Saturday, October 4, 2014

Breaking News: PG Cell Tower Deal Collapsing? #mabe #franceshglendening #celltowers #milestone

Hook, line and sinker.
The hook for the Prince George's County Board of Education in 2010 was that if they built cell towers on public school playgrounds they would get tons of cash.  Here's the exact quote from the BOE resolution back in 2010:



"Potential revenue generation is estimated at approximately $2.5 million over a five (5) year period, and the initiative will also provide broadband service for the school system."
Four years later the Prince George's Board of Education hasn't made a dime from this deal.  Apparently, the cell tower company is now trying to incentivize the deal and offer quick cash up front for each tower that PGCPS let's them build.

Here's the new offer obtained by the Parents' Coalition from a Maryland Public Information Act request: 


"At PGPS’s election, and to provide additional incentive, Milestone offers to accelerate rental
payments for the “big four” wireless carriers (Verizon/AT&T/Sprint/T-Mobile)
and to pay to PGPS a total of $100,000 per carrier at the time the carrier installs at the site in lieu of recurring ground rent for years 1-10 and the site access fee. For years 11 to 30 of the carrier lease, the ground rent payments would then revert to 40% of carrier rental revenues."


So $100,000 up front and then no rental payments for 10 years, instead of $25,000 up front and 40% of revenues for 10 years? Is the Prince George's County Board of Education taking the bait for this revised deal?

4 comments:

  1. Not that any "deal" should go through (i.e. NO cell towers), wouldn't the "new deal" be substantially LESS money over the course of the next ten years? What kind of deal is that other than a "quick fix" for the PG School Board?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, it's less money. Some odd math going on here.

      Delete
  2. Sounds like a bad deal from a loan shark. If you can't repay, they will take ownership of said property.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's a very bad deal. Worse than the first one!

    ReplyDelete

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