Letter written regarding Montgomery Planning Board's plan to put a 200' cell tower on the Blair High School baseball field outfield.
ig@montgomerycountymd.gov,
michael.morgan@montgomerycountymd.gov,
mark.belton@maryland.gov,
David.Brinkley@maryland.gov,
wendi.peters@maryland.gov,
ljohnson@ola.state.md.us,
jennifer.wazenski@maryland.gov
ocemail@montgomerycountymd.gov,
County.Council@montgomerycountymd.gov,
diane.jones@montgomerycountymd.gov,
carl.morgan@montgomeryparks.org,
MCP-Chair@mncppc-mc.org
date: Fri, Dec 22, 2017 at 12:23 PM
subject: Request for Investigation, Enforcement, and Restoration
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Rick Meyer and I seek the immediate assistance of your State and County agencies concerning the Montgomery County Planning Board’s failure to comply with State and County regulations concerning the use of Blair Local Park, a parcel of land that was acquired with Project Open Space (POS) funds.
We assert that these violations first occurred in 1999 and abated in 2015, but never ceased. We further assert that new violations have recently transpired with the recent Commission approval of a proposed lease for a telecommunications facility, to be deployed on that park land.
The attached letter to the Commission outlines the violations that we assert have transpired, which include improper and unauthorized conversion of the land, misappropriation of funds, non-compliance with the Commission’s Administrative Procedures for siting Telecommunications Facilities on Parks Properties, and failure to comply with County Regulation COMCOR 02.58E.01.05(b).
We ask that your agencies:
1. Investigate these violations, and that you halt any telecommunications facility deployments on the Blair Local Park property (unless and until your agencies conclude that the facilities have been approved in accordance with State, County, and Commission Regulations);
2. Provide authoritative guidance so that in the future the Commission will:
• Use Blair Local Park and other POS land only for its intended purposes;
• Adhere to the conditions in restrictive covenants and POS regulations;
• Abide by the Commissions Administrative Procedures that prohibit telecommunications facilities at local parks; and
• Provide timely public input that is evaluated, and submitted for consideration of the TFCG application review.
3. Issue appropriate penalties that would serve to prevent the Commission from so cavalierly disregarding the restrictive covenants and the regulations under which it is bound through POS, the obligations to provide timely public input into review processes for telecommunications facilities, and the obligations to adhere to its established Administrative Procedures; and
4. Require removal of the monopole and restoration of the stadium light pole to the condition prior to the monopole’s installation. However, in a reply to an inquiry about why this restoration had not previously taken place, the Assistant Chief of the Parks Department’s Facilities Management Division, Michelle Grace, provided the following response:
Parks elected to maintain the pole after Sprint removed its antennas and equipment because it would have been extremely cost prohibitive to remove Sprint’s monopole, and replace it with another pole of the same height and structural integrity to re-hang the athletic field lights. Additionally, due to the high demand for field usage at this Park, we would suffer significant service delivery challenges if we proceeded to remove, and re-install another pole. We were asked by the Parks and School’s operations staff to minimize disruption to the fields’ user groups.
Therefore, we ask that any restoration plan be designed and implemented so that it would not detrimentally impact Blair Local Park, other Montgomery County parks, or the residents of Montgomery County.
Thank you,
Sue Present
References:
• M-NCPPC (current) Telecommunications Facilities Siting Regulations:
