done and knowing that Ed's done 10 times as many as I have. We do hear this a lot. Um, so sometimes if we show some frustration, it's just because we do this over and over

094and over again. And but I I can't even begin to tell you how great the questions are that have come from the board. Um, I'm also respectful of the outcome of the neighbors. I think that in a in a in an ideal world, we could all pick and choose what's in our backyards. I think we want to be able to do that. And I think we pick locations to live based on what exists in our in our neighborhood today. And we don't necessarily think about what's going to be in our neighborhood in 20 years, nor do we necessarily have the right to control what's going to be in our neighborhood in 20 years. Massachusetts just passed a law that allows everybody to put a 900 foot house in their backyard. um you know, part of

095the affordable housing initiative in this state. Um I don't know how I'll feel feel if my neighbor in my backyard goes and puts a second home in their backyard that is going to be effectively in my backyard. Um I'm very cognizant of that. I've been doing land use work for 30 years. I appreciate uh your comments uh Mr. Chair about we don't draft the laws. Our job is to go ahead and either apply for projects in accordance with the laws or oppose projects in accordance with the laws. And we live with the laws whether we like them or not. Whether it's cell towers, whether it's solar, whether it's cannabis, um whether it's churches, you know, any of the things that have certain exemptions and certain rights that are above and beyond low. As I listened

096at the last meeting, um, what really I I felt that I picked up on was that a lot of the discussion was really outside of your bylaw. Okay. and and I I wanted to start this meeting by discussing your bylaw and discussing the memo that I put together because in the two weeks, no more than two weeks now, in the six weeks since the last meeting, I think it was April 17th, what I decided to do was take your bylaw and lay it out in a memo and take each section section by section and answer it for you. tell you what our contention is, tell you what our argument is, tell you what documentation we've submitted to you, and let you know what we think as to the opposition group. And I and I use

097opposition group just because their document is called the opposition memorandum. They titled it. I didn't. So I don't in any way mean it to be disrespectful. We use the title of their document and I I tried to put in what they put in. And so what I did is I created what I think is a road map. And in creating it, it helped me think a lot about um the project that's here in front of you tonight and the application that we presented to you and whether or not we actually did or didn't do a good job. Um I'll give you an example. Uh earlier this evening, um Dr. Chamberlain was speaking and when he listed off his three or four points, he one of them was why don't we do smaller lower towers and

098we could do more of them. Your bylaw doesn't provide for that. Your bylaw requires anybody who is citing a wireless telecommunication facility to follow your bylaw. And your bylaw says first thing you do is look to existing towers. If you can't go on an existing tower, the second thing you do is you look to build a tower that can accommodate all of the carriers. And I will tell you, at the time your bylaw was drafted, that was pretty much common place in the industry. That's what where people were gravitating. I don't know whether you got the recommendation from the mask municipal association. I don't know if you've reached out to a law firm like the old couple and page which is KP Law. I don't know who drafted them. There are tons of bylaws out

099there and in my in my job going community to community. I see similar language in many different communities because there are attorneys out there that rep represent municipalities. Um there's a there's a group of of attorneys um Jay Talerman, Lisa Me, Mark Babrowski who writes the handbook on land use law um um um KP Law. I've had hearings where Mark Babowski has represented the municipality and I've been representing the applicant and Mark will say, "Yep, I drafted that bylaw. I drafted it 23 years ago and about 45 or 50 communities um took that bylaw that I drafted with regard to whatever it might be and incorporated into that bylaw. So as an applicant there there is law that basically says an applicant has the right to rely on a bylaw and an ordinance when they

100submit an application and start putting time, energy, money, and resources into that application. We started with your bylaw and I actually think in reflecting and in writing this memo and I I I think and I appreciate your comment um in it uh Mr. Law and that that you think that we actually I think do think we did a good job based upon what the bylaw says. Might we have presented something different if your bylaw allowed for different types of installation? Yeah, it's possible. But we always start with the bylaw. That's the first place we go because when we go in front of a board and we want to advocate for a project, we have to look at that bylaw. And if we're worried about whether or not if we lose, we could appeal that decision,

101we look to whether or not if we had to go in front of a court, whether the judge would agree that we complied with your bylaw. So, in looking at your bylaw, and I don't have to go through this whole thing tonight. I I think you have most of the information. I don't feel compelled to sit here and keep everyone here till 9:30 or 10:00 and go through the memo point by point. I I'll point out a few key principles that I see in the bylaw. One is that we have to follow it and we have to start by looking at towers and then looking at districts and build to colllocate and that's what we did and that's we started with looking at towers then we looked at industrial sites and then we looked at

102general business sites. Those all come before rural residential. And we found a general business site that we felt like comported with the bylaw and we felt like it was an appropriate site based on as many of the factors that we thought were relevant. Um, we've provided you information on why the existing towers in in the community didn't work. Again, I believe isotrope confirmed that. We provided you information as to why some of the general industrial sites and really we focused on the ones on the southern part of of um like south of 91 not really southeast there's some you know south of the rotary but south of the rotary um and I'm happy to go into any of them if anyone has any questions I'm happy to allow you to read Ed's memo that he

103sent last week that went back to isotrope and read the submission I sent you um but for various reasons that we've explained and provided documentation on those sites didn't work. The next thing we look at is we have to build a tower where collocation is feasible. We have to do it. That's what your bylaw says. And the reason your bylaw says it is because if Verizon comes in next month or T-Mobile comes in next month or Dish Network comes in next month, the first thing you're going to say to them is, "Please go look at the AT&T tower." That's what your bylaw tells them to do. So if uh uh um my friends at uh Prince Low Bell who represent T-Mobile Omni Point, if Craig Tataronis or Ricardo Soua get a phone call, they're going

104to pick up the bylaw. They're going to read the bylaw and the first thing they're going to say is colllocation. And they're going to look and see if you've approved any towers recently and they're going to say, "Oh, Ed and Michael had a tower. Let me call them and see what I should do." And they're going to call me and I'm going to tell them, "Yeah, we have a tower and we designed it for collocation. We designed it for four locations and that dictates that it's got to be above the tree line. It dictates that there have to be significant room above the tree line for the trees to grow. That dictates that the carriers have to have some separation between them to avoid interference. And again, I would I would say if you need

105an expert to answer those questions for you this evening, um isotrope is here. Um Martin Dan Martin is here but I'm saying I I again I should have suggested a peer consultant three meetings ago. I suggested him at the last meeting. You guys went and engaged him and brought him in and I would suggest that you ask the peer rather than our own expert. Um so that there's some independent confirmation of it. Um, we then looked at all of the other factors and I think the biggest thing that I want to take you to is variance. Okay. Massachusetts law. This is really important. You heard some suggestions about u from attorney campelli at the last meeting back in April about cases in New York and New Jersey. And if we were having this hearing in

106New York or New Jersey, I might have a different response. But in Massachusetts, it's Massachusetts law that controls. In Massachusetts, it's Massachusetts state court. It's Massachusetts District Court. And then a decision in the district court can get appealed to the first court of appeals. First circuit court of appeals controls. And those decisions can get appealed to the Supreme Court. And if the Supreme Court rendered a decision, a Supreme Court decision would control. But a Massachusetts case or a first circuit case would have precedent in a case in Massachusetts over a case that is from New Jersey or New York or Montana or California or Florida or anywhere else. and and the primary case in Massachusetts is uh Cranston, Rhode Island. Uh it is a first circuit court of appeals case. So that it encompasses Massachusetts.

107Um and it it it does for the most part follow decisions in Massachusetts. Um Lincoln, Sbury, Whand, uh cases that Ed and I did 20 years ago. Um and the Cranston case basically says um you know you think of like burdens and presumptions and shifting of burdens. So the burden falls on the applicant and the applicant has to provide you actual evidence not anecdotal evidence but actual evidence and we think we did that in our coverage maps our propagation studies. We then supported that evidence eventually by bringing the peer consultant in, doing a drive test, and asking the peer consult to review it. And we believe that that evidence supports AT&T's determination that they need NEG 83, NEG 93, and that based on their models and their propagation, they have a gap in coverage. If

108you look at the Cranston case and my interpretation of the Cranston case is that we have met our burden of proof and as a result of us meeting our burden of proof, the presumption now shifts. Now the presumption is that we do have a gap in coverage. We've provided hard actual factual evidence to the board. The board has to take that factual evidence into consideration when it makes its decision. Do they have to rely on it blindly? Nope. If you have any other factual evidence paired with respect to this case by experts with respect to this case, not a study from Brazil or a study from Florida or a judge's decision from New York or New Jersey, but if you have something else that's relevant in Massachusetts in the first circuit that was prepared with

109respect to this case, uh tangental to this case, then that would constitute substantial evidence, not anecdotal evidence. And you could then take that into consideration because again there's a burden. We shifted that burden. It creates a rebuttable presumption but a presumption nonetheless. And now you would need to look to actual evidence. I don't think there is any. And in the memo that I've submitted to you, I believe that the only actual factual evidence, substantial evidence that you've received in this case is the materials prepared um at the request of our office, at the request of Ed's office, uh at the request of already at the request of AT&T and by the peer consultants. They are experts in their field who have looked at this site and this city and this community and they have taken

110the information that has been provided to them, verified by them, confirmed for them and come together I think with conclusions that with regard to fall zone that the design of the tower is safe with regard to coverage gap that that coverage gap does exist. uh with regard to improvements to that coverage gap by building this particular tower that will take place. I think the factual elements of the case are laid out in the evidence, the actual factual evidence and not the anecdotal evidence. I think the anecdotal evidence opens people's eyes up. It leads people to ask questions, potentially raise concerns. And I applaud the board for pushing us and telling us we want, you know, more. we don't we we don't we're not just going to rely on your first propagation maps and you made

111us go out and do our homework and we did and we did a drive test. We agreed, you know, again at the end of the last meeting sitting there watching, I observed I I did everything I could to keep my mouth shut during the last meeting other than when one person spoke and didn't identify themselves. Um, and I listened and at the end I looked at my client and I said, "I'm going to tell them we're going to do we're going to offer a peer consultant." and I turned and I looked at this board and I addressed the chair and I said, "Go ahead and get a peer consult. I I don't want to um for lack of a better term, I don't want to lose. We spent time and money and effort and attention

