MANCHESTER – During just about every Township Council meeting, someone asks the governing body about the status of a tower that will provide added cell phone coverage in the community.
Resident Judy Noonan wanted to make sure that residents of her senior community who have been asking questions about that issue get some answers.
“What exactly is going on about the cell phone tower? There are all kinds of rumors going on about the cell tower. We need the proper information,” Noonan asked the governing body.
Business Administrator Brandon Umba responded, reading from an e-mail he received at 7:58 a.m. that day from Lisa Govostes, the project manager for American Tower Corporation.
“I send her for a weekly update on what is going on and here is what it says today. ‘I found out that Verizon didn’t install yet because they had to change their equipment configuration. In order for them to change their configuration they have to submit an application and new revised plans to us, (meaning American Tower Corporation) they are working on that now and I will pass it along to you as soon as I receive them,” Umba said.
Umba added that he had reported that during the prior meeting as well. “They sent me plans and I said at the last meeting that there are four spots on the ground where they are going to put ground-mounted equipment and they are going to put the cell antennas on the tower. They were exceeding it so that Manchester could not have four but we would only have three which is why we rejected that contract but we had already proved that this project was supposed to have four.”
He added that Govostes stated in her e-mail that “we had followed up with our legal department to ask about AT&T’s contract. Unfortunately the attorney working on this went out on maternity leave sooner than expected so the project has now been reassigned.”
Umba added, “AT&T would like to go on (the tower) but since American Tower has bought it the town doesn’t want to be the one to chase down AT&T, Verizon etc. American Tower should collect all their rents and give the money to the township so we only have to collect from one person. That is what we put into legal so that we can get that back. We are not trying to hold up, we are trying to streamline and making sure they do their due diligence so we don’t lose out. There will be four carriers there and we won’t be limited there.”
