By Andrew Walsh
awalsh@wbcowqel.com
“Can you hear me now” may soon be added to the lexicon of obsolete phrases, at least in the New Washington area.
The New Washington Village Council held a public hearing on the proposed rezone to accommodate a Verizon cell Tower Monday night. The site of this tower would be on the Buckeye Central School property east of the football field. This site would need to be rezoned from Residential family 2 to General Business.
NTP Wireless is a site acquisition firm that works with Verizon to coordinate these sorts of dealings and Amanda Wegrzyn was present on their behalf to answer questions. Council asked her about what such a tower would offer the community. Optimal coverage improvement should be seen starting 500 feet out from the base of the tower and extending for a two mile radius. After that it will begin to fade out to the maximum, realistic coverage distance of five miles.
Currently the tower is planned to improve 4G LTE service for data and voice. Council began asking questions about what that would mean for 3G subscribers, of which there are many in the community. If the tower goes ahead as planned 3G service may remain unaffected, but Wegrzyn stated that final plans for what services the tower will improve will not be made until physical plans for the project are drawn up.
Wegrzyn offered to have engineers from her company attend a later hearing of council to answer some of their more detailed questions. This meeting is tentatively scheduled for the next council meeting on Oct. 13. In the meantime, during the regular portion of Monday’s Village Council meeting, council passed an ordinance on the first reading to go ahead with the rezoning.