112to this. We're contemplating investing well over a million dollars in a particular project that obviously we wouldn't spend that money if we didn't believe that we had a need and this that this community didn't have a need. Um, and I believe that everything that's in here supports that application. Um, I don't know if there's anything else. I I don't again I don't want to go through this item by item, but I will tell you I I believe the variance standard in Massachusetts is clear. Um, it's a a gap in coverage justifies a variance. I believe this standard is clear in Massachusetts that the initial presumption, the initial burden falls on the applicant. I believe in Massachusetts and in the first circuit, it is to the to the applicant's right and obligation to determine what their

113needs are and then to set that out in models and factual supported engineering data and information. And I believe that that then shifts the burden and creates a presumption in favor of the applicant and I think the applicant met it. Um I don't know if this just just to finish up my end of things. We're not interested in litigating. I mean that's not I don't litigate this. I mean when this leaves me, you know, I'm done. I do land use. I don't like the litigation stuff. I court stuff. We're not interested in that. We're interested in finding a way to provide AT&T service to an area that we have gaps in. Now, I did make Martin drive all the way down here. If there are questions about the gap that has for him that it

114would be great to ask him. If there's any concerns about what we've provided or need specifics from Martin about any of the maps we provided, you know, we put Martin through all of these, you know, map requests. We're happy to rely on what we submitted. But if there are questions, if if there's anything in your mind that either Mike Lorden didn't respond to, but but that you want to hear from Martin on behalf of AT&T, he's right here asking and he's he's a great guy to do. Secondly, if there are any alternative sites that you're not satisfied with that we need to have a further discussion about, we talked about closing the hearing at the beginning of this. We want to make sure all the issues are buttoned up, though. So, we provided our analysis.

115We provided our, you know, substantial evidence on our gap and that this is the site. This is the best site. But if there's any question anybody's mind, we'd love to have it. We'd love to know what that is so that we don't sit here and run through every site. If if there's something in particular, I'd love to get the feedback. I know I'm sure, you know, with the whole height issue and so the idea is we're looking for some feedback. You've gotten reams of documentation. Michael's got an unbelievably substantial memo about how we meet the ordinance. We talk about all these cases, cases of litigation. So, we could talk about the cases. I think you know at Northium we're there. Why don't you give us a chance? Anybody have I And again, I just want

116to remind everybody that you have Dominic or Varsa as well. If anyone has questions about the structure of the tower, we probably do. Yeah. Okay. Um, can we go a couple of more minutes? Yeah. All right. He's He's our barometer. Yeah, that's the old guy. That's fine. I might I might sip my coffee while Are there any questions? Any comments that anybody wants to make at this point? Um I guess the only thing I you know I the um but I you know after everything that came through reading all the last documents your document I I don't have any questions in regards to anything that we've been shown at this point. I feel satisfied that I understand where they're coming from at this point, why they, you know, I mean, there's some doubts about why

117the sites were, you know, chosen like, well, we decided they wasn't good and I I think they provide enough documentation for me to read through and understand all that. So, um, I don't have any questions at this point. I was good with the pillar view on the structural stuff. So, this is the only thing that I might end up having some questions about later. Yeah, I do want to raise one other I cited cases in here. One of the reasons that I did is that I understand that you have a chair of your board. So the goal was not to like give you case law and have everyone have their head spin and say like me what is it is only intended for David's head to spin but on a theory that when you guys

118deliberate he can say I read this case I read that case. So I I I it is in no way intended to be oh this guy's trying to like over lawyer us with cases. The fact that you have David um sitting here, you have your chairman sitting here who is a learned real estate attorney and land use attorney as well as the chairman of your board. I gave him the information so that to the extent that he wants to verify and confirm anything that I'm saying as a matter of law based on my experiences. Um I include those so that it's not like well which case? Why didn't you tell us about that case? Why didn't you give us that case? So I don't again I just want to point out that I do cite

119them in here but I'm doing it to make it easier for David to understand where we're coming from so that when he does deliberate with this board um he'll be able to say I read this case I agree with Michael or I don't agree with Michael Ed cited some cases in his memo. David may say, "I agree with that or I don't agree with that." But it's I don't expect all of you to pull up the cases and read the cases, but they're there if anyone's bored and wants to. I have some want me to zip it. No, I'm zipping it away. Okay. So, with that hat on, that lawyer hat, I guess. [Music] Um, so I I say all this with respect, but I am a lawyer, so I probably won't say it won't

120sound respectful. Um, the you say that you say that we have an ordinance and that you're complying with our ordinance, but from the first day that this application came in, the thing that bothered me personally was that we have a fall zone that's the height of the tower. Correct. and you were applying for a tower that didn't meet that requirement. Correct? So, here we were, plain English. We don't want towers. We don't want you to build on a site that doesn't have enough land to capture the tower when it falls. And yet, you applied and you've been here for a long time talking to us about it. And just for purposes of this discussion, let's assume. So there's the significant gap in coverage which is a legal issue because with that is my understanding based

121on the the case law you've sent me. You could argue that while Massachusetts while you might not be able to convince us that we should grant you a variance under Massachusetts law alone even though you might think you can. Yep. That's a hard hill to find. Yep. Um, if you can prove in your jurisdiction, the federal court, that you have a significant gap in coverage and now Ed is saying that that standard is actually lower, just that you that you think that you want and need this coverage, we don't have to determine anymore. We we don't have the right to determine anymore whether there's a significant gap in coverage. We just have to look and you know Michael who is an honest man has said yes the coverage will increase the coverage will change the

122coverage will be better with this tax um then you would argue I think legally that that means that while Massachusetts law doesn't have any of that notion the federal law merges with Massachusetts variance law and says well that's a hardship depending on how we frame the answer to that question. So I believe that our first question when we deliberate is is there a significant gap in coverage or we take EDS the FCC standard which I'm not in this area but I get the feeling that it hasn't been tested yet but it's certainly you know it's the FCC but um that that's the question we need to answer. So if we answer the question honestly and with the evidence that there is a significant gap in coverage, then we're then we don't really have to go

123to Massachusetts law and look at whether the lot shape is, you know, whatever and whether you, you know, even though you created the lot size and you decided to have a lot that has water on it and you picked the lot. We didn't decide to have water on it. Yeah. But you picked the lot. So, I don't as under regular Massachusetts law, I think you have a you have a tough pill to climb. If you want to speak to that, if you want to talk to me about Massachusetts law, why you think you need a variance, that's fine. Um, but that's what I feel we're being presented with. So when you talk about how you're complying with the ordinance and I know you're coming from the outside coming in and you're used to this right

124from the beginning I personally and I I'm assuming other members have the same concern. It's that's not what our ordinance wants. Our ordinance wants to fall within the property. So I want you to I want you to understand that. Again I'm not saying what my decision is. I don't think any of us really know yet what we're going to decide. We're going to have to talk it out. Um and I get the feeling that again I I don't know if this is also a case of first impression but um that this idea that that um you've designed this in a safe manner somehow mitigates even if you were to go into state law even if the significant gap in coverage wouldn't fly you would then argue well the only thing is this tower and it's

125not and as Peter as Michael said um you know not every community has it and maybe we're stricter than others and maybe we did get it from a model code but um it's in there for a reason and by the way when I talked to our peer review person for the the other peerreview person and I said can you tell me that this design this brake design or bend design is as safe as a fall zone he said I cannot so and I've asked you and we've asked you if you could and Eric's gonna ask you again and maybe this is a good time and we'll take a break and then we'll let the conversation continue, but I've yet to see any evidence that the bending or the breaking has happened yet and that or

126you've done any kind of testing that says that it will work. Now, Ed made a comment about hurricanes in Florida and I get it. And I'm I I that's not my pers I don't have to have that perspective. My perspective is this bylaw is written for the safety of the citizens. That's what we put in. We put in the maximum safety provision has to fall within the lot. Otherwise, it's gonna fall on a road. Yep. And so that's that's the whole thing. That's the whole case is the significant coverage. Is it enough to get you hardship? Is it enough to get it through the variance? And then, you know, if this was just a special permit case with and you had a fall zone that was 170 ft, then all the stuff you're talking about,

127yeah, the Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I I can't argue with you. Again, the significant gap in coverage is still an argument, but it doesn't have the same presence as it does here. So, that's that's really the center of your case in my opinion. I don't disagree with you. I I think I would have an argument and my argument would be that um it's not just falling within the lot. It also uh has to be away from structures, I believe, is your fall zone. It has to be set back from structures, lot lines. I don't have in front of me, but I think it just has a Does it just have a height? Isn't it just a height? There's other language with it. I don't have the ordinance in front of me, but Well, okay. Fair

128enough. Um, so we we look at um if if if the risk is it falling, we're looking at We don't want it to fall on other structures. We're looking for space. We're looking for space that's protected by trees. Part of your bylaw requires it to be buffered, requires it to be screened. Uh preserving natural vegetation. Uh so it's it's if if there isn't a lot available, if there isn't a lot out there that supports this particular use, then the effective prohibition would necessitate a variance. And so again, we go out and we look at plenty of sites. Um one of the sites we looked at was the fairgrounds. Okay, it's in a um it's not in one of the permitted zones at all in its entirety. it's in a zone that's below, you know, so

129there's 1, two, three, there's rural residential is four. Residential doesn't exist. So, it's not even allowed in that zone. Um, so we have to decide, is it better to seek a variance for a fall zone or is it better to seek a variance to maybe put it on a piece of property that would be in front of and closer to more residences and in a zone where it's not allowed at all. And so it is a balancing of that. Um if you think about a a a facility that needs to be 170 ft tall and you take the radius of that 170T tower and you put that circle inside a square, you need like I think it's like a 6 acre site within a general business district where you could design a tower that could

130fall and not hit anything. But if you didn't have wetlands on that tower, site would have been big enough. that site. We probably could have found a way to push it. Yeah. Further back. So if we didn't have wetlands, but we didn't put the wetlands there. The wetlands. I I I don't want to I I'm just Your your response is understandable, but it leads to the same It leads to the same place. So you didn't use the fairgrounds because it has a problem. Now you want to use this site, but it has a problem. And there's another site that you can't use because it has a problem. This site has a problem. you can't meet the you can't meet one portion of our zoning bylaw and so it has a problem just like the fairgrounds

131has a problem so I just want you to understand I want to be honest about it again I haven't decided this case in my mind y but from the very beginning so everything you guys said all along I was like when are they going to tell me all about the 170 ft and the variance and that has really not been dealt with uh enough but I'm going If Can you hold it? I can. All right. I'm going to take We're going to take a break. Thank you. But I'd like to hear from Mark after. Absolutely. We're going to keep going. We're We're going to go till we don't want to go anymore. Reasonable. All right. Don't ask a lawyer what a reasonable thing is. Define reasonable. That's all. Can we define it? Yeah, five minutes.

