Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the City of Bakersfield Planning Commission meeting. This television broadcast is brought to you by the local cable companies, the County Of Kern, and the City of Bakersfield. You can watch the rebroadcast of this meeting Saturday at 7PM and Sunday at 10AM. The agenda for this meeting can be downloaded at www.bakersfieldcity.us. Presiding over this evening meeting, chair, Adam Strickland.

It is my pleasure to call to order the 02/19/2026 planning commission meeting. Madam clerk, would you please call the roll?

Chair Strickland.

Here.

Vice Chair Biddle. Commissioner Brandt Oliver. Here. Commissioner Cater.

Here.

Commissioner Core. Commissioner Martin.

Here.

Commissioner Neal.

Madam Clerk, next item, please.

Pledge of Allegiance.

Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madam Clerk, next item, please.

Public statements.

Public statements are now received at different times depending on the item. I will call on Madam Clerk to call for public statements at the appropriate time, so please listen carefully for the correct time to speak.

Non agenda item 3A, public statements.

Does anyone in the audience wish to address the Commission regarding items not listed on tonight's agenda? If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing none.

Agenda Item 3B, public statements.

Does anyone in the audience wish to address the Commission regarding items listed on tonight's agenda? If you are here for non consent public hearing items 6A through 6C, now is not the time to speak. You'll be given an opportunity to speak at a later time. Seeing none, Madam Clerk. Next item, please.

Agenda item four, consent calendar items.

All matters listed under the consent items do not require public hearing and will be enacted by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of said items unless staff or commission requests specific items to be discussed and or removed for separate action. May I get a motion approving consent items 4A?

Moved.

Commissioner Brent Oliver was first, and then Commissioner Martin was a second. Commissioners, please cast your votes.

I'm just going to do a vote out loud.

Perfect. Thank you.

Chair Strickland.

Yes.

Vice Chair or Commissioner Brandt Oliver? Yes. Commissioner Cater? Yes. Commissioner Martin?

Yes.

Motion passes with Vice Chair Biddle and Commissioners Core and Neal absent.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Next item, please.

Agenda Item five: There are no consent calendar public hearing items.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Next item, please.

Agenda item six, nonconsent public hearing items.

Now is the time for nonconsent public hearing items. Before we begin, I would like to explain how the hearing will be conducted. Staff will first give a report, then those in favor of the project will be allowed to speak. Then those in opposition of the project will be allowed to speak after all those in favor have spoken. Each side will be given five minutes to provide rebuttal comments. Individual speakers may ask questions during their statements, but questions will not be answered until the public hearing and that item is closed. Written comments may be given to the clerk who will provide copies to the commission. Please be respectful of others by not repeating the remarks of previous speakers and presenting any new items or thoughts in a concise and clear way. Mr. Roques, will you please provide us with your staff report?

Good evening, Chair, and thank you. For this evening's presentations, I'd like to welcome Technology Services Assistant Director, Katie Reed.

Getting old. Good evening, chair and commissioners. Katie Reed, assistant director of technology services for the city. We are the executive sponsors, for the Bakersfield portion of this regional radio regional public safety radio project. Before going too far into my introduction, I wanted to acknowledge and thank fire chief Kevin Albertson and assistant police chief police chief Jeremy Blakemore who are in the audience and have been supporting us through this endeavor.

Really, this is a public safety radio system. It is for them. I am also joined tonight by our project management firm, Federal Engineering, Zia Siddiqui from Motorola, the contractor who was chosen to implement this project and Dan Waddell from Scout Services who is handling the permitting for this process. All of us are will be available after the presentation for any questions you may have. The radio project is a joint project with the County Of Kern to build a modern, robust communication system that will allow radio communications countywide once completed.

After completion of a lengthy design and engineering phase, the three items before you are part of a six site six site system that will provide clear radio communication from one end of our growing city to the other. At this time, I would like to hand the mic over to Mark Mayes of Federal Engineering, who will provide more information on the project and our purpose for being before you this evening.

Thank you, Ms. Reed.

Thank you, Katie, and thank you, Commissioners and Chair. Okay, these are my slides here. Okay. I put together a little slide presentation to give a little bit of background on the project. I'll probably go through the first few slides pretty quickly just to in the best interest of everybody's time.

As Katie mentioned, this is a public safety radio network replacement project. It involves the city of Bakersfield, and it also involves the county of Kern as well. Just to give give you guys an idea of how large this project is, it's the largest project that the the County has ever done. So this is a very expensive project and it didn't come lightly. About 50 individuals outside of the city and county that are working on this project, and that's companies like ours.

We've been partnered with the city and the county for well over ten years from kind of inception of this project to RFP and all the way to implementation at this point. The city and county both chose Motorola as their vendor and implementation company for this. And together with I mean, there's there's a lot of people besides the few companies that I've mentioned that are involved, there's well over 50 people working on this to get this implemented as quickly as possible for both the city and the county. That includes a lot of the folks that Katie mentioned. So I'm going to kind of skip all of those things.

Maybe a company that wasn't mentioned was M and I, who's the microwave network company that Motorola has selected to implement the radio microwave radio system. Okay. A little bit of background. You know, we probably are way past this point. The radio system is about 30 years old.

It's it's so old that it's no longer supported. And there's parts that are no longer available, particularly on the dispatch. And they're getting this replaced as quickly as possible is important to everybody in this room and everybody in your community here to make sure that public safety has a radio system that works every time that they need it to. They're at the point now where they're buying parts on eBay for for some of these some of this equipment and even that's not readily available any longer. So time is of the essence.

And that's the reason I point this out. You know, this has been in the works for about ten years of planning, and we have a couple of years here for implementation. But it's at the point where it's it's kind of Band Aid Band Aided together. Let's see. I want to kind of give a little bit of a state of where the city's network is now. Currently, they have 10 radio sites and with this new system, it's going to six. And the reason that's important to to bring out is they're looking for the most efficient way to use each and every site. So right now it's 10. It's gonna go down to six. And so it it they they don't take these things lightly adding sites.

It's very expensive for each of these sites and we'll talk a little bit more about that as as time goes on here. Again, this is a joint venture. So currently today, the city of Bakersfield operates their own radio system and Kern County operates their radio system independent of each other. They don't have the ability to talk on the same frequencies. And, you know, years ago they decided to to do a joint venture and put one radio system that everybody can use together without, know, it's interoperable.

So that way the county can assist with the city and vice versa. And as your as your city grows or the rapid growth that you guys are experiencing here, that's that's even more and more important as you overlap each other's jurisdictions. So there's six sites for the city, but the county is a much larger about tenfold as as you'll see here in a second. They have about 60 sites and that's gonna be including those six. And then there's also additional 50 microwave sites.

