Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Tiburon spurns MERA proposal

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 20:02:47 -0400

Tiburon spurns MERA proposal

By Richard Halstead,
 IJ reporter

Monday, October 13, 2003

Residents oppose latest site for antenna

Residents in yet another Tiburon neighborhood have turned thumbs down to the idea
of having a microwave antenna built in their back yard.

The Marin Emergency Radio Authority, which is enmeshed in a legal battle with
Tiburon and a group of residents over plans to construct a 72-foot antenna at 9912
Mt. Tiburon Road, recently updated residents who live nearby about three possible
alternate sites.

Nearly 100 people turned out for the meeting and most were there to express their
opposition to putting an antenna at 500 Tiburon Blvd., where there is a Richardson
Bay sewage facility, said Martin Nichols, the authority's executive director.

"I think there might have been one person who stood up and said they supported the
idea," Nichols said. "The majority were there to raise questions and objections to
it."

The antenna is the final piece of a $21.5 million public safety radio system. 

John Kern, who lives in the Little Reed Heights-Tiburon Knolls neighborhood where
the sewage facility is situated, said, "I would say 95 percent of the audience was
there in response to that site."

"I think it is a foolish site," said Kern, who noted the location's proximity to
McKegney Green, a children's park and homes.

"It doesn't make much sense to me to put it down there where 2 million people,
including an extraordinary large number of children, go by constantly," said Kern,
who played a leading role in the building of Tiburon's new police building and
supports the Radio Authority's efforts to complete its system.

The other two alternate sites are the existing commercial radio facility at
Wolfback Ridge Road above Sausalito and a Marin Municipal Water District tank at
the end of Donahue Street in the Marin City area.

For technical reasons, if the Mt. Tiburon Road site doesn't work out, antennas
will be required at two of the three alternates to compensate, Nichols said.

"Clearly, what we can conclude from that meeting is there is going to be
opposition out of that neighborhood," Nichols said.

But the fact that few people turned out to oppose the other two alternate sites
doesn't necessarily mean residents in the surrounding areas are sanguine about the
idea of an antenna, Nichols said.

"I wouldn't draw the conclusion from that there is no opposition in those
neighborhoods," he said. "I just don't think we know at this point."

The radio authority has appealed a ruling by Marin Superior Court Judge Michael
Dufficy that halted construction of the antenna at Mt. Tiburon.

The authority, which is struggling to build the final antenna in its system,
consists of 26 Marin public agencies - mainly police and fire departments.

The new system - which will include microwave dishes, radio antennas and radio
equipment linked at more than a dozen sites across Marin and Sonoma counties - is
designed to replace a patchwork of aging communications systems. Proponents of the
new system say it is needed to consolidate and close gaps in the county's existing
public safety radio system.

Dufficy rejected the radio authority's assertion that it can legally build its
antenna on Mt. Tiburon Road without the permission of the town of Tiburon. The
judge also agreed with the petitioners - residents who live near the proposed
antenna site, and the town of Tiburon - that the authority improperly condemned
the property.

Dufficy ruled that the authority must complete a supplemental environmental impact
report before building on the Mt. Tiburon Road site.

A hearing before the 1st District Court of Appeal is expected in early December
and a decision by March, Nichols said. The Tiburon residents involved in the suit,
calling themselves Citizens for Open Process in Antenna Siting, have asked Dufficy
to order the authority to pay their court fees. A hearing on that matter is
expected this week, Nichols said.

In the meantime, the authority is proceeding with plans to begin operating the
radio system without a Southern Marin antenna.

Nichols has said that without the Southern Marin antenna, the radio system would
be 90 percent effective for most of the authority's members - with the exception
of Tiburon, Belvedere and parts of Mill Valley.

Testing of the system is under way and scheduled for completion by the end of this
month, Nichols said. The San Rafael Public Works Department will be the first to
use it.

"We're thinking that by the first part of December that the San Rafael Police
Department will be on the air," Nichols said.

Contact Richard Halstead via e-mail at [email-masked]

 http://www.marinij.com/Stories/0,1413,234~24407~1695763,00.html

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