13210 minutes. Five minutes, but I know you're going to take Thank you. Well, we got to get Mark back here first. He'll be back soon. Yeah, I know. I sick. Did you get You've got Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ask question. Oh, this is this is 2024. There's a new one. Yeah. Yeah, there's a new one that's updated. 2025. Okay. It's on the website. It's the name ADU Live. We want to see that right actually Eric if we're talking about uh the the ordinance and it's up todness there's there's two spots on if you go if you go into the city of Greenfield and then go to the zoning board and look for the ordinance you told me that that ordinance may not be as up to date as the code right the code if it or

133are they both up to date the same way there's the PDF version which has the old numbers that's up to date. It is. Okay. E-code we do once a year. It's not up to date. Oh, that's the one that's up to date. Okay. Thank you. So, the one he has is up to date, but if I went to the E code then and never do a Google search for the zoning ordinance because you'll get it wrong link. Always go directly to the site and download it directly. Okay. Thank you. Good advice. Okay. Back. We're back in meeting. Um Ed, you had something to say. uh you know you were talking about the variance there how that all came about with the telecommunications act of 1996 I mean basically what happened was it's difficult to meet

134the state standard I mean it's that's a high hill decline so lot side not even lot size shapeography shape soil conditions but as we were going through this you know tower stuff and this cell service stuff there came another you know opportunity to avoid and effective prohibition and that's why we end up with the first circuit. you have a situation we didn't whand you know the county whan told us years ago we can't grant you services you're done well federal court said not really you need to take into account whether there's a significant gap in coverage and whether there are available alternatives so that's why you hear all of this about I myself get confused about how does that intertwine now I know the federal law preempts but when you read the cases that the

135judges have come out with it's kind of well you need to factor that in. You should go through your bylaw first. I think Shrewsbury if you're interested would say but you know a town really needs to think about the effective prohibition. Remember it's effective prohibition not prohibition. We don't say that you're prohibiting that your bylaw prohibits service because for example a fair ground would work. Problem is your bylaw says fairgrounds not in play. That's where we end up with the okay what is the solution for the significant gap. So if you find that significant gap and you find that there's no alternative now we come down to that balancing. Do we grant a variance for this fall zone? What's the purpose of the fall zone? So you got to go a little bit further than

136just all right the fall zones here for this reason. I can tell you I' I've been to towns that have a five times the tower height fall zone. We call it the tumbling tower syndrome. Well, there's there's no lot available that that large. So, they routinely go through their organs, routinely go through our coverage maps and determine is there a gap? Is there an altern is there a feasible alternative? If not, we grant a variance relief. So we do have those cases whin Swansea that lay that out take that into account. So you know we sort of argue that well that's another standard being kind of patched in to the Massachusetts state standard because it's hard to beat. I mean it's so it's interesting. So the in Lawrence uh they had a fall zone standard.

137I think it was uh I forget whether it was 250 ft or for the height of the installation plus. And so I did what I just and the reason I talk about circumference and square is I did that in the city of arts. And so I took the the city zoning map and then I made a circle and then I made a square around the circle and I had the map up on a board and I had a like a um shaded um but see-through. I forget what that's called, but you know where you can put them on those overheads and you can project. Yeah. and and I put the myar down on the table and I said, "Show me where I can put my tower and the only place you could put the tower

138was in the middle of the Marinac River was the only place you could find." So, you have to find a feasible alternative of, you know, least intrusive. Uh how do you how do you make it work and how do you pick which variance to seek? It's not an easy choice. I do think at some point when we look at the bylaw and and again you have a peer here tonight that potentially as a also a ZBA board member could chime in. I do think that this comports with the bylaw. it's um I think a least intrusive um it's feasible whereas there are no other feasible sites and so you have to go with something and if you pick a site that is the only feasible alternative or the least intrusive alternative then under state law

139that does support the basis for a variance and I personally and this is my own opinion and I that's why the five of you get to vote on this later um I think putting it uh surrounded by trees close to the highway, close to the railroad tracks, adjacent to tractor supply, and behind a self- storage facility is less intrusive than going to the fairground and getting a variance to put it in an area where it would be wide open to 30 or 40 residences. Um, and that's kind of the balancing act we have to do as attorneys advising applicants on where to go, what to do because so I I do these where they're really nasty like they're not allowed that they're prohibited in the zoning district such as the fairgrounds. We have to go

140in and ask for use fairance. I mean, just as a land use lawyer, you go through the bylaw and you say, "Okay, the fairgrounds is big. It's, you know, they'll lease it to us. We can do it." I go to the bylaw, it's like, man, use variance. First of all, does the, you know, town even have the authority to grant it? Secondly, how am I ever going to get a use fair that there's, you know, no other potential use? So, you you when you're looking at that balancing, you have a what I would consider a minor setback variance request based on good science, based on good engineering that these towers, I mean, we put them everywhere. We put them, we do put them in their buildings. We put them in median strips on highways. You

141know, we put them anywhere, but we engineer them to deal with the safety factor. So, I think part of the analysis is what else is out there that works or that could work for AT&T. Then, how do we factor all that together when you come down to your you're the jury? You come down to your I guess you're the judge. I I would point out and you raise a great point. We're the judge. Um, under Massachusetts law, dimensional variance is much lower standard than a use variance. So obviously our predisposition as land use lawyers is if you can find something that needs a dimensional variance and not a use variance, you're going for that dimensional variance. I'd much rather be in front of a board arguing in fact every community can give a dimensional variance.

142You're you can only give a use variance if your bylaw expressly allows a use variance. And so the ability to seek a cell a tower on say the fairgrounds would not even be something that like I wouldn't recommend to a client that they go forward with that because I think I'd have a much more difficult time proving that I couldn't have found a place where I needed a dimensional ovarian instead of a yeast variance. I think at the end of the day and we'll then we'll give the board a chance to ask it. We're at the 50 yard line here. So that's that's where we're at. Um you want you have questions for the engineer any of the engineers please. But long indicated that there's there's certainly a gap in coverage and will there'll be

143an improvement of coverage but he couldn't he couldn't say there's a substantial lack of coverage significant significant and I'd like to hear from Mark his his definition of what he's done you heard what I just said and com so I just need to hear from the other engineer you know is you know, significant lack of coverage. Will it improve significantly if you put the dollar? Um, it's not my place to say it was significant. What is it? Uh, as an engineer, I consider it significant from my standpoint, but that's not the standpoint that the word is looking at. um service will improve for everyone within the coverage gap and in downtown and the outlying areas that are currently being served by 5057 because it is simply overextended certain things. Every site and their network is

144identified by a number. So when he says 5057, if you look on one of our earlier maps on any of our coverage maps, you'll see numbers on those maps and those are the references. And if you if you if I think you read if you read Mike's report, it talked about uh to the southwest to the northeast. Those are all So 5057 is which one? To the southwest on the hill overlooking all green that's currently there. Yes. Yeah. That kind of design is a legacy design. Um back to the days amps and analog find the highest place and just let it go. And all we have is voice calls and everything's great. We're into digital now. Um everything is digital and highspeed data is the overwhelming majority of our um traffic on the network voices

145less than 1% of what traffic that goes through our network. Um and that giant site that used to cover everything for amps is getting to be a liability for digital. That's why um T-Mobile and Verizon have gone downtown. We're going here to get a a server to just do that area and not have to do everything else that 5057 up and does up and down 91 and in other areas that this one can't quite reach. Take the burden off of that. Everyone on that site gets better service after smaller areas that then the towers that went far and they are there are fewer users sharing that that legacy tower to the southwest when we come in with this one. People being served by that will get better service and this is based on 174. Yes.

146You have a question. Do you want to ask a question about to the engineer about the break? Yeah. Question for Dominic. Dominic. Yes. Yes. about the uh the safety of the design. Thank you. For the tower to fold as as the reason that the board should consider it to be within the uh fall zone. What's the question exactly? Could you expand on the folding design and the safety the proven safety of that? Yes. So the when we analyze the structures um the tower manufacturer that designs it, we had requested the tower to be designed with um the highest stressed structural member near the midpoint of the tower. So in the theoretical circumstance where the tower fails due to high winds, the first section that should be overstressed and fails near the middle of the tower,

147which should allow it to fold over itself and none of the tower even reach the ground. Um, it's not something that you typically see happen ever because monopoles do not have the uh the same track record of failure as you see other towers. But it's, you know, theoretically the way the tower is designed should allow it to fold over itself at that midpoint with none of the tower contacting the ground or getting beyond the midpoint of the tower. You use the word theoretically. So that raises the question, has this ever been proven in actual use? Go ahead, Dominic. Go ahead. Go ahead. So I believe uh can you confirm for the board that I reached out to you as well as Belmont and asked us to please provide us evidence of any towers with midpoints

148that failed. And can you confirm for the board that neither All Points nor Valmont have any record of having towers that had midpoints that failed? That's correct. I have I have a follow-up question. How many years have these towers how how many do you either have the number of towers that are out there or and or or how many years this technology has been in actual use. It's great that none of them fall. That's fantastic. But there's only two up. I'd like to know. So I I can tell you that. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. Thank you, Dominic. Yep. Uh in terms of the time frame of how often these structures have been up um I would I don't know the exact first date of the sort of monopole structures that we see now but you're

149looking at minimum 50 years 60 years with this break point. Uh the to be clear that it's not a break point. The tower is not designed to fail. The towers fold. Yeah. Let me react in regards to technology about having a full fold at a point at it's you know its highest stress point so it folds over itself in regard in high winds. In regards to that what is the age of that like how old is the oldest hole that you know of that's been built and in in existence? Was the most recent one installed 20 years ago, 10 years ago, five years ago, last week? And I'm sorry that sounds sarcastic. I'm just trying to clarify my question. No, understood. Um, without knowing the exact designs of all of the structures, um, it's hard