So every fire station needs a microwave shot. Not that important for what we're talking about here. I just wanted to kind of give you guys the magnitude of of the system. You'll see here in a in a of slides a visual of that. And I touched on the last point. I'm gonna move on. So this is the the new system that the city is going to have. So there are six sites and they're all tied together with them with the microwave network. There's there's kind of three parts and I'll talk about in a minute to a radio network, but this is what the city owned sites are gonna look like. So we have six as was mentioned before and then there's another site here that belongs to the county.

I'll just give you the next slide. This is the entire network. So you can see it's quite extensive. There's well over like there's about 60 sites that operate the radio system and there's about a 100 sites that have a microwave connection. And all of these microwave connection, that's how they all talk to each other and get back to the brains of it.

But this is I think a good visual to see that this is covers the entire Kern County and a lot of, you know, Kern County is huge geographically, but it covers a very, very large area. As I mentioned, there's three parts, key parts to our radio network. There's the dispatch center and we all know what the dispatchers do. And then there's a microwave backhaul and that's how all of these sites are tied together. And they all work together with the microwave network and that's how the information gets from one site to another.

If I go back, all of those links, whether it it's obvious or not, they all tie back to one site at the city of Bakersfield PD, and then at the county's Whiting location. And it's all done through this microwave network. And then, of course, the last part is the actual radio system. So the the radio system that's a that carries the conversations that the officers have, that's what that last part is. Okay.

I think in the last last zoning meeting, it was mentioned that health concerns were were a concern. And that comes up in every comes to telecommunications. And one thing I I just want to point out is the FCC is the is the body that determines what is safe for for telecommunications. It isn't the city. It is in Kern County.

These are all guidelines that are created by the FCC and they determine what what they feel is safe. And I can assure you that this system is operating well below the threshold of what FCC considers safe. Now we're not here to argue is it really safe, is it not safe, that's a personal thing that everybody has to decide what what they're comfortable with. But what I do want to point out is it's not the city or anybody here in this room that can decide that. If if there's a concern about health, it really has to be taken up with the FCC.

But I will assure you and I'll I'll talk a little bit more about this that the system that is being implemented and the system that's in place today work is operating well below the threshold that the FCC allows. They allow a lot more emissions than than this is putting out and will be putting out in the future. Everybody has to adhere to those guidelines whether it's the city, whether it's Verizon, AT and T, the equipment manufacturers, everybody has to make sure that they're operating and creating products that fall within the FCC guidelines. And I've talked about the next point and on the bottom point, so the city wanted to as a result of, you know, these hearings, they wanted to make sure that that they were covered. We reassured them.

Motorola reassured them and they took another step just to make sure and so everybody feels comfortable. That a third party do what's called an EME study or electromagnetic energy study just to verify that what Motorola was going to implement didn't meet those thresholds. And we have that report and it's available. We have a few extra copies. If anybody would like to take one, you're welcome to.

Or if you need one, I'm sure you can contact any one of us and we can get that for you. But that's just, I guess, another proof that we will be operating or the city will be operating within those guidelines. It's it's well below the threshold. So, you know, in terms of what the FCC allows, it's it's operating safely. Okay.

I'm gonna turn it over to my colleague, Rajeet, and he's gonna be talking about the technical issues and and why these towers are needed. I mean, what we're here for is we're talking about three three towers that are needed as part of the six. And and they are, you know, they're a little bit taller and one is a new tower. And we're gonna explain why they're they're an absolute must have for this network.

Good evening, Chair and Commission Vice Chair and Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity for me to be up here this evening. My name is Rajeet Javer. I am the Associate Vice President with Federal Engineering, the consulting firm. As Mark mentioned, we've been on board for the past close to ten years supporting the City Of Bakersfield and County Of Kern on this program.

Mark is the full time project manager on this program for us, overseeing, you know, the entire project on behalf of the city and the county and also overseeing Motorola's work as they implement the system. So as Mark brought up, you know, one real reason we're here tonight is the taller towers are really critical for public safety radio communications. And why is that the case? Well, one thing is the old towers, unfortunately over the past thirty years, there's in a city that's grown like Bakersfield, there's whole new sets of obstructions. There's trees that have grown that are now getting into the path.

And old towers really, structurally speaking, and again, not determined by me but by structural engineers, really cannot be raised in height due to their structural integrity. So every option was explored before taller towers became the only solution to meet the requirements of the public safety grade network. That's expected to last another twenty, twenty five years. One of the things that microwave paths must have for a public safety communication system is five nines reliability. And in order to meet that, again and we'll be getting into a little more of the technical detail but that's an important key, that it's not just direct line of sight, but there's something called a Fresnel zone that I'll be showing you in a minute that really has to be in place in order to provide that type of reliability between towers so that they can connect to one another.

And so one of the things also is that new microwave technologies do have a lower tolerance for interference for reliability. Some of that without getting into too much detail is based on the digital nature of those technologies. So the actual microwave path data for the AgWater to Shafter Land Mobile Radio, the trees have heights approaching 100 feet that exist in the path today. And the microwave engineers say that there's a requirement of at least a minimum of another 20 feet of future tree growth to accommodate and to guarantee future reliability. So again, we're not just planning for today, but we're planning for tomorrow so that, you know, there's not a need to, again, have taller towers and so forth for the path to be in the five nines reliability.

So they've taken that into account. And the physics dictates that there's basically a 118 foot obstruction for the required signal level, and the antenna must be placed at about a 150 feet elevation. So that that, again, we'll get into the Fresnel zone in the next slide. But that's really to guarantee that the emergency communications can continue during a storm and that we basically have enough clearance above the trees and other obstructions to provide the five nines reliability for public safety. And really what that means is then the system doesn't go down.

We know officer safety. As soon as you use that link for any reason, whether it be a storm or suddenly blockage of that path, you lose communication in that area. And we all know how important that is for officer and public safety to be able to communicate Five9's reliability. So here's kind of not getting too much into the technical details, but this is kind of a visual of that egg water on the left and site on the right. And really shows what we're talking.

It's like a football oblong, Fresnel zone. So it's not just direct line of sight, but really that entire area that's a little bit goes in that direction. And and to clear those trees, that's that's really the request put forth here tonight. And this is at 11 gigahertz frequency range, which is typical for for a microwave link. And again, the elevation there shows 150 feet above ground level and 155 feet at Shafter. So that's what really it would take in order to meet the Five9's reliability, provide that public safety level of reliability for these sites.

I'll turn it back over to

you. Thank

you. He's a lot taller than me. Okay. One thing I did want to bring up too is, you know, these decisions to put up new towers don't come lightly for the city or the county for that matter. You know, there's a great cost to this. So anything anytime that they can reuse an existing tower, that's of course what they want to do. We're talking in the neighborhood of, you know, 500 to $700,000 per tower. So of course, the city, you know, wants to make sure that they're not spending taxpayer money on on needless things. So these things, again, they they take them serious and so does the vendor, Motorola. This isn't what their first choice to do this.

