Germantown Pulse: County Pulls Fast One with Small Cell Antenna Meetings"

County Pulls Fast One with Small Cell Antenna Meetings

 "There is something sneaky going on here.

   The Pulse has no position on the whether the County should amend the zoning regulations to allow small cell antennas in residential neighborhoods, but thePulse does feel very strongly about a Montgomery County governmental agency holding public meetings without giving the public ample time to attend the meetings. Holding a public meeting and not inviting the public isn’t a public meeting. It is a clandestine meeting open to the public. Is a party that nobody is invited to a party?"

"Montgomery County and the Transmission Facilities Coordination Group should be ashamed. If you have to resort to such deception of the public, perhaps you don’t have the public’s best interest at heart."

September 19, 2017 Editorial by Germantown Pulse

There is a Community Meeting tonight from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm at Montgomery College in Germantown about Montgomery County and wireless companies’ controversial plans to install small cell antennas on utility poles in residential neighborhoods.

   There was another meeting last night in Silver Spring. Did you hear about it? Neither did the Germantown Pulse, which is odd. The Pulse receives hundreds of press releases from Montgomery County about various events, meetings, and happenings in the County. Admittedly, we don’t report on all of them. Our rule is that if it isn’t taking place in the Germantown/Clarksburg/ Up-County area, we don’t include it in our coverage unless there is an extenuating circumstance. While some Germantown residents may be interested in the Planning Board’s decision on the White Oak Project, we don’t believe it is Germantown news.

 However, a Community Meeting about a plan to put more than 45 cell towers in the Waters Landing neighborhood. That is news. We’d report that. Folks in Germantown, especially those in the Waters Landing neighborhood are going to want to know about it that meeting.

   Especially, when the last time the County and wireless companies held such a meeting, it was broadly contentious and very well attended. That meeting was held in October 2016 at Ridgeview Middle School in Gaithersburg. There were over a hundred people at that meeting. As one attendee of that meeting said, “Nobody wants it.”...

That might explain why these meetings were “announced” on a sleepy Saturday less than 72 hours before the first meeting took place on the following Monday evening.

   Granted the County’s Transmission Facilities Coordination Group has a small slice of the MontgomeryCountyMD.gov website where the information about the meetings and possible changes to the County’s Zoning Ordinances are housed. It could be argued that it is public, but you’d have do a lot of digging to find it.

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https://www.germantownpulse.net/single-post/2017/09/19/County-Pulls-Fast-One-with-Small-Cell-Tower-Meetings