150to say. It's possible that some of the earlier monopol type towers were designed with that in mind. Um, but it's not a it's not a function of the exact it's it's a function of designing a midpoint of the tower with a slightly different thickness of metal than it would have otherwise received. Okay, let me ask you another question and I I'm sorry, Michael, if you have the answer for me. I do. Are are there any polls currently in existence that are up that have this technology that's been presented to us? Yes. So explains that. Yeah. So I can answer your question. I have done at least a dozen of these when I represented Nexttel and Nexttel and Sprint merged in 2005. So I can tell you that this technology has been around definitively for more

151than 20 years. Thank you. You're welcome. Sorry I didn't I was No, no, no. I you know I had a precise answer and I knew I could give you a date by just looking at the year in which Nexell and Sprint merged. Thank you. Besides high winds, what other factors have are taken into consideration for that fold point? For example, earthquakes or uh terrorist attacks or what have you. Regarding the tower design, the the fold point is designed specifically to uh the the typical failure point with these type of structures is the full design wind. Um, that's really the main function that it's designed to in regards to the fold point. Um, say that again, please. the the high wind is what the fold point is designed to. When you're looking at other uh design

152loads that are considered for the tower, whether it be seismic um ice loading, none of those have the same uh interaction with the tower as much of a stress as you get from the full design wind. So, just from high winds, two Did they go ahead? Yep. Hold a sec. What What motivated this design? What motivated putting that into the polls? That's that feature? That's I believe the I don't know the exact first use of it. Um, but the reason for using it is for the theoretical fall zone to to limit any possible distance that it could reach. So, it's it's just a safety design. Dominic, can I ask a quick question? How long have you been in this industry? Uh, I've been working on tower structures engineering for 13 years at this point. 14

153years about it. That's fine. I mean, I I I listen, I I trust what you're saying, but I just need to hear these answers. The is this just is the is the design of the tower and your representation that it will bend based on mathematics or is it based on actual tests like a model being tested or something being done that would give you kind of a real live answer rather than just mathematics. the I'm using mathematics as the tool maybe it's another tool but the idea the this sort of failure mode um to my knowledge is based on uh 3D models based on calculation based on mathematics as you say um I I'm not certain if the tower manufacturers have done exact load testing to confirm that type of failure here. Um I believe

154Michael you had reached out to request from them if they had done anything and they had not gotten back with that. I did not ask them that specific question. So So my point of asking how long Dominic has been in the industry is that these towers existed at least a decade before he even started in the industry. So, you know, whether or not he would have an understanding of what the industry experts did uh in say 1996,9798, I I I don't know that he would have access. That wasn't an essay question. No, I'm just teasing. I I think the I just had one question for Dom. What's what's the wind speed that would topple this tower? Uh that would topple a tower. Uh that's a much harder question to answer. Uh in terms of the

155wind speed that it's designed to, it is uh I'm I have the analysis up here. It's designed to a pull up the H standard wind speed. Sorry, I'm just scrolling through the calculations to pull up the um so the wind speed it's designed to is 115 miles per hour. Say 15 or 50. 100. 115. 115. Thank you. Now, that's not the failure wind speed. That's the wind speed that including multiple safety factors that the tower is designed to withstand. Um, a failure wind speed would likely be significantly higher, but it's hard to say what that exact failure wind speed would be. We don't design it to failure. We design the towers including significant amounts of additional safety factors beyond what the tower would fail at. Yeah. Any other questions? U would it be fair to

156say that the design for this tower having that fold point built in was in fact chosen because of the uh fall zone issue that this site or fall zones in general. Yeah, but I mean they designed this because fall zones became part of the culture. Correct. Fall zones became part of the culture. So they had to overcome the fall zones by saying to communities, you don't have to worry about it falling all the way down. It's going to be and and we instruct them. So when we have a site that we know needs fall zone, we tell them to please design it with a fall zone. We explained that there was a fall zone and that we need this design to ensure that we can represent to a board that it will fall inside a

157certain radius. Radius. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So knowing that it was going to fall outside of the zone should it fall you put in the full correct as a design element. Correct. We ask for the additional design element when we have a situation where we want to ensure you know no different than let's say that there was a building close by and we wanted to ensure it we might ask for that. Um if there was any other consideration if it was near uh high electric power lines things like that whatever a consideration might be. We're instructing them to design it. We don't give it to them blindly and say please design a tower for us. Here's our here's the neighborhood. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. I have another question for one of you guys. Um, one

158of the sites that was I never even thought of it until I had a conversation with Michael Lton earlier today, he mentioned that um, transfer stations or dumps are often picked for sighting. And I wonder if the one in Greenfield, which is fairly isolated, but also very close to the um fairgrounds, was that considered as a possible site? When you say land, just so I have a perspective, that's in the GI zone south west of the tower. No, because No, if it's near the fairground, it is not in the southeast. Right behind you that at the bottom is the area he's talking about. Yeah, it's very close to the fairgrounds actually. See the the gray area there from miles. Right above that is the fair ground. That's the fairground. Okay. So that's outside of the

159coverage uh gap. It didn't meet the criteria to fill the coverage gap, but it's also currently leased to a solar company. It has a solar farm. It says the solar that's what I was asking. Actually, I think it's a little bit west. Yeah, there is a solar. Yes. Farm. So that Oh, so so that you could they're not compatible having a cell tower if it wasn't capable. So So Michael uh Mr. W looked at it and that particular I think it's northwest of whatever what's the name of that road northwest if I'm not wrong. So that portion is on a lot that is RA, which is not an allowed district. Oh, it's a it's a it's a residential zone. Question. Could I because I just to let you This isn't an engineering response, just personal

160experience. We do these ball zone designs all the time. Like when we were out in the middle of fields or in the middle of the large parcels, we're looking at the booming coverage. We never needed a false zone relief. Now we need it almost everywhere because we are getting closer and closer to the public and to where people live to where people work. So two weeks ago I designed the same thing. I'm 40 40T off the property line got zoning approval. So this is constant now either fall zones from buildings, property lines, uh anything where there's going to be some kind of fall zone. Yes, we do design to address the cost, but it would be nice if you were able to present the boards with a simulation uh result instead of just Yeah. So,

161you know, this is always an interesting conversation because every structure has limits. So, you know, anything you're approving a shopping center, a house, you know, everything has engineering design. They designed them not to fail. They designed them not to tip over from the base. And what Dominic is saying is that they've designed this pole with the manufacturer to bend over when the wind load gets to be too much. So I mean it's almost a situation where somebody's somebody's house is going to blow into our tower before the tower goes off. No, but you're using it as a mitigation. So it's different. We are It's different. It has a different purpose. It's not just built into the It's not just one of many things. It's it's this key focus of of what you're asking us to

162do. you're saying. I mean, no one could dispute that that if it was in a falls if the if you had the fall zone and it fell, it's not going anywhere. It'll fall down. It won't it'll fall down. That'll be the end of it. But because it'll fall down on a road or whatever, you're asking us you're telling us that you have designed something that's almost as safe, but you haven't given us any evidence that leads that leads us to believe that it is as safe as you represent. And so that's what we're left with. So I would I would respectfully disagree. I would say that we were asked for engineering data to provide it to the engineer that sits on your board and we did. And I would say that we paid for an

163independent so we had a peer review and then we paid for an independent peer review of the talent's choosing. And that peer review consultant concluded the same thing. I do. And you you asked him can he guarantee you it'll never fall. And he said, of course, he can't guarantee. No, he said that if it breaks, it will fall down on the spot. That's what he said. Okay. And secondly, he said, "Yes, from my understanding of the industry, your tower is designed within the industry standards." We're now peeling away the onion of the industry standards, saying, "How are those industry standards set up? Are they set up with engineers doing mathematical calculations and all saying that they're okay because five people did the same calculations and they're correct or did somebody actually do a simulation? We're

164I think it's a fair question and we've heard the answer and I'm just telling you that when you continue to try to sell it to us, I'm saying to you maybe you should think about that as being something to consider. You don't have to and maybe it's just a footnote. But my only point would be if we had known this when the peer consultant were here, we would have asked the peer consultant to confer with our expert and provide that information. if somebody had raised it. I I do think where tonight is supposed to be the last night if this board and and I like I want to close the hearing tonight. I want to close the hearing for everybody in this room. If the board is telling me that I should contact uh Topco,

165who I think is the consultant, and ask them to speak to Valmont and ask them to write a letter to you to say, do they know when hinged towers were designed? Did anybody do field testing or anything like that? I'd be happy to go and get the answer for you. Um, again, I this has kind of been in the back of our mind once the peer consultant came in and we had that discussion. I'm going to say back in February, but I I don't disagree with the question you're asking today. Um, if I had known the question in February, I would have gotten the answer. Well, with all due respect, we I asked it at the February meeting and it's been asked and asked and asked. Maybe it hasn't been asked this way, but it

166has been asked. Um, I don't know whether uh I don't know whether we the board will decide at some point whether there's more information. I'm just pointing out to you though that these are the questions that the board has. Not not that they're definitive, but understood about the structured piece. I have a structural engineer who's licensed to do the design peer review done by professional engineer and another peer. for me I'm comfortable with that recommendation board can disagree with me but that is what I've been doing my entire career right so you know to have all the legalist debate but where I'm from I I've heard three engineers tell me did a satisfactory I hear that I would build right so I've done that my entire career I know I agree and I guess the

167only other thing I would add is anecdotally you have a monopole in town correct and it withtood winds and earthquakes and you know and and it's still standing there right next to the country club. Um and it's been there for 24 years. I respect all the conversation. I've been doing this long if it's done that way I would have done it. Okay fair Mr. And there is a building code provision for mons, you know, they all have sure there is there's a specialized, you know, design that has to be the certain code. Now again, I'm just when you say, well, they just being calculated. Well, the mass building code establishes what the tower has to do and then we're adding in this break point. So, but I think what Peter said is helpful. So, they

168helped you, David. I agree. I feel that they satisfied their requirements that we asked them with with everything they provided with us and I made a lot of decisions that asking other engineers will it fall can you guarantee me no engineer in their right minds and say I guarantee so you know to have pose that question to an engineer myself included to give that statement to anyone would be foolish so you know for what it's worth I'm comfortable with the peer review and the design of that structure and will do what it's supposed to do okay thank Jeff, I've worked for 45 years for AT&T, Dynx, Bell Atlantic, MCI, Whirlcon, Verizon, taking care of equipment at the towers, going up in a snow cat on Mount Tom in the middle of winter. Never had a

169tower fall on me. Never had a tower break in all the storms and fa absolutely safe working at them. He met all federal and state regulations. And I'm not worried about the tower at all. Okay. I haven't been convinced on on the issue of adequate coverage or whatever the right word is, but certainly from the cell power design. I appreciate. Thank you. Anybody else? Are we still talking about structural integrity and helpful? No, I don't want to. I else when we're done with that, I'll put more. Go. You have another question, father. Of course. I'm not even I'm not entirely sure who this question is for. So, I guess it's kind of to you or perhaps Michael to you and we can try to parse this out a little bit. I'm getting kind of hung

170up on the word significant because I see like even in your briefing here, it's riddled with significant gap in coverage. We've continually heard this term. We've heard from two radio frequency engineers. I'm not touching whether or not this is significant. But we've also heard it's one of the key questions in front of us. So I guess I just I'm getting a little confused of is anybody defining significant anywhere? What is the metric? How are we supposed to make this decision when it seems like everybody's got their own take on what constitutes a significant gap in coverage and it's not being defined anywhere? And yet it's being kind of held over us as this key thing that we put to side and could potentially land in litigation. So what are we supposed to do with this

171understanding what constitute or this lack of understanding of what constitutes significant question I truly I don't like so it feels to me like that's the onus is on me to decide whether there's a significant gap. I don't know how to do it when everybody's got their own pay. I believe the Princeton case says that it falls on the applicant, the carrier to describe what it believes it needs for its coverage to comply with its federal license. And I believe as we talked about earlier, the Cranston case provides that if an applicant puts together what they consider to be presumptive EV or factual evidence of what how they define their coverage needs and whether or not they find this to be a gap of significance as to the service that it is intending to provide. I

172believe that's what the Cranston case said. in the absence of factual evidence to the contrary that it's it creates a presumption based on the applicant's design because they're the only ones that can design their network. They're the only ones that know what they need and what they're trying to accomplish. And so I believe they default to the applicant to try and define that. And then from there um it would be subject to a a you know factual evidence developed by a third party to dispute that evidence. So no go ahead and then I have a question you might answer my question. So see you need to look at I mean that's why we provide all these statistics. So I'm going to ask Marin from his pers as an RF engineer would he consider the gap

173significant? And your answer would be asking yes, right? But it's not the question that he asked. Is it significant? That's your decision to make. So you look at the number of people who get covered, size of the roads if you go through the case law because significant gap has been decided by judges, been decided by the FCC, but it it is like if we were trying to cover two houses and that was it. I'm not sure anybody would say that's a significant gap. If you look at the Cranston case, it talks about covering one culverack wouldn't be a significant gap. When you look at all the population, the area of coverage that we're going to get, roadways, acreage, streets, neighborhoods, that's where you make the determination, is that significant or is it 10 people that

174need coverage? And to your point, some of the cases talk about facts in those cases. I don't believe that there was a case where a judge said significant is defined as blank. That doesn't exist. If that existed, I would have put it in the memo. and Massachusetts First Circuit, all of the cases we've worked on, it's really more those boards making a determination what they do think is or is not significant and then not going hopefully not having a judge have to review it and make a decision to say, you know, 3% additional coverage is not significant. 7% additional coverage is. There isn't a judge that has statistically sat down and and when you think about when you go into court and you're going in front of a judge, they're picking A or B. They're

175generally not being asked, could you please define significant? They are being presented with a case where a particular carrier goes in and says, we have these concerns and we believe it's significant. And the judge will say yes or no. And then the next judge will get a case that has different factors and someone will argue was that significant and they'll say the judge will say yes or no. And now you say okay well we had one judge over here that said two houses isn't significant or a cult isn't significant. We had a judge over here that said uh a college campus is significant. Okay. Well, we've kind of you're building bookends, but there isn't again to my knowledge and I I don't I think to your knowledge because we've talked about this, there is not

176one judge who has issued a ruling that said here is how board should define significant. Not that I'm aware. The the evidence we provided you is the radio frequency report that we submitted with the application for AT&T's network. So it's that C squ that original report that shows all the population counts the size of the gaps describes it how far the gaps are on certain roads that's the sort of stats and again knock on wood if we had to ask a judge to decide we would ask the judge to think about what what Mr. Vernon said and what the fire chief said. So it's it's our statistical information, but it's also independent third parties who have come to a hearing who are neither with the applicant or with the opposition group who have independently come

177forward and said we believe that we have a problem. Can I ask Mark how you made that statement? Yeah. I mean I know I asked it differently before but I just heard like there is as an engineer he said not as a lawyer but as an engineer. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. If I'm looking at a gap like this I'm trying to serve my customers missing that much road that much area. I don't have that many people going to the first time I've heard a statement of that type as we go back. Yeah, his report is littered with words. Again, the question I had earlier was how how did what does AT&T uses their criteria to determine significance? And I think and I'm drawing a blank Martin. Thank you. We've always said it three times last night.

178Oh, Peter Martin asked something points for that. Um that his that they're relying on his expertise in his regard to his interpretation of the information. So I feel satisfied as to why they consider this to be significant. Not gonna say agree with it, but I understand why they're they're coming saying. Do you have any more question? So you're so many questions on your side of it like like do can you understand why he thinks it's significant? But do do you think it's significant? And if you don't do you I'm going to save my thoughts and feelings on things until the deliberation. I think we should move this meeting forward into the next I'd like to really close this part of it. So I don't know if we're close to that. I'm also hoping. Well, we

179do have if we have the uh the concerned citizens. Well, I know we have the concerned citizens, but I think we're a way to a point where we can close there. I have no more questions. And I I just asked after the concerned citizens speak if there is an issue, we would just have the opportunity to respond. That's fine. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Alana. Alana ready to speak. Do you mean Leonori Alanise? Sorry. Hi. Oh, Elana. Okay. Are you ready for me to speak, please? Okay. Um, I just want to uh address something I submitted to the ZBA tonight and then I will move to my other comment. Uh, I have submitted a signed affidavit demonstrating calls I made along Highway N uh 91 at 22 different mile markers heading north and south

180from the Greenfield Circle. In the affidavit, I included the locations and time I placed the calls with the Samsung phone using the carrier T-Mobile and attested to the fact that the signal strength was high and the quality of each of the calls was excellent. In the second supplemental filing, the applicant suggests that if they are not able to provide more reliable coverage in the area that they could lose customers to other carriers who are T-Mobile is currently providing excellent coverage in the outlined areas with the current cellular infrastructure that exists, meaning we have enough cell towers to fully cover this area. The additional coverage that AT&T proposes for this area is not based on the FCC maps warranted, nor does it necessitate the building of new tower, but rather a collocation at the existing towers

181that are already housing cellular infrastructure and providing excellent coverage for Verizon and likely other wireless carriers for the area. Tonight is about whether the applicant has met the criteria for the variance in special use permit required for this tower in a residential area. There are other noted viable placement options and alternative collocation options that must be explored fully and clearly they have not. In the second supplemental filing, the applicant acknowledges that the ZBA wanted hard data, but has yet to provide it. We are still waiting for requested actual performance data on the hinge tower design, not just the compliance report submitted, not just, you know, these towers don't fail. They do fail. You can research it online and find hundreds of towers that have fallen for many different reasons. We are still waiting for the

182process and testing methodologies that were used to evaluate the alternative sites and the detailed reports for each of those evaluated alternative sites, not the basic reports that we have received that simply indicate a site is too far away without any further quantifying data. We are also waiting for the drop call logs which we have discussed tonight that are a necessary part of an accurate needs assessment especially in this case where there are discrepancies in the coverage data with regards to the submitted propagation maps and the maps formally on record with the FCC. The residents requested the drop call logs months ago and they were formally requested by the ZBA at the last public hearing. The drop call logs would in calibration with the propagation maps, FCC maps and drive test data possibly quantify a significant

183gap in service and need for additional coverage. The applicant instead of providing this harder data hard harder data as requested by the ZBA has provided only a drive test and isotrope's initial report had recommendations for the applicant regarding their full pursuit of other viable locations. The report's content has now suddenly changed in the 11th hour that proposes to have resolved many of the those questions included in the initial report. It should be noted that drop call D log data in combination with dry by testing propagation maps and modeling are still the gold standard analysis of significant need agreed upon by various engineers. The applicant is refusing to provide this needed applica information to validate the need for the cell tower that again has been requested by the ZBA and the Greenfield residents. Verizon provides drop

184call log data when requested and proprietary status is an AT&T business decision alone. Failure to provide this data when requested and able to should be seen as an indicator that the data does not support the coverage claims. Just as AT&T considers the drop call laws one of metrics, so can and should the ZBA. Our intention is not to use drop call logs in isolation, but again in combination with driveby testing combined with propagation maps, modeling and FCC maps for a full analysis of need. The ZBA is allowed to ask for any information it deems relevant for this discussion. applicable applicable case law supports that drop call logs may be one consideration to demonstrate significant gap which is one of the requirements for the variance approval. There are still too many unproven and unresolved questions regarding

185the need and safety of this tower. There are also too many essential data reports that significantly differ from one another, including engineering reports that were originally in question of the applicant that again have suddenly changed. And after several hours of testimony and applicant submissions, we the concerned citizens do not have the clear, definitive, and reliable data needed to prove a true gap, to prove residents continued safety, and to meet the criteria needed for this variance request. For these reasons and more, I join the other Greenfield residents in urging that you deny the variance for this tower and find a safer and more appropriate placement. Thank you for your time. Thank you. All right. I did tell people that this will be a moment to speak. Is there anyone else on line that wants to say?