And so I just wanted to point that out. And this is the Agwater. I think what what we're calling it is Buena Vista. Think that's the address. But from a project team, we call it Ag Water because it's the Ag Water water plant where that is. This is taken out a street view from a neighborhood, the closest neighborhood to that site. And I just wanted to point out, you know, that that's the existing tower right now. That's not the new one. So it's very visible currently today and and it's going to look very similar, you know, in the future. This this site, they'll erect the new tower, put all the new equipment up and then this tower will come down and just be the new equipment.

So it isn't like we're adding another tower. We're just replacing this one and we have to get the height. I mean, you can kind of get an idea, you know, we're close-up to that tree, so a little bit of an exaggeration, but you can kind of get an idea of how large the trees are currently today, and they're obviously still growing. And there, you know, we could kind of use the same thing for the other sites, but we kind of use this ag water as the example, given what Rajeev went through with the graph, you know, that's just a graph, but it would apply to any of the other two sites that we'll we'll end up talking about. So what we're here for is because this we're looking for zoning modifications and I know staff has has reviewed this and and they understand what the need is and they believe that they're in favor of moving this forward and and improving a zone modification.

So currently, the ordinance does have restriction on height and how height how much you can increase an existing tower height. And we're asking for a modification to go above that. And and Rajeet explained, you know, technically why that's why we need the the additional height is to make those microwave shots. And the other reason is, you know, obviously it's public safety. You know, if it's a cellular tower, maybe they're they might have some other options to work with different sites or that we just don't have that option in this case.

And I think it's it's extremely important to understand that that this is all for public safety that we that we all rely on and we want to make sure they have reliable communications all the time. The other modification in this particular site, and it'll apply to the Panorama site as well, is the distance between from where this tower sits to the residential property line. And it does it's this new tower is getting a little bit closer and that is the only place that and I I believe Katie will talk a little bit more about this, but that's the only place that we could put it. We tried every option possible, but this was the the only option when you look at the aerial of this particular location and the footprint of the of the tower. There's there's just not a lot of room there because it's a water plant.

It's not a telecommunications site. And so this is we're asking for that approval as well to net zone modification to allow a little bit closer to residential property lines. So we are asking I won't go through all of this. We are asking for an approval this evening. You know, timing is of the essence.

We have been working on this project for ten years. The implementation is now and we really don't have any slack left in the schedule. We've had a lot of hiccups thus far getting to where we're at now, just getting into zoning and into permitting. And as I mentioned, this existing system is is old and and it needs to be replaced as soon as possible. And the longer we push off decisions like this, that just means the longer it's gonna take before we can get this communications system up and running for for public safety. So we are asking for approval this evening. And I think that's all I have. Thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark and Rajeet.

Before we continue, do we need to

Yes. Commissioner Biddle showed up at 05:42 p. M.

Thank you. Okay.

No problem. Okay. So on to the very first item, six a. This is the what they were calling Agwater. This is the site at, 1000 Buena Vista Road.

You can see here the location, on your map, and it the proximity that sits right in the middle of a residential area. Current zoning here is r three. The land use is public facilities, and this is actually the city's water department offices that are currently there. Here, you see the the layout of the property. You can see along Buena Vista, the building.

If I do a zoom in here, the pink it's kinda pink, and it says that's the existing eighty eighty foot tower. In the corner at next to the canal is where the new tower is going to go in that back corner. That that's basically the only place that for the line of sights that we could theoretically put it. And then there's the the tower. It's gonna be a 150 feet with the microwave, the antennas, and everything else.

Thank you, Ms. Reed. All right. The public hearing is now open. Is there anyone who wishes to speak in favor of the project? If so, please step to the microphone, identify yourself and proceed.

Good evening, Chair, Commissioners. Thank you for taking time to hear this this evening. My name is Kevin Albertsons. I'm the fire chief for Bakersfield Fire Department. I just prepared a very short statement.

The Bakersfield Fire Department is in support of the radio tower project as it is critical to maintaining reliable communications for firefighters and emergency responders. Clear and dependable radio communications essential for coordinating emergency response, ensuring firefighter safety and providing timely service to the community. As Bakersfield continues to grow, it's important that our public safety infrastructure keeps pace, and that's what we're exactly trying to do. This tower and system will strengthen the radio coverage, improve system reliability and ensure that we can communicate effectively during incidents and large scale emergencies. And we do have plenty of incidents here in Bakersfield.

This project represents an important investment in public safety and will help ensure that we can continue to protect the residents and businesses and visitors of Bakersfield. So thank you for your considerations. I'm open for any questions if you guys have any. If not, I'll head back. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chief Albertson. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak in yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

Sorry, think I rushed up here. Good evening, Commissioners. Similar to Chief Albertson, just on behalf of the Police Department, again, I really can't I'll be very open with you. I can't speak necessarily about some of the technical aspects that you've seen tonight as it relates to the infrastructure and those items. But what I can tell you, in my twenty three years of experience, we've been very fortunate.

Very fortunate in the sense of very lucky and not having something more dire happen to our officers. I've been in situations firsthand where the feeling of not being able to communicate firsthand with our fellow officers that may not even be that far away or our dispatchers that need to hear critical information in very, very dire circumstances at times, it's not a good feeling to have for our public safety officers. And so having this type of infrastructure, this type of upgrade is an absolute necessity. Again, I can tell you that there are certain areas of our town right now that it is very difficult to hear clear transmissions between our officers and our dispatchers. And that just does not serve our community well.

It's significant risk to our personnel, which is not a good practice, I'm sure we all agree. And again, I can't echo enough the importance of a project like this to although it is large scale and we know it's costly and there are definitely some of these impacts in our community as it relates to maybe the how these towers may be observed in certain areas and neighborhoods. But the tradeoff insurmountable if we end up having a loss of life or something that we can't get to in a timely fashion without reliable communications. It really is the backbone of how we respond to calls and public safety. So with that, I turn it back over to you for consideration. But thank you.

Thank you. But before you walk away, I get you to identify yourself for I'm the sorry

about that.

Jeremy Blakmore.

Thank you, Mr. Thank you. Sorry, I'm a slow notetaker. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak in favor of the project? Seeing none, is there anyone who wishes to speak in opposition of the project? If so, please step to the microphone, identify yourself, and proceed. Okay. Right. Not stepping to the microphone. Appreciate it.

Good evening. My name is Bo Koenig. I'm a local business owner, local attorney, also family of three. And my house is actually one of the homes that was on the picture that was produced up on the screen here. I will say that those trees are not there anymore.

So that's not a good representation of what the place looks like right now. Those trees have been gone for years. I presume it might have been a Google Maps type picture that might have been outdated. But nonetheless, I'm sitting here learning for the first time that this project

has been in

the works for quite a while. I don't know if it was closer to ten years or something like that. And we just got a notice for the first time in the mail to our residents. I believe it was in November, if I'm not mistaken, maybe October, right in there, just a few months ago. And I didn't know anything about it. I looked at my wife, and I said, what is this? And then we quickly realized it has to do with that water tower that's very, very

or

the communication tower that's in the water district that's very close to our our house. And we've always seen it there. And to now know that it's going to be double the size is, unfortunately, going to put a nuisance on our property, In my opinion, for my family, it will affect the quiet use and enjoyment of our property, not only on a monetary basis, but also just an everyday enjoyment basis. We've invested a lot of money in our property. It's not a it's not a cheaper property.

