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Take Action Now!

ZTA-10-05 --- Montgomery County Maryland Cell Tower SitingOrdinance Proposed Amendments to limit Public InputSpeak Out to Protect Our NeighborhoodsFrom Harmful Cell Towers.

Submit comments to the County Council by June 1, 2010

Watch Full Signal a new documentary on cell towerson May 16

2 – 4pm at the Rockville Library (Morescreenings to come.)

Details Follow….

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ALL INTERESTED PARTIES!

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Come see

Full Signal

on Sunday May 16th at the Rockville Public Libraryand find out how communities the world over are working to protect theirneighborhoods from the proliferation of cell towers. (Details on page 8.)

Montgomery County is considering amendments to our cell towersiting ordinance

in response to the FCC Shot Clock ruling from last year. This ruling forces jurisdictions to either approve or deny a cell towerapplication within 150 days and a colocation application within 90 days.At the County Council meeting on 5/11 it was made clear that the proposedamendments are designed to streamline the application process. EllenBogage, a lobbyist for T-Mobile,

reported that they have plans for 164sites with 50 of these taking place in the next year here inMontgomery County.

Industry pressure is the force behind MontgomeryCounty addressing the FCC Shot Clock ruling. It was mentioned at themeeting that few other jurisdictions are taking action on this. (There is alegal case pending on the FCC's ruling.) There will be a county Work Session on the amendments on June 14th.

The deadline for comments to the County Council is June 1st.

Please find

more on the proposed amendments below

as well ascontact information on the County Council.We need to make our voices heard. Tell the County Council that we wantto preserve public input in this process.Please give me a call or email for more information or with any questionsyou may have.Angela FlynnWireless Radiation Alert NetworkWRAN301-229-0282FAX 301-229-4752Angelaflynn80@msn.com

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Regarding: ZTA 10-05

- proposed amendments to our Cell Tower Sitingordinance (ZTA 10-05), which are in response to the FCC Shot Clock ruling.There are some issues with the amendments that must be addressed.

The amendments may not be necessary:

The FCC Shot Clock Ruling is under reconsideration and is being challenged in theUS Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, by the City of Arlington, Texas, along withinterveners from several jurisdictions across the US, including Fairfax County,Virginia.If the City of Arlington, Texas prevails in the Fifth Circuit then the County’szoning authority will be preserved. Either action could render the proposedZoning Text Amendment unnecessary.Request that the proposed amendments be held until the court challenge by theCity of Arlington, Texas is settled.

The amendments do not require the application to be complete beforethe Shot Clock starts ticking:

Paragraphs 52 and 53 of the FCC Ruling discuss the need for carriers’ applicationsto be complete. The Ruling requires any determinations regarding incompletenessof applications to be made within the first 30 days after filing.Montgomery County documented this problem to the FCC in its Reply Commentslast year. It told the FCC that applications often omit important information and “contain obvious errors, inaccurate or illegible plans and exhibits, or contradictoryinformation.” and that “it is hard to believe that restricting local discretion orimposing strict time frames on local action will not increase the risk of seriousharm to the public.” (Please seehttp://whitmanhighcelltower.blogspot.com/forthe recent errors found in the T-Mobile application for the Walt Whitman HighSchool site.)Request that upon the submission of a Special Exception Petition for aTelecommunications Facility, the Planning Board hold a Review Hearing for thepurpose of determining completeness and accuracy and that the “Shot Clock” would stop ticking if the application was found incomplete or inaccurate, andwould not resume ticking until the application submitted was determined to becomplete and accurate.