186Looks like Jonathan. Jonathan. Sorry. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I have a few points I'll try to move. Excuse me. Can you tell us who you are, where you live? Jonathan Mirren. I live at 224 Avery Brook Road in Charlammont. And I have I run a theater company and I have uh two employees who live near the tower. Um that's one of my points of interest in this particular tower. But um I've actually followed uh tower proceedings, you know, around the area and I would say this is about the roughly the 10th RF engineer report um that I've listened to. None of those 10 except for one seriously questioned any of the assumptions of the applicants. Um that's nine out of 10. The one exception was actually isotrope when they were hired by

187the abuters. Anyway, so my point that I want to move to is the applicants assert in their second submittal filing that the proposed cell tower will cost a million dollars. They ask that with scarce capital, why would they place a cell tower where it's not needed? In terms of scarce capital, AT&T made more than a billion dollars last year and they're currently rated the world's 70th most valuable company. Why would then uh this company put a cell tower where it's not needed? As has been suggested before, to break into the home internet market, the estimated value of the home internet market is projected to reach 547.89 billion in 2025. Specifically, the home internet market is expected to reach 632 billion by 2028 with a 17% growth in annual revenue since 2023. That is why they

188want to put a tower where it's not needed and why you as the ZBA of Greenfield should deny this request for variance. Um the applicant uh one of the applicant's attorneys made a point earlier about you know why would we want to do it at the fairgrounds when there would be 30 residences affected. In my mind it's not about whether you're going to impact the life of 30 people or three people. Um, I've met the people who live directly across the street in the closest proximity to where this tower would fall. Uh, there's an elderly gentleman and then there's a a single dad with two young girls. And um I would just really support your your inquiry into um feeling that their safety is as important as I mean essentially if if the fairgrounds would

189fall and not not go out of the lot then you know basically AT&T doesn't want to deal with 30 people who don't you know like these residents of Newton Street know that they they have coverage. AT&T's map. As I said before, uh, Attorney Campelli can't say it as eloquently or as forcefully. Uh, I can't say it as forcefully as he he made clear at the last hearing. There on AT&T's map and the FCC map that AT&T of AT&T's coverage, there's no there's no gap in coverage. The the gap that they're describing is a is that they don't have 5G coverage in those areas. That's that's not the test. The test is whether calls drop or not. And as Alana pointed out, they haven't provided the the requested drop call data. They've provided a driveby from

190an engineer that that they hired. So, uh, I I it's not that I I you just have to wonder at this point after so many hearings, do they think, you know, what is their assessment of, you know, the the the ZBA's ability to discern uh sort of the facts in front of them because it's it's that no one they they have not addressed the fact that their own map shows complete coverage and that the FCC does not. You you don't have to make a decision about whether they can provide 5G or whether they can come cut into G set's market. You have to make a decision is about can people make a call. They can. We we know they as Alana just did a swed affidavit. Anyone who's driven around the area knows the calls

191are not dropping 5G. I mean you know what they can then they should apply to put small cells. If they if their goal is to provide 5G coverage to the residents of Newton Street, they can put up small cells. Don Jonathan, could you sum up? Yep. So, u I think the last thing I'll say is that uh I don't know if I Dr. Chamberlain is on the call. I saw his hand was raised. We have an e expert in propagation maps who doesn't have a vested financial interest, has no is not being paid by industry and and is ready to talk about these propagation maps again to you. Um and I would just ask that you hear him out. Thank you, Lenor. Yes. Hello. I live in I am Leonori Alanise and I live actually

192across this the river in Turner's Falls also great known as great falls and I have a small statement to read. I want to continue the discussion on resident safe safety as has been discussed prior the residents many months ago requested performance safety data on the hinge tower design since the proposed towers has an inadequate fall zone that will affect a residential area. To date we have not seen any of this verification data. Assurances are not sufficient. So I listened to all of you and you have plenty discussed this now and I followed it all along with great interest. So um since we do not have the performance data on the hinge design that demonstrates its reliable safety, we cannot fully and meaningfully assess its level of risk when placed in a residential area and the

193possible detrimental impacts on residents and so forth. Without it, the criteria needed for the approval of this variance in terms of detriment to residents and community remains unproven. The only way to assure resident safety is to not allow to error basically while it is not assured. Um rather to um wait and until the variance for height and to require a full and adequate fall zone for any proposed cell tower. So since I listened, I went online and I got actually uh some data from uh Wikipedia uh that uh which towers are have collapsed and when and this is a worldwide um Wikipedia report. The construction is really interesting. There is a term called guide guided a guide m it's an engineering term I have never heard and lattis steel. So maybe it means something to

194the people who are familiar with tower engineering. The last big one was in the 1980s. Usually the towers fell due to a ice storm, lightning or other hurricane like storms. So they didn't just when there comes however another thing the lady here um to to my left on the long side of the table, she asked earlier what's the life expectancy? Basically steel does have a life life expectancy just like with airplanes I think I forget the proper term it escapes me now but there is a a a weakening of the uh structure of metal that just um just like bridges that uh should be taken into into account and in that um cell tower construction. So this is a little bit of data and I'm closing here with and I thank you all very much

195for listening to me. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Uh Stephanie uh Stephanie Duclo um Chapman Street. Um I've heard a lot of argument uh going on. David, I was right there with you um when you were arguing and litigating back with the AT&T attorneys. Um all my notes were written down and you hit every point that I wanted to um touch upon. Also um I did have a question that um I know you guys can't answer questions. So um I believe that it's the board's duty to balance the needs of uh you know Greenfield and um there are multiple carriers. I've had all of them. I have T-Mobile right now and I don't have any gap in my coverage. Um, I've had AT&T. There was a reason why I moved to T-Mobile. Um

196so if we had all three carriers sitting at that table uh you know every one of them would argue well we need this cell tower and we need you to consider this fall variance and affect these neighborhoods and devalue their homes and in impact the quality of life because one of those one of the arguments that is going to go someone's suing our board whether it's the abutters and the citizens directly that group and their representation or it's going to be AT&T, but Greenfield's getting, you know, having the appeal. Um, so I'm always concerned that if all the boxes aren't checked, you know, this is going to cost Greenfield money and who's going to be the easier person to battle in a courtroom? And that's always the citizen and not the Goliath. and they could

197drag it out and and settlements will be made and and this is how we get eminent domain and you know what's the tax benefit to us? I mean are we taxing cell phone towers like because you're devaluing all the abuing properties in that neighborhood? It's not it's you know what is that going to do in an already tight budget that we have when we continually give taxexempt um um builders like you know solar panels and and cell phone towers our land to build you know taking it away and devaluing other land that abuts it those are considerations and it's always you know what's the balance um I don't think that um that AT&T has produced enough evidence to prove financial hardship, which is, I believe, why you ask for, you know, drop call data and

198all that stuff. I think it's because they also have to prove like they're financially harmed. um when I didn't have coverage in my home um when I had Sprint, Sprint um offered me a signal booster that was specific to their tower and because of the construction of my home and asbestous sighting, it wouldn't matter if I had the tower right outside my door, the construction of my home would it would not suffice the signal inside. So, they gave me something personal. So I think that um if they have a market that's significant at GCC and it's not it's an or you know if it's an existing market not an untapped market as to where I think AT&T would think is significant you know we have an untapped market and maybe this broadband but we I'm

199going to ask you I'm going to ask you to summarize at this point but I want to thank you for your so I I also wanted to say that I had offered a parcel for consideration 9.9 acres I sent a partial information to the board chairman. I believe Mr. Turog um had forwarded that to the board for a bonafideed offer for a remedy in case, you know, to protect the citizens of Greenfield's taxpaying dollars to not be sued that we didn't offer a viable solution to both parties. Okay. So, um thank you. Thank you, Jimmy. Yes, I kind of like to echo what Jonathan said. Um, I believe this is uh for I'm a gamer, so I understand the internet around here. looked at every single company out there and I would just like to

200consider the fact that we've invested a lot of money in our local internet company through taxes and to actually like just let the competition of our local internet come in and bully like bully us that's going to hurt us on the other end too. Aren't we trying to like promote GET and stuff like that? So, I think this is more of an internet issue cuz they have really crappy internet, home internet in this area for T-Mobile cuz I've checked I was going to switch from GET and I don't know if the board does have the skill base to like um I forget the gentleman's name that was on the board, but he's saying how am I supposed to vote on this? So, I don't I don't know where this needs to go, but I don't

201even think that anyone on this board is capable of seeing if there is an significant drop in gap or whatever. And that's all I really have to say. Thank you. Got to leave. Is that the right pronunciation? Uh, God, it's okay. Good. That's that's much nicer. Uh, so yes. So, my name is God Richard and I live in Charlemon, but yes, I know some people um that are going to be living close to the tower. Uh hopefully not there. Um so, yeah, I just had some short comment. Um I have to remember what I want to say. Um, yeah. I'm just wondering a little bit why AT&T would want to push keep on pushing technology on a community that doesn't want uh the tower. Um, that's a a question I had. Um because like uh

202there was something they said um like if everybody loves technology and that's the future and that's all what we want but that's not the reality actually. Many people like low tech and would be happy with like low or no coverage. So I would like that everybody knows in this meeting at least that some people actually are looking for no coverage and um so if there is low courage that might be good for this community they might not need more than that um yes I'm asking I guess everybody to respect the people in America uh please respect us respect the people who are going to live there there's rules, there's this and this and that, but what about respect? What about the laws of love and God? Um, you know, just like, yes, I'm asking AT&T

203to be respectful to realize that not everybody wants a lot of tech and they are not as popular as what they say. Thank you. Okay. So now I promised two people name and uh address please. Um so I'm going to skip over what I had actually wanted to say before because I'm not sure of it anymore. But I do have uh something I would like to read. Um, I would like to share a legal opinion from attorney Robert Robert Bird. He is an expert telecommunications attorney and a legal consultant for the environmental health trust. This legal opinion is in response to statements made in the the applicant's attorney's letter submitted to the ZBA in the second supplemental filing. This is in regards to statements on the FCC's material inhibition and its relationship to the first

204circuit forks legal standard from attorney Robert Bird. Quote, "From my review, the lawyer's letter in the second supplemental filing is filled with inaccuracies. Notably, the AT&T lawyer relies heavily on the FCC's September 18th order on material inhibition, which the first circuit court has not adopted as legal standards. The attorney quotes the FCC as saying the courts have the standard wrong when it is the courts who interpret the law, not the FCC. The courts in the first circuit must follow the first circuit legal standard which is for there to be effective prohibition of service the board must have denied the cell tower permit where the applicant has proven that it has significant gap in coverage and that it proposed tower is the least intrusive technology technologically feasible means to close the significant gaping coverage that's the

205legal standard not the FCC's materially inhibition standard also the attorney denigrates the FCC C national broadband map over AT&T propagation path from green field to this tower. End quote. It is extremely important to the residents into this case that the ZBA have the accurate legal information and interpretation from unbiased non-dest sources to make this decision decision that will significantly impact a community residential area. The fact that you have received this level of inaccurate information from the applicant's attorney speaks volumes ensures that they do not have a sincere good faith interest in your full understanding of the laws that govern this decision. But rather they craft their legal sharings and statements in such a way to actually mislead with the intention of communicating the legal scenario where you are legally bound or obligated in ways that

206you are not with regards to this decision. In response, the residents formally request that between this evening and the vote on this cell tower that the ZBA consult with one of the independent non-vested expert telecommunications industry attorneys with regards to both your rights to regulate and the validity of the legal information brought forth by the applicant's attorney with regards to those legal norms, obligations, and rights. We respectfully request that you consult with attorney campelli, attorney Burr or attorney Scott Mcculla, the country's leading independent legal experts in this field and we will be following up with contact information for this purpose. We all need to be absolutely assured that we are operating legal backs and I think we can all see given this one example that there is more to be learned. Thank you. Thank you.