But had I known that this was gonna potentially be happening, I would have made different decisions along the way. The fact that it's being brought to our attention at the eleventh hour, I don't feel is very fair. I wanna be clear. I don't oppose the Bakersfield project to increase the public safety of our community. I with the line of work that I do, I do get 911 calls that we review for clients and etcetera.

And I don't notice any communication issues with those calls, but I'm not saying that they don't exist. But nonetheless, to put it into our backyard, I do have to voice an opinion that I feel that there are other locations that might not only further advance the city's concerns, but might also protect the individual concerns of the residents and the community. I know that there are quite a few neighbors that I've spoken to that are outside the notice distance from the property just whether they're across the street from it or another street down, who are definitely going to be affected by the height of this tower, and its nearby effects. And whether or not they've had notice on when this hearing is going to occur or not, I don't know. I did not go necessarily door to door for everyone.

Another concern is the health effects. I did go to a meeting a couple months ago here downtown at the the City Planning Building. And when I asked what the health effects were of this I mean, this thing looks like an erector set. I'm sorry. Back when I was like growing up and playing with an erector set and, you know, five years old, it was cool, but never thought I would have this in my backyard.

And so when I went and I I discussed the health effects, one of the gentlemen that was there basically said that the jury's not out. Like, he and he was one of the I don't know if he was one of the engineers, but somebody that definitely knew a lot about what this tower encompasses, basically said the jury's not out. And to me, that's unsettling. They even said that the height of this tower, it being twice as tall, will cast a larger umbrella with RF waves over the neighborhood, which is also concerning to me because we've got an elementary school that my daughter attends right visibly there in the picture that is close enough to throw a rock at this thing. And I understand maybe the school did not speak up, but that's kind of like the fox guarding the hen house, the schools within the city, and the city is the one that's trying to build this thing.

So if I'm the one that has to voice an opinion and a stance for the children, then so be it. And that's what I'll do here. And it's also encompassing my child because I walk her to school every day. And she's there ten hours a day. And I don't know what the increased RF waves, the new microwave I don't know what all this microwave technology stuff is and I don't know health effects.

I understand that there might be FCC regulations that allow for certain things. But when somebody tells me the jury's not out on long term effects, that that bothers me. In addition, again, I'm not against the project in its entirety, but why can't we find a different spot for this to be built? Why right next to a school with children that are potentially within harm's way? Take them out of the equation.

They don't have the ability to speak for themselves yet. They don't know what's going on. As a community, we have to step up and take take a stance, and we have a duty to to speak up on their behalf. I had a I just googled this evening before I came here, the three radio towers, and an article came up from KGET that was actually published twenty four hours ago. And when I was reading through it, I'm just gonna kind of read one of the excerpts toward the end.

It basically said, one resident living near the sports village submitted an email to the Bakersfield Planning Division opposing the construction of

the

tower, saying she is wary of its possible light, noise and visual disturbances caused by the tower, as well as potential effects on nearby property values. In a written response, city staff said, the tower will not need aviation lights as it is set to be smaller than 200 feet in height. It would also be far away from residents' neighborhood, although the top of the tower may be visible over the treatment plan.

I mean, that

doesn't apply to my property. This is right in my backyard along with several of our other neighbors. So I don't understand why a response that would be good for somebody else at a little at another location isn't a response that would necessarily apply to me. There's probably a ton of stuff that went involved with picking locations. But to tell me that it is not cost benefit to potentially put this somewhere else, that it's too expensive, also doesn't sit well with me.

Obviously, we would have a balancing factor here, cost versus what's the effects to the community, whether it be a nuisance value on aesthetic purposes or potential health concerns that nobody knows what the correct answer would or would not be. But to move forward with this particular location, it aesthetically doesn't fit. It's I'm just going to say, it's going to look horrible, and it will probably be a convincing factor for me to move. And I would hate to do that, and I don't think it's fair. I love my house.

It's the first house I've purchased. I'm proud of it. I've built it. And we've done a lot of stuff to it. In addition to that, I don't know if there's going to be additional noise pollution by potential generators being put in place to help operate this thing.

But not only do we have myself, my neighbors, the children, I'm also gonna bring in the possibility on the environment and our ecosystem. I when I purchased this property, I had no idea there would be raccoons in my backyard. I had no idea that there would be coyotes that were running down the street. I had no idea that we would have possums running all day long. By the way, my beagles love all of these family members that come visit our backyard.

I'm sure my neighbors don't like my beagles for that purpose. But we've got hawks. We've got I've seen kit foxes. I've seen all sorts of stuff run up and down this canal where this water district is, and it butts into I I don't know where the actual homes are, but these animals are frequently visiting our backyard. We don't have homes behind my property.

We have a dirt road, a canal, and then the water district. So it's very I guess it's very environmental to other things that are living around there. It's kind of funny. We actually also have rats who have not been welcome on my property, and they try to come on my property and into the house. And I have evicted them in probably not the nicest ways, but I had to do what I was necessary.

And, I mean, they've they've got places they need to go to. And, unfortunately, I kinda feel like maybe I'm now that rodent that is in this huge project that is having this collateral effect on, if you don't like it, move. We're gonna do it. You know? And it's just not what I signed up for when I purchased the property.

I don't think it's anyone's intention here to have negative health effects or even questionable health effects. But why take the risk? And why I don't understand why we can't construct this somewhere else out in that area. There is so much land out there that is not necessarily being used right now, that is not residentially encompassed. And it might cost the city something, but there are other ways to take care of the cost.

We can increase the taxes around that area to get everybody to chip in. We could send out letters to people that are even outside the required minimum distance who are still going to be affected by the 150 foot tower, they just don't know it yet. But I'm sure when it gets put up, they will see it. But

other than that,

we've got a lot of great minds here, and I I just really hope we're we're looking at all all of the avenues that we have available to us. Again, the it sounds like six of these things are going around our city. It seems like other locations are available, or else we wouldn't have six other locations. Whether or not the city owns a piece of property right now with the current zoning code for it might be an issue, but that doesn't mean the city can't acquire a property and create the zoning for it that everybody would be okay with. And without taking any more time, I want to thank you for listening and just hope we come to the right conclusion.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Coding. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak in opposition of the project? If so, please step to the microphone, identify yourself and proceed. Seeing none, does any Commissioner have questions for the public on this item?

Remember, this is the time not the time to express any opinions on the matter, only the time to ask questions. Commissioner Martin.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have a question for Federal Engineering. When looking at the locations, I guess maybe if you want to come up to the podium, federal or whoever. Sorry. Just had one question on it.

Depends on the question.

