The September 22 meeting of the BOCC went pretty much as expected for the first 5 minutes. The Board approved a continuation of the Tower hearing until Nov. 24, 2015 and moved on to public comments. After intervenors objected to the postponement during the 3 minutes they were permitted to speak during the public comments, the Board reopened the discussion for a continuation.
The applicant got the continuation until December 15, 2015. The November 24th date was quite objectionable as it is just 2 days before Thanksgiving. Only the attorneys are permitted to select dates for rescheduling the hearing. Rarely are the intervenors even notified by email that a postponement is even in the mix.
The BOCC did hear just a few of the many issues that have yet to be raised about the application and project. Those issues will be posted here on the blog every few days. They will astound you.
The County staff said that the applicant is thinking that he can abandon the long process taken so far and just ask for a building permit. The reasoning is that he would be asking for a replacement tower. There is a provision in the Florida code that says that wireless companies don't have to jump through all the hoops if they just replace one tower with another.
This is a very reasonable law, but it is not at all clear that they can do it in this case, because (1) there is no building permit for the existing tower, (2) the tower has not been registered by the FCC, even though there has been a requirement to do so since 1996, (3) they would have to dig up the entire foundation for the old tower to install a new one, (4) the existing tower is owned by Mr. Bayley, while the new one would be owned by DTI, and (5) the current application for construction of the proposed tower states explicitly that neither Mr. Bayley nor DTI owns any wireless telecommunications towers in Martin County.
Commissioner Scott is to be commended for realizing that the applicant is now trying to move the tower project to a process that would not be voted on by the BOCC and the invervenors would be denied due process. Her insistence on a date certain hearing of December 15, 2015 is very much appreciated. Thank you Commissioner Scott.
The postponement made the front page of the Stuart News today.
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