207Uh go ahead. name and address again. I'm sorry. So, Sunset Square, Massachusetts. Um, so several things. So, number one, define significance as a couple of things that should all keep in mind. AT&T previously stated there is I quote that I can speak for themselves but they previously articulated that on route 91 there's a give or take a two mile stretch along 91 where first net service needs to be provided so two miles in my opinion is pretty significant so significant is also So a neighborhood that can have a positive service if it is made available. So I live in an area that would have positive impact. Today I have a dropped call with my wife right down the road. The other weekend was commencement at Greenfield Community College. I had dropped calls there. I also

208did not have first net service aggregate for community college open sky uh clouds but open sky nonetheless first net service was absent. So that is significant. The fire chief is other mentioned have also also commented about that as well that there are gaps in service throughout the city let alone in this geography. So, Greenfield Community College, they're the generally speaking, Verizon, generally speaking, Verizon, they will have positive reception more than T-Mobile and AT&T. I've lived down the road for 15 years. I now work there, the vice president of IT for Community College. I hear the complaints that employees and students have when it comes to the reception of their cell phones on the cellular networks, the carrier. Now, those are conversations that the users, clients should have with T-Mobile or AT&T, not with us. But

209nonetheless, those team folks do complain about the absence or diminished service of TO and a TT in that neighborhood. I'll mention again because I have before significant is the definition of if you go to the big Y parking lot and you can't get AT&T cellular service. Not sure how much more significant it needs to be than that. So through the chair to AT&T, I appreciate that when I drop all data on AT&T has not been shared. Um little bit of a personal note on a little I am offended that others are demanding of AT&T drops data. So I just want to put that out there. Um and I the drop call data is not a valid metric. Um and if you want that valid metric, I can tell you all those drop calls that I

210experience or that others that I work with or live in that community experience. Thank you. Thank you. Um right over there. Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, Jennifer Vernon, 17 Sunset Square. Um, I I am I I I um I've had AT&T for years. I mean, I'm talking probably two decades now. Um, lived in our house for like 10 years. Um, I can tell you 100%. I'm in that drop zone. I'm in that drop zone. Um, I don't understand why it matters about the the drop zone thing with them. I I don't get it. All I know is it seems important, but they they they they hold the industry. Um um they hold that to their chest. That's fine. Um I can tell you I'm in that drop zone. My drops my calls drop constantly. Um I've

211got two children also. Um we walk go around. I also go to GCC. Um we have the same problem. Um GCC, we are in that drop zone. Um I go for walks around my neighborhood. I'm in that drop zone. Um it's just reality. I'm not about to leave AT&T. That's just not me personally, but I can understand them wanting to give other people a better service. I really would love a better service. Um, but I've had AT&T forever, so I'm not going to change anyway. Um, also my husband is is a member of First N. I don't understand what that means. What I know is that he feels strongly about this. So when we are out and about anywhere we go, my husband will show me his phone. I got first. I don't have first.

212Don't have first. telling you if you need a question. I know there's that person. I know there's him. I understand it's not enough, but I understand. I've got to tell you. I'm constantly being told. I'm constantly being shown that FirstNet service is not available to um to people on AT&T service. The reason why it's really important to me is because aside from my husband being on making that important, it's also important because GC's right there. It's important to me and we we can't communicate and I I think that I think they should be able to communicate and I thank him. So that is it. Everybody Oh, and thank you guys so much for all your work. You guys seriously it's the nicest thing that's been said tonight. Yes, ma'am. Oh, Terry Street. Um I I

213wanted to say something too. Um it's probably redundant because you guys are obviously very well informed but you you have a lawyer I can't remember his name and then and then you have Chamberlain which is basically was just dismissed. Um both showing you that there's lots and it's not significant. I I know that there's problems and it has to be addressed. Not saying that that's not true because it is. But um I just I don't think you know I mean so what is it going to be? He said she said you know I mean how are you going to determine that? How how can you make a decision if you can't really determine that you know you guys know what I'm saying? Anyway um this evening I would like to visit what has happened with

214this application. applicants submissions. Specifically, I would like to address the engineering report. The applicant submitted an engineering report isotope they made on the report indicated in part that due diligence did not appear appear to have been done with regards to fully assessing other alternate sites for the proposed cell tower. Soon after receiving and submitting the May 23rd report, the applicant asked for a postponement for the next public hearing, a new engineering report labeled as updated on June 2nd was submitted. And this new updated report had somehow cleared up the questions of alternative locations diligence presented in the original report. It appears that the applicant got initial engineering report they did not like as it did not validate that there were no other val viable which would be required as criteria for this to allow us

215on exceeding the initial report. The applicants scrambled. They asked for a postponement of M's meeting. Then they came back in the 11th hour from engineering shows that issues of other viable places somehow were resolved. It was a noted pattern of the telecommunications industry and have new reports issued. They do not like the findings of the report. This has been deemed importance on the industry. It was feeding residents. What happened here? Isotrop the applicants liking favor which makes it factually unreliable. It should be noted that isotrop is owned by David Max which is associated with the industries and a very open proponent for wireless infrastructure. This now revised report is a display of industry power not a display of fact. For this reason, residents do not hold the updated report as reliable data, nor do we

216accept the new report as fact. Another one of the many concerning discrepancies presented by the applicant on behalf of the project and another various to deny this variance. All right. Heather's iPad. Hello, Heather. New 33. Heather. Heather, please be sensitive that the hour is growing late. If you can summarize what you're going to say in a shorter rather than longer way, that would be greatly appreciated. Sounds perfect. I just wanted to remind you that um I live on Laurel Street and that I do get drop calls in my house and even around the neighbors around me. It's not just about cell phones. Um I'm on my Wi-Fi calling here, but um also medical equipment. I have family members that have like heart monitors that report back to the doctors and believe it or not that

217goes through cell phone towers. So doesn't like lifeline activations. I don't want to get in the argument and and you probably heard enough of call data and all this other stuff. The safety of the tower. I just I don't want the tower to fall on anybody. So I'm confident that if you're confident that it's safe, it'll be okay. I'm hoping um you guys can get that confidence. That would be my number one is safety. Number two would be my own selfishness having cell phone service in my house. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Sham wants to speak. Do do we want to hear it's late? It's very late. I can make this very quick. Uh seems like a lot of this discussion hinges upon inside in vehicle respectful for their hearing and we were

218not we did not speak. The the agreement tonight was that we would get to hold on I the hour is getting late and we all have a two-hour ride home. I I just I did Dr. Chamberlain I did not recognize you to speak yet although I know it's fine. And I know it's difficult with the Zoom and you may have heard me say something that acknowledge that. Does the board want to hear? No disrespect to you, Dr. Sham. No, it sounds like the board does not want to hear anything else and we thank you very much for everything that you've done. Thank you. And I wish you a good evening. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. [Music] Um All right. So probably want to say something to have because you're the applicant. Two

219minutes or less. I can do guess. Do you want to say something about that? You want to say you think you should say it first or let them say? Yes. Okay. Go ahead. Um the woman have both indicated that there's some sort of nefarious scheme here going on about editing reports and that sort of thing. But um given the late hour that I was engaged in this proceeding to kind of compress stuff to get things moving quickly and to get a report in front of the board that could be used in an objective wage without any I put out a draft report late last prior to prior to Memorial Day weekend. We put out a draft report. uh the applicant responded with uh responses to a bunch of the questions that I raised. I reviewed

220that and made the edits to my yesterday in in accordance with the response that I had received. Um and I believe I forwarded I believe I know I forwarded email to you. So you you have received the uh information upon which I revis. There's no bad faith here. There's no nefarious uh conspiracy. It is simply just what happened in the process of proceeding. I asked questions. They answered my questions. I changed my report as a result of those questions. And those did I just pick up? Nope. I just pick up. If you look it up, my response dated May 30th went to everybody including Mr. Lton that came to you if not everybody has seen that. But I I can vouch for you 100% in this in this regard. The public doesn't see the back

221and forth, but you have to trust that both the board and me as the chair are going to make sure that things are done properly. So I hope you have that trust and continue to have that trust. Thank you. This was a situation where the opposite is true and what was said here. I I don't mean to say anything bad about her, but it's not true what she said. Michael was hired to do something important. He understood how important it was. he understood and he could have just given us the opinion that he thought we might have wanted to hear, but instead he he independently wanted to make sure that the report was as accurate as could be, holding not necessarily AT&T's feet to the fire, but saying to them, you know, you may not

222know it, but there's some information missing, and I need that in order to give the full report that's going to help everybody understand what's going on. So everything that was done in that process was done at the highest level of integrity, at the highest level of good faith. And I want you to know that I oversaw it and I saw no problems with it. The board witnessed the uh the emails were out there to everybody including a lot saw everything. So while I don't like to comment on what people say, there's really nothing there's no basis for that comment. the comment of the person behind it. There's no basis for it there. It's a personal basis, which I appreciate, but there's no factual or integral basis to that comment with respect to our deciding what