Yeah, I guess so. When looking at the different locations where these sites were to

be

placed, was it is it important to that they needed to be in certain areas to make sure that the whole system could connect?

You want to take? Yeah.

So as Mark had pointed out at the beginning, you know, this is fewer sites actually than than what you have today. One of the real key things and I know it's it's it's kind of a big delineation between the the what they call the radio coverage that that as the gentleman said, kind of, you know, is is for the coverage of public safety. And there's the connectivity between the sites, which is a point to point microwave connection that really is just focused power directed at and and the reason for, for example, that the Agwater or Buena Vista increase is really for that point to point connection to be able to connect those six sites up. So part of the redundancy is to create like a a loop. And then that way if something for God forbid, something happens to one of those links, you have the ability to still have those sites talking to one another and then providing the coverage.

So the tower height increase again is for that reliability of the talking from one site to another, that microwave connectivity.

Right. Okay.

And that was really predicated on the radio coverage with the six sites. And that is already a reduction from what you have today.

Because we did have 10 sites. Now we're going to six. So it's really a 4040% reduction in the amount of towers. Correct. So exactly. Thank you. That's my only question. Absolutely. Thank

you, Commissioner Martin. Commissioner Commissioner Cater.

Just two quick two questions for the applicant. The first being thank you for the presentation. The presentation had mentioned sound waves and measurable impact due to the technology associated with the communication towers is regulated by the FCC and therefore you'd have to speak with them. As someone who doesn't live, eat, sleep, breathe communication towers, can you just explain what those limits are and how impact is measured as we know it today?

Okay.

So yeah, I don't have the exact numbers, but the EME study that was done really shows that it's well under the thresholds that the FCC has put forward for all again, this is this is a a nationwide threshold that's been put forward. And so the electromagnetic energy, that's what is radiated essentially out of the of the site. That is well below the the thresholds. And I think they're just checking right now. Sorry. Don't remember the number offhand.

Thank you. It doesn't make it into my daily vernacular. So I was curious if you could provide a metric. Yes. And then my second question was looking at the specific site noticing that the existing tower that's being removed is West of the proposed tower. I was just curious if you could speak a little bit to the choice of siding within the site as far as this new tower.

Yeah. And that comes back to the site that's existing today is a good site. It's already that was one of the reasons we looked at it. It provides the radio coverage in the area that that is required. The issue that that's being raised today for increasing that tower height is because because of the 10 to six towers, that connectivity between the sites to be able to connect is the is the issue. But yeah, the existing tower provides radio coverage today.

Yes. And I guess to clarify, my question was about the footprint less the the height and the interaction between the six towers has been presented. Sure. As far as the the siting, I'm looking at the site plan provided in the staff report.

Oh,

sure. Noticing that the current tower is west of the proposed tower and I was just concerned. I was just curious about the analysis or just the how the position of where this new tower occurs on this specific site came to be.

Yeah. Go ahead and take that. Okay. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. I mean this is a water treatment plant. This is not a communications facility or an open parking lot. So you know what you see here are buildings, but there's also underground piping and stuff. So we work with the water department on what location on the property that we could place this tower. We looked at other options or even adjacent to the existing tower. And there was just no part of the property where the tower would fit that wasn't already being utilized by by the Water Department. This this really was the only location. I think if we had our choice, I think it would be closer to the other tower. There just is not enough space to put it there.

You know, I think the question's been asked about coverage and why here. I think the way to think about radio coverage is, you know, it puts essentially a circle of coverage. Right? So you need a circle here, a circle here, a circle here. And that's what these six sites are providing. When you put all these circles together, that makes that gives the enough coverage for them. So these aren't placed just arbitrarily here because there's land. It's because it fits within that network and it makes these this coverage map.

Thank you, Chair, if I may. This is the time only for questions from the Commission to be answered. There is a time for rebuttal for answering questions from applicants and other portions.

Oh, Commissioner had asked about some coverage, I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. Sorry.

I want make sure we weren't. I

thought you were doing fine, but I'm

so sorry. It was a good point of order. Thank you. Sorry about

I think you, Commissioner Carter, you had to ask about where do we fit in the threshold of what the FCC allowances.

Thank you for or just to explain the metric. It's a metric that I'm not familiar with.

So just kind of talk. I'm not the expert on this either, but I was just told by one of the engineers that it's less than 1% of what's allowable by the FCC. So it's way below, you know, we could turn this up 99% more and it'd still fall I should say 98% and still fall within the guidelines.

Thank you. Those are my questions.

Thank you. Any other? No? Oh, Commissioner Brent Oliver? You're not on there at all, you go ahead.

Doctor. My

question is for staff. I think it's a valid question that Mr. Koenig raises and I just want to take it one step further where so for instance, right near that site is our park, a huge river walk park. And is there a reason why that wouldn't work out? I mean, that's only, I don't know, several 100 feet away. Would it just completely crash the this circle of influence that you need for the radio tower? I'm just curious as to why the park wasn't it's so much farther away from residences.

Yeah. I mean, I will say the park was not taken into consideration. This is an existing site. The original plan was to use the existing tower and and that was the plan all along. And, you know, we the whole network was designed around this location.

And just moving the tower just a little, you know, even though it doesn't sound that far, it affects those microwave shots. If you can't see those other sites that it needs to connect to, then it's not going to work. So this was the ideal location that already made the connections so that would make the connections to other site. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Brent Oliver. I have two questions for staff and then two questions for the applicant. For staff, the first question, we're voting on item 6A, 6B, and 6C separately, but we're discussing all three together now at the same time?

We're actually just discussing the 6A? 6A, but they want to provide a background to the whole site or system.

So questions to 6A primarily at this point? Okay. And then I guess the other question for staff. This radio tower that we're talking, the only one we're talking about right now is uncamouflaged. It's in the board report. Was that a specification within the city's desire, the county's partnership? Is there a reason why it's an uncamouflaged tower versus camouflaged?

Lattice tower is an option. Camouflage also would have been or could have been an option as well. I don't know if that was in the design for the lattice tower or if there's a specification why it needs to be a lattice tower rather than camouflage. But they chose to go with the lattice tower, which is also within the ordinance.

Understood. So I've got a shifting question to the applicant now, I believe. For the applicant, is there a selection justification on lattice versus camouflage, especially in areas that are going to be in residential or semi residential?

Yeah. In order to get that height, it has to be lattice. You can't have a pole that's disguised as like a palm tree or something like that. It has to have that that large footprint and it kind of goes back to why did we choose that location on the property. The footprint of that tower is, you know, it's maybe 20 foot wide. But yeah, there's no option to get that the height that are required with camouflage tower.

Understood. And the two other questions on this tower specifically. The first one, you'd stated the heights are for clearance on the trees, Fresno zone and then the 50 nine's. 50 nine's is the public minimum code, right? What's the actual radio system going to be? Is that 50 nine's or did it achieve a higher certification?

