PEABODY — The six-year battle between the City of Peabody and Cellco Partnership, d/b/a Verizon Wireless, regarding the installation of a cell-phone tower near Michael’s Limousine on Lynn Street is adding another chapter.
Mayor Ted Bettencourt has announced the city plans to appeal its most recent setback, an appeals court decision that upheld a land court ruling in favor of Verizon. The court found that the city’s denial of Verizon’s special permit application to allow construction of the tower at that location was violative of the Federal Telecommunication Act.
“The limit has been reached on Verizon’s obligation to keep searching regardless of prior efforts to find locations or costs and resources spent,” Judge Joseph Ditkoff wrote in the 14-page decision, adding that the Lynn Street location “is the only feasible option for filling the gaps in the coverage network.”
“We will be filing an appeal for further appellate review to the (Supreme Judicial Court) and have instructed our city solicitor, Don Conn, and our attorney, Dana Curhan, to move forward with the appeal,” Bettencourt said. “I anticipate that will be done in the next couple of weeks. Things will move pretty quickly after that.
“I still think we have some claims that merit further discussion and consideration in an appeal, and think we have to protect the neighborhood by moving forward with the appeal.”
Bettencourt said independent negotiations between Peabody Municipal Light Plant (PLMP) and Verizon to come up with an alternative solution to the 100-foot tower are ongoing. He is hopeful that, notwithstanding the appeal, an agreement will be reached to keep the tower out of a “very close residential neighborhood.”
“PLMP and Verizon are in negotiations that have been taking place for several months now and I am very optimistic that they find a resolution in the next couple of weeks and a settlement will take place in this matter,” he said. “I am very optimistic this will work out in a positive way for us.”
Bettencourt said one such alternative is the utilization of space on existing telephone poles across the city, the majority of which are owned by PLMP, to fill the gaps in coverage Verizon claims exist.
“We, as a city, tried to look at alternative locations, but we didn’t want to move one problem for a neighborhood to another,” he said. “We feel there is a better way to get this done than putting a 100-foot pole in a residential neighborhood. There’s other alternatives.”
City Council President Tom Rossignoll said he is also hopeful that an out-of-court settlement will be reached.
“The only good thing about it is that we have held it off for this long. It’s detrimental to that neighborhood and we want them to find an alternative location and still be able to fill in the coverage gaps, maybe with a micro-poles option, so that a tower doesn’t get built there,” he said. “We want it to be over and not have this continue to be an albatross around their neck.”
Councilor Anne Manning Martin said the situation is “beyond frustrating.”
“As one of the three original members of the 2014 council that unanimously rejected the location without any fear of losing on appeal, that fact that the location of Mike’s Limousine for this monopole is still on the table is disturbing,” she said. “However, the recent decision on the appeal is not surprising to me. It’s been a loser all along since then.”
Martin said things began to unravel in 2018 when the council “reneged” on an agreement proposed by Bettencourt, City Solicitor Mike Smercynski and Community Development Director Karen Sawyer, to locate the tower at the water treatment plant.
“That first act of bad faith is when the city lost its footing in this fight and were left at the mercy of PMLP and Verizon to negotiate use of PMLP telephone polls. These negotiations have been said to be wrapping up ‘within weeks’ for over two years now.
“Had a majority of the council not acted in bad faith, we would not be beholden today to a corporate giant trying to now muscle a local municipal light plant who is doing their best to bail us out. This entire debacle could have been avoided.”