223to do and the integrity of this process going forward. So, I want the public who's listening to know that we take this very seriously and people can say what they want, but there's no truth to what she said. Thank you very much. All right. Go ahead. I said for you. Yeah, you you basically covered all of it. I mean, on that first point, um, and I I want the rest of the board to know I'm g I'm guessing you already do. Um, I've never met Mr. Lton before. The first time I ever met him was on a phone call with uh Peter. Um, I have never spoken to him other than on a phone call with Peter or David. Um, I do know David Maxon and I let Peter and David know this. I only

224know Peter Maxon because I've sued him. He has been on the other side of cases. He is not an industry proponent. He represents municipalities. You can ask him about Franklin. You can ask him about Randall. So, please tell David I'm standing up for him tonight even though I was probably the first lawyer that ever sued him when Broadcast Signal Labs started defending communities. So, I I I want all of you to know that and Michael, I want David to know that. Okay. Uh, a few things. Uh, so somebody quoted case law um and talked about your right to insist that we provide drug cloud coverage. That actually is in case law in Massachusetts is second circuit. I just want everybody to be clear that is not the law that is applicable to this floor. That's

225number one. Number two, we are not picking and choosing which houses we would rather have the tower fall on. This tower is not within the fall zone of any house or structure. It is not within the fall zone of a house or a structure near the fairgrounds. If we posed it there, it is hundreds and hundreds of feet away from any home. If it fell, and we discussed this at this very first meeting, it would fall over the road about 15 or 20 feet and I think we discussed at the first meeting. If we go back to the notes on that, I don't think it even gets to the other side of the road and we talked about the slope and the way if you if you recall, we talked about Pythagorean theorem and how

226far it would be and how far over the road. We are not picking and choosing any neighbors over any other neighborhood. We looked at screening. We looked at trees and we looked at an allowable zone and a preference over seeking a dimensional variance versus a use variance. Um, you heard conjecture that hundreds and hundreds of towers have fallen. There was not one piece of evidence presented in this forum that a monopole tower with a hinge point has failed. You heard our expert tonight respond when I asked, "Did I ask you if any have And his answer was yes. I asked him and and I asked him was his answer no. And the answer was no. He also verified that we asked Belmont, the tower designer, the same question. You had heard somebody say they looked

227on Wikipedia and six towers have fallen, the last one in the 1980s, and they talked about guide towers and lattice towers. The whole reason we're building a monopole is because they're safer. We have no evidence of monopoles failing. We have no evidence of monopole hinge points failing. That's why we've designed this as a monopole. Um, we heard somebody say they switched from AT&T to T-Mobile cuz they couldn't get coverage in their home. That's that's part of the reason. We heard somebody in favor saying they can't get coverage in their homes. Um, we're not tax exempt. you pay taxes. Not only will they pay taxes on the real estate, they'll pay taxes on the property installed on the real estate. Um the variance standard in Massachusetts does not require somebody to prove a financial hardship. It

228is any hardship and first circuit and the Massachusetts courts have held that gaps in coverage are a basis for that hardship. It's got nothing to do with a financial hardship. Um, somebody on the on on on um Zoom mentioned least intrusive. And while I'm not 100% sure that that's the standard in the first circuit, it is also our belief that this site is the least intrusive. Again, we could try and come back and seek a variance to put this tower on a residential property. We would need a use variance. it would be more visible. It wouldn't be screened and it would be a where your bylaw doesn't permit it. We do believe that it's the least intrusive. So, while I appreciate the community and the concerns, half of the people that spoke don't live in

229the community and the concerns, but I do give credence to the people that live in Greenfield and will have to look at that tower and be neighbors and be a Butters. Um, I don't believe that anything anyone said from either Greenfield or the surrounding communities was anything but anecdotal. There's no actual factual evidence that again the comment about hundreds of towers have failed and then the comments about guide and lattice towers. There's no evidence anywhere. And again, you've asked me, do we have evidence that monopole towers haven't fallen? And the answer is we don't. We just don't have any evidence that any have. They haven't failed. They don't fall. That's why everyone's building them now. So, I I'm happy to answer any other questions the board has. I honestly believe that if you read the

230memo, if you look at the materials you've submitted, if you consult and review the reports from the peer review on the biggest issues, which are the collapsibility of the poll on itself and the need for coverage and filling coverage gaps and trying to do so in a in a means what best comports with your bylaw, I believe you could take everything else and throw it in the trash barrel and read the two expert reports. And I think if you read the two expert reports and take them on their face for what they are, this application comports with your bylaw, if not the exact and precise terms and conditions of your bylaw, the intent of your bylaw, and the purpose of your bylaw. It's one poll. It's colllocatable. It is green to the greatest extent possible

231and it is in a district where you prefer to have polls and communication located. Thank you everybody like the past six months. I I truly I get back to what I said at the beginning. I appreciate your time, your energy, your questions, your interests, your concerns and the truthful dialogue that I have had personally with everybody on this board. I thank you. Thank you. And I'd also say on behalf of AT&T, my same comments, the question free phones. What's that? Free phones. I don't get a free phone. You can't say that. We do appreciate the question. We appreciate the back and forth and we know it's not easy and it's, you know, no good deed goes unpunished. So, this is just left with you now. But we do appreciate the comments, the questions, and the

232transparency. With that, thank you all. Thank you both. Now I want to recognize Elana has done a art an excellent job of representing her issues. I really have given the concerned citizens and you all the chances in the world to speak and we've heard your excellent arguments about why we shouldn't do this. Your hand has been up. I don't want to ignore it. If I'm going to let you speak one last time, I'd like it not just to be some leaving us with a kernel of something that you think is important and not a long explanation or rebuttal of a rebuttal of a rebuttal. I will will you agree to those terms? I will let you speak. Yes. Okay. Go ahead. Thank you for the opportunity. I simply am here to say that it feels

233really disrespectful and incredibly frustrating that Dr. Chamberlain who is worldrenown who has worked for the government who is an expert in this field who has engineering solutions that can guide the ZBA is not being allowed to speak one final time. He has donated his time. He donates his time to municipalities around the country and travels the world speaking on these issues. I know there was a misunderstanding about his background today. We had we had shared a very extensive bio. This is not a colonel. This is a This is not a colonel. I don't mean to interrupt you. I hear what you're saying. You you you think we've been disrespectful to Dr. Chamberlain. I urge you to allow me to speak one final time. That's all I'm I hear I hear what you're saying and here's

234my response. Dr. Chamberlain sent us a report. He had a chance to speak. We gave him a chance to speak tonight. I believe we've given Dr. Chamberlain a lot of time and we tr Dr. Chamberlain I know you're still there. truly appreciate the information that he has given us, but it's my please. Yeah, you're just giving me a thumbs up. Thank you. Um, but I it's within my discretion. It's within the board's discretion to end it when we so choose. I did give you the last chance to speak. If you want to say something yourself, but if you're going to admonish us, then I'm going to say good night. So, please mute and that's that. I don't feel I'm admonishing the ZBA. Well, I do and so we're the ones who control the process. So,

235thank you very much. Thank you. Been a long night. Okay. Thank you everybody. We have other business to do. Do you have to vote to this meeting? We have to close it here, right? Is that the other business we're going to do or is there other business? There is there's a little bit of other business. Uh wait stop vote first. It's an easy vote. Okay. Unless you have a need a motion to close uh the hearing on the variance. I'll make a motion to close the hearing and public discussion on public discussion application. Variance for this application. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppos? Let the record shows unanimous. Motion to close the variance hearing if that's the next. I think you just did the variance now. Special permit. All right. Special

236permit. Thank you. I make a motion to close and public comment portion in regards to special permit request from Bernie wireless on this application. Okay. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Okay. Uh 10 minute break. Five minute break. Everyone break. Whatever. Two minute break. Yeah. Wednesday the 18th at 6:30. Okay. Here. Yeah. Here, right? Yes. You could deliver the fire station for us. They might have but they can't do that. Thank you all. We'll see you on the 18th. Me too. I'll see you next week. 18th 6:30 before the 12th regular so much July August I have every intention of Let's show you. on. I'm ready. Okay. Back in session. Is it on? Yes. Thank you. Back in session at whatever time it is. Uh 10:08. Thank you. So aromatic case is

237in trial. We all so you don't know this case but um there was a a meet Yeah. You keep getting there was a meeting um a couple of weeks ago where the court gave aromatic side 60 days to complete what's called discovery ask questions. So they sent to us interrogatories. Interrogatories are written questions and production of documents and uh Eric and I met with attorney Quinn and we went over everything and it's all been sent to attorney Quinn to decide how he's going to do deal with it. But there was one thing that I need your approval on. During the case, um, attorney Quinn provided us with a memo that was a confidential legal memo, and in essence, we incorporated that memo into our decision. So, it really wasn't that private because we kind of

238alluded to it and talked about it. So, I'm recommending that we allow that memo to go to the other side even though it's confidential because it really lays out our case very clearly and it would be to our benefit. There's nothing in there that I feel like is anything that they shouldn't know. It's actually just the opposite. So, so can I have a motion? Any questions about that? Can I have a motion to allow that memo to be released to uh it that attorney Quinn can make the decision if he wishes to release the memo and we're waving our the uh our confidentiality in the motion to just Okay. Second. Again, all in favor say I. I. Opposed? Let the record show it's unanimous. We have three minutes. Not three minutes to go, but three

239minutes to approve. I'm going to take them one at a time because that's the method that I use. Let me make a motion to approve. Has everyone received and read the minutes? Yes. Okay. Bunch of liars. Uh I know you've all received them. That came to me up until yesterday. I'm doing homework. All right. So, I want a motion to approve the minutes of April 17, 2025. Make a motion to approve the minutes of April Second. I will second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Let the record show as unanimous. Motion to approve the minutes of May 8th, 2025. Make a motion to approve the minutes of May 8th, 2025. I will second that motion. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Shows unanimous. Finally, to approve the

240minutes of May 27th, 2025. Make a motion to approve the minutes of May 27th, 2025. I will motion. I just want to see if you want to jump in. Any discussion? No. All in favor say I. Opposed? Let the record show unanimous. Now I can hear a motion to adjurnn. Make one meeting motion meeting and be adjourned. I won't. No second. We can't do it. Second it. No second. Second. Any discussion? First time. All in favor say I. I. I. Thank you everybody. Good meeting. 9:00. [Music]