So the reliability availability of that link exactly, sir, is five nines. The radio system itself for the coverage footprint is basically 95% of the actual service area at a 95% reliability level. So it doesn't mean there we all know there's gonna be marginal areas. But, yeah, essentially, that that's it. And the link availability, as I mentioned before, is the is really the Five Nines.

That's the ability to connect between the sites to really make sure that the sites are up and running. Because as we know, if we lose that one site, then there's a big coverage hole for public safety first responders in that area. So even if the site's fine, if you lose the if you lose that connectivity because it's not Five9's availability. And we all know there's acts of nature and so forth. But overall, the entire system is designed for that level of redundancy and resiliency, hence hence the Five9's. Sure.

And while I think it's it may have been understood, but can you explain five nines?

Oh, sure. Yeah. Five nines reliably is that means the link is available 99.999% of the time. So I mean, you're looking at like, I forgot the exact measurement, but like minutes of downtime essentially in calendar year. And that's the type of reliability that this is designed for.

And just to clarify, you had said earlier that's also the code, right? You're required for public utilities to have five nines.

Yeah. So public safety grade exactly is what that's designed to.

Awesome. Thank you. And then I guess the final question I had was on the height of this specific tower at 150 foot with the previous tower being 80 foot or some change. Did you model lower heights for these towers to also receive five dines in the system?

So, yeah. So that's why it's the absolute minimum. We did model because obviously we don't we didn't just get to one fifty, Achir, as you mentioned. So we kind of modeled it and just kept checking. And in the Fresnel zone is, you know, obstructions and so forth. And, unfortunately, that five nines was not being achieved until we got to this height. Now this height also does, as I mentioned in my in my presentation, give you room for that tree growth. And so that is also into consideration here so that we're not in this position five years from now because, oh, the trees grew a bit more and now there's an issue with the availability. So it was really designed for substantial that ability to basically have that additional tree growth, which was factored into the calculations.

Thank you. And then I guess final question, something that had come up earlier. Are there any lighted components to the top of this microwave tower? Anything?

No, I don't believe so. There's nothing from the FAA or no? No, there is not.

So nothing for radio. And then on the generator itself, typical exercise process, it's once a week run time for ten minutes, then off?

Exactly. It'd be just the way it's actually, probably the way it's operating today, right? Yeah. It'd be the way it's operating today.

Understood. Thank you. No further questions. Thank you, sir. Seeing no other commissioner questions, is there anyone who wishes to provide a rebuttal on this item? If so, be prepared to step to the podium. Each side will have only five minutes, starting with those in favor. So please make your comments succinctly without repeating the remarks of previous speakers to ensure that everyone wishing to provide a rebuttal comment has a chance to do so.

Okay. Thank you. My name is Mark Mayes with Federal Engineering. Yeah, I just wanted to kind of respond to a couple of the of the comments the gentleman made in a, you know, nobody takes these these comments lightly. And, you know, I think we addressed the health concerns and we're well below that threshold.

And, you know, I understand that's a personal thing and that we all have to decide what we're comfortable with. The city would never in Normie or Motorola or or anybody for that matter would want to put anybody in in danger. And so we make sure that we're with well within those limits. And that's that's not any nobody wants to be part of that or cause any harm to anybody. So that that is taken into account.

And it's it's a concern. And I know, you know, I've heard and read the same things the gentleman pointed out that, you know, jury's still out essentially on long term effects. And I think that goes for a lot of things, not just radio towers. But but we you know, it is designed to operate well below the the allowable limits. The other thing I want to point out is there is a tower there today. You know, you can see that visibly from from this house. I believe he he mentioned that this is just replacing. Is it larger? Yes, it is. But it is necessary.

And, you know, as far as values of homes go, I mean, you know, that that's an opinion. I believe the house values in that area have gone up in that tower's been there all along. So I don't know that there's a real correlation. You know, I guess kind of make the opposite side, right? If values have gone up in the towers there that it increases the value. I I don't think that's the case. But I think what really boils down to is when when we purchase homes or, you know, we know what's there and we don't know what's going to be there in the future. There could be a building that just shows up unless you own that property and control, you know, what what can be there. Then, you know, we don't know what we're going get in the future. But I don't want to again.

His point is valid. You know, I don't know that anybody wants to see any kind of obstruction from their home. But

I

do think the importance of this particular tower needs to be taken into account that it is for public safety. It isn't just for for cellular or something like that. It isn't just the city of Bakersfield, the police department. I believe the California Highway Patrol also has an antenna on this system as well. Them. I believe the water department relies on it as well to communicate with other other things. I think, you know, as far as, you know, an eyesore, I know it's always shocking, especially when we're more and more that we're that close to anything at first. But, you know, like everything, we we get used to it, right? Where there's towers all over this this town. We're only talking about one here. But there

is when we looked at the

whole network, there's actually several within the city limits. Isn't just this, but there's plenty out there today. There's power poles, there's buildings, there's all kinds of things that we just kind of take for granted because they're there. And over time, you know, we do get used to that. I'm not I'm not saying he doesn't have a real concern. It is very close to his home. There's no no debating that. But I do think with time, it'll just become, you know, something that's there. And that's all I have. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who wishes to provide a rebuttal in favor of this item? Seeing none. I will turn rebuttal. Is there anyone who wishes to speak in rebuttal in opposition to this item? So please step to the microphone, identify yourself and proceed.

Thank you. Bo Koenig.

Thank you.

I'll just keep it short. I I don't think I'm going to get used to it with a 150 foot tower in my backyard. But my opinion differs strongly from what I've just heard. In addition, it was asked if other areas were taken under consideration. And from the people that are trying to move forward with the project, they said yes.

However, when the question was asked, was River Park ever looked at as a possibility? The answer was no. And it's hard for me to believe I just learned this term, five nine, a few minutes ago. It's hard for me to believe that River Park, which is, I wouldn't even say it's a quarter mile away, maybe from this location, especially when you're taking a line of sight in the air, 150 feet. I seriously doubt it would affect a 5.9 rating to even look over there to see if it would be appropriate.

It's a much less residential area. It seems like it could blend in easier in that location. The residential area that we're talking about is not just $500 to $700,000 area homes. There are also homes within a quarter mile that are over $1,000,000. This is a very high priced area with as far as within the Bakersfield community.

It's considered the Seven Oaks area, which is not necessarily the lower end. It's probably from the median to the higher end as far as property values in Bakersfield. But with regards of not looking into other locations, it's unfortunate that we can't do that, especially when we've got such other locations that are very close to this proposed site. In addition, I think the police department is on Buena Vista. And probably a probably a rock could be thrown from the police department over into the Water District.

It's just right on the other side there. I believe the arrow's on it. Moving this tower just slightly somewhere else, I don't believe would affect dispatch and the five nines in the in the area. I just I just strongly oppose it being in the backyard. And I want to reiterate, I I won't get used to it. It's something that would probably make my family move. I don't know how tall this one is outside of the Bakersfield. There's one right here at the police department. I parked right under it, actually. These things are massive. And I don't even know how tall that one is. It might be a 150 foot.

