TOWN OF SHARON
Minutes of a Meeting of the Planning Board held on Monday, December 8, 2003, at 6:30 p.m., at the Town Offices.
PRESENT: JOEL TRAN, CHAIR
SAMUEL SOLOMON, VICE CHAIR
REGINA MANISCALCO, CLERK
NADINE OSTROW
ELI HAUSER
I. The meeting was called to order at 6:30 p.m., at the Sharon High School, where the meeting was originally scheduled to take place. Due to a snow storm and the Town not being able to plow out the parking lot, the meeting was called and then moved to adjourn and reopen the meeting at the Town Offices.
II. The meeting was reopened at 7:00 p.m. at the Town Offices.
III. PUBLIC HEARING – ARTICLE 9 – MORATORIUM ON
TELECOMMUNICATIONS TOWERS
The legal notice for the meeting was read by Mr. Hauser. Mr. Solomon recused himself from this part of the meeting, as he was an abutter to the property on which a tower is being proposed.
There were several individuals present to discuss this issue with the Board. Ms. Marguerite Solomon was the primary spokesperson. She said that if nothing else comes of this process, she hopes the Town will charge the carrier the costs of hiring a person to verify what the carrier is doing, which is a requirement of the State by-law. Also, the Town needs to become aware that there are things it can do to protect itself in this type of instance such as having plans in place, working with the companies, passing consultants’ fees onto the providers, etc . There is a 25 page siting criteria prepared for Cape Cod Commission that should be investigated.
Minutes of Meeting Page Two December 8, 2003
The Town needs to investigate placing towers in a reasonable location so that the Town can benefit from these towers and not just private institutions in the Town. Right now the only ones that will prosper if this tower goes in are the Sharon Country Club and Sprint. What the moratorium is expected to do is to give the Town some additional time to come up with a plan and decide who will be responsible for deciding how the technology is going to fit into this Town.
Mr. Tran informed the group that the Planning Board had already had the Town Engineer draw up an overlay district area and see where there were dead zones in the Town to see where coverage was needed. Mr. Tran had spoken both to Town Counsel and Ben Puritz about this, but they asked him to wait until this lawsuit was resolved before moving forward. This moratorium may give the Board the time to create language for the overlay district. There may even be the possibility of bringing some language to the May Town Meeting.
Mr. Hauser added that the Town may need to navigate the prospect of the Town taking over the royalties from a private institution. It would be good if there was a group to generate a recommendation and put together guidelines of best practices for town boards.
Ms. Maniscalco moved to endorse this article at Town Meeting, seconded by Mr. Hauser and unanimously voted.
Ms. Maniscalco then moved to close the public hearing, seconded by Ms. Ostrow and unanimously voted.
IV. There being no further business before the Board, the meeting was adjourned at 7:30 p.m.