MANCHESTER – Council President Joan Brush told the public during a recent council meeting that while change may be something you don’t necessarily want, sometimes you have to grin and bear it, as it will be arriving anyway.
Brush spoke in reference to 5G technology and to a recently passed ordinance which provided the township some say in how the tech could be installed in areas of the township.
“I wanted to talk about 5G coming into Manchester. I wanted to reassure people that there is absolutely nothing that we can do. We can’t prevent it. If we try, we will be sued,” the council president said.
Brush added, “the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) would sue us and we would lose. We would just get large attorney fees and in the end 5G will be in Manchester even after we go to court.”
She noted that in February, the Council had approved an ordinance that provided some regulations concerning aspects of installing the 5G enhancements. The new 5G procedures and standards relate to the deployment of small wireless facilities in public rights of way.
Business Administrator Brandon Umba explained at the time that 5G technology involves meeting the needs of increased energy consumption of mobile networks. Such needs are expected to increase dramatically and are unsustainable in terms of cost and environmental impact.
The new technology is also said to include solutions that enable operator networks to use as little energy as possible while managing expected growth in data traffic and meeting the needs of both current and future 5G networks.
Councilman James Vaccaro, who voted against the ordinance, said he feared it could lead to problems and hurt property values.
When the ordinance was first introduced, Vacarro said, “I have some concerns.” He elaborated saying that a number of the township’s senior communities have underground wiring and he wanted to know how this would impact the installation of equipment and if poles would have to be installed.
Vaccaro feared there could be “a decrease in real estate value” due to unsightly equipment placement and poles. He cited there were situations of this occurring in communities in north Jersey and upstate New York.
“There have also been cases where the equipment which could not be placed on poles and ground boxes were vandalized in the past and that is another concern I have,” the councilman added.
Vaccaro said the Pinelands Commission had rejected certain aspects of installation plans regarding equipment and that “many of the south Jersey towns that did the installation didn’t experience greater service ratings following the installation.”
“I don’t believe they’d actually put poles up,” Umba said last month. “For 5G they could put them under ground. I could contact our vendor and pose those questions to them.”
“No, but they’d probably go with ground boxes which are unsightly,” Vaccaro replied.
Umba added, “most of this, falls under the public right of way and the public utility has a right to do this,” Umba said.
Brush said during the latest meeting that, “all we could do was what we did do which was to hire an attorney who specializes in 5G. Basically, we wanted the attorney to help make it not such a horrible impact on Manchester. This is what we did, we passed it and I just wanted to reassure everyone there is nothing we can do about it.”
“My personal feeling can’t enter into whether I like it or don’t like it. It would be meaningless because the technology is here and we have to contend with it and by having this contract that the attorney drew up we have done the best thing for Manchester,” Brush said.