But they're just

they're unsightly. They're it's nothing anybody here wants in their backyard. And I feel like I can say that confidently. Nobody in this room would wanna look out their window over the fence and see this erector set of a 150 foot tower. The trees aren't even close to a 150 foot around there.

And so when we have this issue with growth, I think one of the trees in my backyard or one of the redwoods is maybe 40 or 50 feet. And I would say that's one of the taller ones in my backyard as well as the neighbors. But other than that, I'll I'll submit. And thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr. Koenig. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak in opposition in rebuttal? Seeing none, I will now close the public hearing on this item and return it to the Commission for comment and action. Open for comments. Any comments? I'm going to just call on Commissioner Martin, and then from then on, we're just going to go hand waving system.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank Federal Engineering on this and Chief Albertson and Blakemore for being here as well for this. You know, I'm actually very familiar with this. The whole project countywide, at least the county's portion, is $177,000,000 And there was areas to the Kern River Valley where we've had no connectivity for years.

And it's it's pretty scary. I can't imagine being a peace officer trying to to, you know, connect with dispatch and get critical information in a county as large as we are. And it hasn't been upgraded in over thirty years. So it the largest contract actually at least on the county side and in the county history. And I also appreciate at the same time, you know, this is I think been very thoroughly thought out and planned as best we could as we see with the reduction of towers at least in the city's portion from 10 to six.

Understanding it is significantly taller and looking for, you know, towards the future so that we can have our five nines and make sure that our public safety is looked after and that they can communicate with each other. And for Mr. Koenig, I also understand if my house was there too, I do understand the frustration of that. I do. I think anybody would.

But also, know, for the safety of our residents and to make sure that we have the appropriate connectivity. It's one of those things that for the greater, you know, good of of the entire community in this county of a million people. It's just unfortunate we couldn't have put it maybe somewhere else, but I think it has to be done and it's a major investment infrastructure in this city. And connecting with the county will also be a tremendous benefit so they're no longer separate. So I am supportive of it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Commissioner Martin. Vice Chair Biddle?

Not to mirror Commissioner Martin, but I agree. Technology scares me. I know how quickly it's been moving everything from the cars to our children carrying tablets and phones in their pockets. We really don't know what the long term effects of any of this is going to be, but we can't weigh it into our decision making when we have clear rules of what's allowable and what's not allowable from the state. So looking at it from a community standpoint, nobody wants it in their backyard.

Nobody wants anything in their backyard. But when it comes to public safety, this isn't taken lightly. This takes a long time, a lot of consideration into properties all over the place. So in the last ten, six years, whatever it's been, there's been a lot of consideration about where this is going. So I and these are one of those unfortunate things where we understand where you're coming from but we also understand the needs of the community.

Thank you, Vice Chair Biddle. Commissioner Cater.

Thank you. Yes, I really appreciate the presentation. Think appreciate the, that we're looking to the future of connectivity and safety and clear communication for emergency services. I also would like to just thank the staff, the staff planner on the project, Michael Bell. I think one of the things I always appreciate is the why, like what does our opinion matter in this conversation?

As mentioned, you know, this is a very large infrastructure project that engages with the County that has had many years, decades of planning gone into it. And I really appreciate Michael Bell's summary at the end that it's coming to us because right now the proposed tower exceeds the height that's allowed in our municipal code. And it also is located too close to a residential zone based on the standards that we have put in as the city. I want to thank the applicant. I think the need for technology to connect, to speak, to put an infrastructure project in that is a $117,000,000 that doesn't get blocked by an oak tree is a very effective thing to be aware of.

And so I think, you know, as a note to staff kind of analyzing the technology component to make sure that our laws are current with the needs of technology as far as height. My question about the placement of it on the water treatment site is the 300 foot setback from the residential is just the one aspect of the project that I don't know why we couldn't have achieved that. I mean, I'm sure there were reasons and there's, it's a very active site. There's a lot of, there's, you're, you're located next to a very large tank looking at Google Earth during the presentation. The parking situation near the tower doesn't seem to be the most organized parking drive through in our city.

So that's just one question that stands out to me. Again, don't think that it negates the value of the project or the height which has been largely the center of conversation and concern. It's just, you know, when we are, we do have these objective metrics of where we as a city have codified these lines in the sand. I think a little bit more justification of why that couldn't have been met on this particular tower would have been appreciated.

Thank you, Commissioner Cater. Commissioner Brandolver?

Thank you. I really, really appreciate Mr. Koenig coming. I'm actually surprised that more neighbors didn't show up and I think it's super important that we engage with the neighbors and we I really did listen to everything you said. My biggest opinion about this is that there was an existing tower there when you moved in.

This is this the people that I feel the worst about are the ones that don't have anything in their backyard when they move there. So it's not a huge shock. I do realize it's much taller but it won't look much different from your backyard. And I do think it's really needed. I'm just disappointed that we didn't look at something else like putting it in our park or something like that.

I kind of wish that staff would try to take our concerns from our citizens a little bit more into account when we do big projects like this. I think this was an easy location because it had an existing, you know, and we probably thought we weren't going to get a lot of pushback and there was probably a lot of infrastructure that was available there and didn't need much change here. But so I'm just a little disappointed that we didn't research a few more but I know it's needed. I'm definitely going to, you know, support this. But Mr. Koenig, thank you for being here and thank you for speaking your mind. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Commissioner Brent Oliver. And I'll summarize not to repeat the comments that have already been made. This is one of the few projects that comes across that I'm technically able to talk about, right? I spend more time going over cellular analysis, radio planning, link planning for clients. So I understand the effort it goes to get minimum standard in, right? I don't like the height of the tower. I hate the height of the tower. I think everyone hates the height of the tower. But I understand on the technical aspect, the height of the tower is the nature of the beast. I did a job years ago in the southern conduit out towards Santa Barbara.

Not in Santa Barbara, but towards the area where the land mobile radios were so impacted by trees that officers would take calls and then drive around to an area and lose connection back. So kind of what Chief Albertson and Assistant Chief Blake Moore were saying, you know, we're lucky that that's not been the case, but it's hard to understate the tree growth impact, the city growth. We continue to approve buildings of higher density, higher elevations. Now that's a block of something built thirty years ago, and that's only going to get worse. So I don't like the height of the tower, but I understand that there's engineering behind that, there's process.

And if they could have come in with a 50 foot tower to do it, they would have done a 50 foot tower. There's no money to be made on putting a 150 foot tower just to do it. So with that said, I appreciate the comment. I support the project all the same. And then I'll still look for any kind of direction from my commissioners.

I'll make a motion to approve line item 6A.

Second. That is motion to approve by Vice Chair Biddle and seconded by Commissioner Martin. Commissioners, please cast your votes.

Motion passes with Commissioner Core and Commissioner Neal absent.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Next item, please.

