Mustang City Council members failed to birth an amateur radio ordinance Tuesday night, tabling their third draft nine months after a local resident first raised concerns.
Even before addressing the radio issue, the City Council gathered behind closed doors in a 30-minute executive session, which was added to the Council agenda one day before the meeting.
Oklahoma state law allows public officials to meet in executive session to discuss the employment status of a specific employee, to discuss union negotiations, to discuss the purchase of property and to meet with their attorney “concerning a pending investigation, claim or action if the public body, with the advice of its attorney, determines that disclosure will seriously impair the ability of the public body to process the claim or conduct a pending investigation, litigation or proceeding in the public interest.”
The agenda item said the executive session was being held to discuss a potential “claim of National Association for Amateur Radio.”
Once the Council returned, area radio operators asked city leaders to once again table the proposed ordinance in an effort to reach a compromise. The proposed law is designed to regulate radio tower heights and construction regulations.
Safety issues and confusion over tower heights led Mayor Jeff Landrith to support tabling the ordinance until the Council's March 2 meeting.
Council members voted unanimously in favor of Landrith's motion, even though many said they felt city officials had already compromised enough, whittling down the ordinance to “safety concerns.”
Council members stressed they were not trying to block local hams from operating.
While Landrith said he was ready to vote, he agreed to push back the issue because “I can't ignore some of the comments out there tonight.”
About 20 area amateur radio operators attended the meeting, although only five addressed the Council.
Randy Read, who has lived in Mustang for 30 years, told city officials he fears their ordinance would price him out of his beloved hobby. He explained his 30-foot radio tower is attached to the side of his house and looks like a television antenna.
“I have less than $100 invested in my antenna, but if I have to go out and get an engineering drawing or plan that tells me this is safe, that scares me ... hey, I have a hobby,” he said. “I'd like to keep it a hobby. I can't afford to make it something else. That has been my concern all along. Just what are we trying to accomplish here?”
Static
Last May, John Ripley and his son, Richard Ripley, contacted the city to file for a permit to install a 55-foot amateur radio tower in their Mustang Heights home's back yard. Instead they found an ordinance written in 2000 stating, “any tower, or antenna, not more than 70 feet in height, owned and operated by a federally licensed amateur radio station operator” could exist as long as the operator did not transmit.
Ripley said he had a working radio tower at the home in the 1980s, and there were no problems.
The Council tabled their first amateur radio tower ordinance proposal during the summer, and the Ripley family erected their tower following that decision and installed the antenna in September. Then several neighbors complained at an October Council meeting, calling the tower an eyesore and a safety concern.
On Oct 30, the city sent a certified letter to the Ripleys telling them to stop transmitting because it was interfering with their neighbors' electronic devices.
John Ripley said on Tuesday he feels the push for the ordinance is directly related to these neighbors' complaints about his family's tower.
“They are not worried about that (safety),” he said. “They just don't want them in the neighborhood.”
The Council tabled another ordinance proposal in November, and on Nov. 6 Maryland attorney Christopher Imlay, representing the Amateur Radio Relay League, sent a seven-page letter to officials urging the city to rescind their letter to Ripley. He also wrote ARRL had concerns about the ordinance proposal.
“ARRL has some substantial experience with antenna ordinances and with the FCC's pre-emption policies regarding antenna regulation,” Imlay wrote. “We would offer to assist the city in any respect in redrafting the proposed ordinance in the near term prior to its adoption. As it stands, there is a virtual certainty that the provisions currently included in the draft ordinance are subject to successful challenge.”
On Jan. 29, Imlay e-mailed another seven-page letter to Mustang officials, stating he had not received any response from the city and raised more concerns about the third ordinance draft.
“The ordinance in its present draft form is easily subject to a judicial challenge on its face, and it would be our intention to do that if the ordinance is passed in its present iteration,” he wrote.
Tower height
Restrictions on tower height are the main sticking point for operators. The new proposal would call for a tower's height to be no higher than the distance from its base to the owner's property line, with the purpose of making sure if the structure fell, it would land entirely on the operator's property.
The problem is in neighborhoods like Mustang Heights where homes are built closely together, towers would not be able to extend beyond 20 or 30 feet in height. Ripley said the reason they wanted to build a taller tower is to help avoid interference with neighbors' electronic devices.
The conflict is rooted in a misconception of how guyed lattice towers, like the Ripleys' structure, fall, said Dean Feken, ARRL Oklahoma section manager. He said the guy wires or anchors are attached to these towers not to provide support but for safety to guide any collapse. With these structures, he said the pieces fall within a radius of 20- percent to 30-percent of the tower's height because of the guy wires.
City Councilman Jay Adams told radio supporters after conversations with operators city officials modeled their proposed ordinance on laws in neighboring cities, including Moore, Oklahoma City and Edmond.
“The ordinance as it is written now is actually less restrictive than some of the surrounding communities,” he said.
Feken said he didn't know how those cities arrived at their ordinances, but he doubted the amateur radio community had much input. In the case of Oklahoma City's setback limitation, it only impacts amateur radio towers taller than 50 feet, and he asked city officials if they would be willing to adopt a similar provision.
Landrith said he still had concerns.
“From my perspective, this is a safety issue,” he said. “If that tower can fall into somebody else's yard, I am against it — bottom line.”
Feken said operators also have problems with the engineering safety requirement because one of the most common amateur radio antennas, which he described as a push-up pole supporting copper wiring similar to a television antenna, have no engineering or manufacturing specifications to meet, as required in the ordinance draft.
Read said this is one of his main worries.
“The way I read this definition I have to apply for an engineering plan that says my antenna is not going to fall on my neighbor,” he said. “It's a 30-foot fence rail. It's anchored up at the top of the antenna. If it falls, there is less than 10 feet to fall from where it is anchored.”
Doug Moore asked city officials why they didn't contact some of the manufacturers for information on tower height and failures.
“Get it right out of the horses' mouths how towers collapse,” he said.
Vice Mayor Keith Bryan said he regretted tabling the issue again, but he felt Tuesday night's discussion was the most valuable since the debate began. He said he felt city officials bear some of the blame for the issue dragging on because they failed to determine who were the experts on amateur radio.
Other changes
City Attorney Jonathan Miller included a list of concerns raised earlier by amateur radio operators and how the city addressed them:
*The ordinance no longer addresses radio operations or interference because operators must comply with Federal Communications Commission regulations. Staff wrote, “City does not have the equipment or desire to regulate radio frequency interference. Further, there is significant question whether city would have the authority to regulate such interference.”
*The permit fee would be $75, the same as other conditional use permits. At first, the city proposed a $150 fee.
*City officials dropped landscape buffer and fencing requirements but does require towers to be located behind the front building line. Because most antennas and towers are located in back yards, operators pointed out fencing and landscaping should already exist.
*There still would be no grandfather provision. City staff wrote, “Operators' proposal would allow any existing tower to continue in existence regardless of whether it was legal when erected and regardless of existing health, safety and other concerns. This proposal is contrary to city's existing ordinances that address when uses may continue after a change in ordinances and is also contrary to Oklahoma state law.”