To the Editor:

There are four myths about the Albany County Sheriff's public-safety radio system project:

— Albany County cares what Hilltown communities have to say:

Sheriff Craig Apple claims the county has been open and transparent about the radio-system project with Hilltown communities. Experience suggests otherwise. While the county has been working on this project since 2011, it only provided an incomplete application to the Berne Planning Board in August 2015. Prior to that, the county never offered any outreach or workshops to seek community input or to include residents in the project planning.

The application included a tower already designed at 180 feet tall and the tower site already secured by lease agreement. The site on a prominent knoll on Jansen Lane overlooks the Berne hamlet and visually impacts hundreds of public facilities and private residences. Since August 2015, the county has provided partial application information and much remains missing. The county takes advantage of inexperienced volunteer local planning boards by giving them little accurate information and then pressures them to grant permit approval.

In March 2016, the Albany County Sheriff's Office held its only “public information meeting” in Berne about the project. Most of the sheriff’s representatives did not introduce themselves. There was no formal presentation of the 12-site project to help the public better understand the need for the project, the technology involved, and how the 12 sites were selected. County officials and consultants at that meeting acknowledged being unaware of the town’s zoning ordinance for new telecommunications towers or the town’s draft comprehensive plan, which is intended, in part, to protect the beautiful rural setting and its scenic views.

The only attempt to describe to the residents the visual impact of the tower was a hard-to-see, poorly prepared Crane Visibility Test “slideshow.” The Crane Visibility Test Report itself was poorly prepared, difficult to read, and grossly misleading. Of the 55 photographs taken towards the tower site, 48 were taken where “the crane not visible,” four where the crane was conveniently screened by intervening trees, and only three where the crane was clearly visible.

In May 2016, the county finally submitted a “Visual Impact Assessment.” Unfortunately, the narrative makes inaccurate and unsubstantiated conclusions, and significantly underestimates the geographic area of visual impact and ignores the number and sensitivity of persons who will see the tower on a daily basis.

In February, 2016, at the sheriff's request, the Albany County Legislature quickly and with no public comment, unanimously passed Resolution 78 making the Albany County Radio System Project immune from local regulations. So much for transparency and concern about public input!

— No one wants a tower in their town:

Wrong. Opponents of the proposed tower on Jansen Lane have not said there should be no towers in the town of Berne. In fact, there is general agreement on the need to improve emergency-services radio coverage in our community.

However, many residents believe that their legitimate concerns about the visual and aesthetic impacts of the proposed tower on Jansen Lane in such a prominent location overlooking the hamlet have been ignored. There needs to be a balanced professional effort to find an alternate tower location that protects important scenic viewsheds and our valued rural community character while providing reasonable, perhaps not perfect, radio coverage.

— The project will improve cell coverage and provide wireless broadband:

Wrong. Many residents who do not like the proposed location are reluctantly supporting it because they are under the misconception that the Albany County project will improve cell phone service and provide wireless broadband internet access for local residents.

The misconception exists because the Berne Zoning Code requires that any new telecommunications tower be designed to allow possible co-location by two other service providers. Some town officials have supported this location in hopes that wireless broadband providers will co-locate here.

But this is speculation. Where and when a wireless broadband provider ultimately chooses to locate is market driven. Further, the wireless provider could co-locate on any new tower built as part of this project, including at an alternate location that is carefully sited to minimize visual impacts.

Cell phone service is not being proposed. Typically, cell-service providers want to own their tower and are not likely to co- locate here.

— The proposed tower will have no impact on aesthetic resources:

Wrong. The proposed tower overlooking the Berne hamlet extends more than 100 feet above the treeline and will be clearly seen against the sky. The tower is taller than any other manmade structure in the town and is out of scale with its surroundings. There is no way to effectively screen or camouflage the tower.

The Jansen Lane site actually maximizes the numbers of persons who live, work, recreate, or travel through the Berne and Knox communities and will have views of the tower. The tower will likely be viewed thousands of times daily and several million times annually.

According to 2015 traffic data from the state’s Department of transportation, collectively 2,864 vehicles travel along state routes 443 and 156, Canaday Road, and Rock Road daily where drivers and passengers will have views of the tower. Other roads offer views, too.

The following partial list of public facilities have unobstructed views to the tower site; annual visits made to them are listed: Berne Public Library, 14,303 visitors; Rock Hill Church, 6,000; Berne Recycling Center, 32,4000; Berne-Knox-Westerlo public schools, 180,360 students and staff (during school year) and more than 25,000 visits by others for non-classroom events (sports, concerts, and other non-classroom events); Berne Lutheran Church, 6,000; and Berne Town Park, more than 2,000 (for ball games, picnics, etc.). About 55 residential homes along Route 443 and another 80 homes within two-and-a-half miles in Berne and Knox have prominent views to the tower site. For those homeowners, the tower will be a daily disruptive element in their viewsheds for decades to come.

The goals of improving public safety and protection of important visual resources are not mutually exclusive. The Jansen Lane tower site should be rejected and a visually non-intrusive site selected.

Mark Sengenberger

Berne

Editor’s note: Mark Sengenberger is a member of the Game Farm Board, which was appointed to map a mission for the property the town purchased on Game Farm Road.