BOCC to mull over mesa comm tower

By Douglas McDaniel

The Ouray County Commissioners have just a few days to meditate on what to do about a proposal for an 80-foot communications tower on Log Hill Mesa.

When they reconvene for deliberations at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 2, again in Ridgway at the 4-H Event Center, they will have to decide on whether to approve, deny or find some other solution for communications "dead zones" within the region, or, abide by residential concerns over "visual impacts" a structure the approximate height of a gas drilling rig might create.

This week every branch of the region's law enforcement and emergency personnel appeared before the commissioners Monday, during a lively hearing on a controversial communications tower on Log Hill Mesa near Ridgway to sound off like coyotes to the mutual chorus: Can you hear me now?

"When radios don't work it's hard for deputies to do their jobs," said Ouray County Sheriff Dominic Mattivi. "We've had calls where our deputies are out their and nobody can hear their cells."

Added Norm Rooker, chief of emergency services for Ouray County: "This is (about saving) lives. These are your lives. This system is costing you, the citizens, nothing."

By teaming up for a governmental/corporate partnership to pay for the 80-foot tower, to be built by Black & Veatch for the communications giant, Verizon, on land occupied by the Dallas Creek Water Company within Unit 1 of the Log Hill Village subdivision, a partnership has been created to build a $720,000 that the county could never, otherwise, afford.

"We have somebody willing to pony up at zero cost to the taxpayers," Rooker said.

On the other side of the more than two-hour debate Monday was the not-in-my-backyard crowd, mostly residents of the pricey community living on the mesa that is afforded breathtaking vistas of the San Juans, Mount Sneffels, and therefore, the rigid cascades serving as a backdrop for the Ralph Lauren Ranch.

Their broadcast before the commissioners: Most people are in favor of improving communications for the region, but why does it have to be in this neighborhood, especially one with such a picturesque setting?

"We are concerned about the current proposed tower's visual impacts," said Jane Nash of the Ridgway/Ouray Community Council. "We are in support of the tower, but not in a residential area."

Indeed, the specter of the possibility of an 80-foot communications tower on the mesa has now become a lightning rod for a baffling question over the wireless, highly microwaveable settlement of this high-profile corner of the New West.

While an attorney for the Log Hill Village Home & Property Owners' Association, Bob Thomas, argued that if it had been a simple development proposal before the commissioners, it ever would have been been considered for approval, the president of the HOA, Reggie Kajer, plead for the entire process to be slowed down so all viewpoints can be considered.

"The proposal for this 80-foot tower ... that we have to approve it now or everybody is going to die is wrong," he said. "I think we all should have been talking about this a year ago, and I think that's the problem."

It generated so much commentary during Monday's meeting in Ridgway, the commissioners didn't even have time to deliberate on what they heard. Instead, it moved to continue the decision on what had originally appeared to have been a slam dunk for a special meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 2, again in Ridgway at the 4-H Event Center.

"I don't want to open up Pandora's box, but Pandora may be already out and about," Commissioner Heidi Albritton predicted before the public hearing portion of the meeting attended by approximately 60 people. The delay was necessary considering the fact that, at the center of the debate, a mushy center had arisen in the form of a bit of a somewhat baffling administrative oversight. Included in the debate now is the question about what exactly the commissioners should base their ruling on regarding the nature of the "structure" versus "edifice" in terms of how it was to be interpreted in county's land use code.

At the end of the public hearing, Commissioner Keith Meinert told those in attendance that the semantics over the official "definition of structure" would be reviewed.

Prior to the meeting, the commissioners simply had to rubber stamp a recommendation for approval, by a 5-2 vote, of the Ridgway Area Joint Planning Board. But now the commissioners find themselves looking at a complex question of values in which public safety and issues of visual impact would have to be weighed, and, quite possibly vivisected.

"I assure you, you have given us something to think about," Meinert said.