Excuse me, Chair.

May I go ahead

and please read the appeal?

You certainly can. One of these days I'll remember.

Thank you. You may appeal

a Planning Commission decision to City Council by submitting your request in writing with the city clerk within ten days of the date of the Commission's decision. Your appeal must state the reason for the appeal and the relation to the project. A filing fee may be required. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, next item, please.

Agenda Item 6B, Nonconsent public hearing items.

Would staff please present their report for Item 6B?

Yes, Chair. For Item 6B, have Assistant Director Katie Reed. Thank you.

You guys get me again. I'm short. Okay. So Item 6B is the second tower that we're here to discuss this evening. This one is located at 4200 Panorama Drive.

This was actually in my neighborhood. So 42 Panorama Dry, Panorama Drive is in the Northeast of town. It is, if you drive along Panorama, there are a couple of water towers there, and it's a space in between two residential areas. A few years ago, the technology services assisted the fire department in moving a temporary building out there, while they were remodeling their Station 8. So that's the, the pad that you see there.

The zoning in this area is a residential one, Hillside Development. Its current land use designation is low density residential. However, currently, it is a a dirt field. We do have a a tower at this location, currently. It's farther off.

It's not on this it's not on this drawing, the existing tower. The new tower, we've got here on the enlarged site plan. This one is a 165 feet, I believe. Oh, one ninety five. Sorry. And I can't see. A 195 feet, and I'm happy to have Federal Engineering or Motorola answer any questions.

Thank you. The public hearing on this item is now open. Is there anyone who wishes to speak in favor of the project? If so, please step to the microphone, identify yourself, and proceed. Seeing none, is there anyone who wishes to speak in opposition to project? Please step to the microphone, identify yourself, and proceed. Seeing none, does any Commissioner have questions for the public on this item? Remember, this is not the time to express opinions on the matter. It is only the time to ask questions. Seeing none, I had a question for the applicant on the height of this tower.

And it's a technical question. So just for the height of this one, this one stands out the most. It's 195 feet. The other is 150. Is that because of the topology out towards the canyon? Is that is that what we're looking at?

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. It's not too technical. Yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah.

You know, it was a good point.

I know we're speaking about this tower, but, yeah, we wouldn't never put a a tower higher unless it was absolutely necessary. But, yeah, in order for the same reasons we spoke about before, in order to get these micro microwave shots to the reliability that's required for public safety standards, it has to be at that height. If it was lower 185, we'd do 185, but this is what the engineers come up with.

Yeah. Understood. And this this tower is also gonna be shared multi use. This will be the county, the city, water utilities, etcetera.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's right now it's it's used by multiple entities, not just the city, and it will be in in the future as well. And yeah, the whole network will belong to both the city and the county.

Okay. That's all the questions I had. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Seeing no other questions and there was no comment in favor or opposition, we won't do a rebuttal. I will now close the public hearing on the item and return it to the Commission for comment and action.

Motion on nonconsent item 6B.

Second.

Motion by Commissioner Martin and seconded by Vice Chair Biddle. Commissioners, please cast your votes.

Motion passes with Commissioner Kaur and Commissioner Neal absent.

Staff, would you provide us with the appeal for this item?

Chair, we will not need to do the appeal. We didn't have any opposition on this.

Madam Clerk, next item, please.

Item 6C. Non consent public hearing item.

Staff, would you please provide you us with the report for Item 6C?

Yes, sure. To close it out for presentations, I invite Katie Reed. Thank you.

Thank you. Chair, Commissioners, our third tower site this evening is located at 9001 Ash Road. Many of you may recognize this image. This is our, sports village, out on Ash with all of our soccer parks. It's a a one of our city's jewels.

Current zone classification, it's mixed. We've got agriculture. We've got light manufacturing, recreation, and regional commercial. Current use, as you know, it's public facilities, open space, general commercial. Currently, the location where the tower will go is used as overflow parking for the park.

You'll see here the location is actually in a dirt road a dirt field on the opposite side of McKee Road from the park. And, again, this is we'll have the entrance going into the tower. It'll be completely fenced off, and we've actually been working with our recreation and parks department on the the siding for or the the don't wanna call them the aesthetics, but on the location. We approached our recreation and parks, so I have to give a shout out to Darren Budak and his group for allowing us to put the tower on this location. And with that, we're open to questions.

Thank you, Ms. Reed. Is there anyone in the public who would like to speak in oh, wait. No, wait. The public hearing is now open. Is there anyone who wishes to speak in favor of the project? If so, please step to the microphone, identify yourself, and proceed. Seeing none, is there anyone who wishes to speak in opposition to the project? Also seeing none, is there any Commissioner that has a question for a member of the public on this item? Commissioner Brandt Oliver.

I just have a quick one. And there's no existing tower on this site, correct?

The city is currently on in that upper corner where the the four circles are. That's the wastewater treatment plant. They're on currently on a tower owned by a tower company. And that was obviously, of course, the first option to try to reutilize that existing tower. But structurally, it does not support the weight of the the new equipment, so it couldn't be used.

Also, it's it's it's really unique tower where the city's equipment building is literally underneath the footprint of the tower. And in order to do any kind of modifications, that building would have to be removed and, you know, they would have to improve the concrete there, which is is not an option. You would have to take the public safety system offline to do that. And in addition to that, there's just not enough tower space to put the antennas. Public safety antennas are are very big.

You need they're 20 foot long and you need two sections of tower for that. So it was taken into consideration. That's always, again, always the first choice is to use what's existing there. It just it it didn't work that tower. And it doesn't belong to the city. It belongs to a tower company. And they have other wireless carriers and other tenants on that tower as well. So it was taken into consideration as well as other parts of the park. And this is, as Katie mentioned, you know, this is the location that the Parks Department decided would be the less intrusive, I guess, because I know there's there's plans for all kinds of things in this area, and this was the area that that worked for us for them.

Can I have a follow-up question?

The floor is yours.

So just to be clear, do you happen to know how high that existing tower is? I just didn't see it on the map set, so I didn't know in your other documents you had shown, hey, there's an existing tower but So we're going to remove I'm just thinking to make it clear for neighbors listening to this later.

Yeah, understood. There

is an existing tower. It's very close to this location, correct? This proposed location is what I meant.

There's not. No. The existing tower, I don't know what the height is. 320 feet is the existing tower. So this isn't a case of any additional height. It's a monster of a tower. No question about it. Okay. Thank you.

I had a question for applicant, probably better for comment section, but just a question. Is there any additional security for this site? Because this is a pretty there's a lot of people that do burnouts and stuff right in that parking lot. Is there any enhanced security for this building compared to the others? Or can you at least speak to the security of these buildings?

No. There's not an additional compared to any of the other ones. Agwater is the one we spoke about before is probably the most secure because it's it's regulated much heavily because it's a water plant. I know there there will just be a fence with locks on it. I've seen the pronounced, so I understand what you're talking about for sure. And right now, it's just a fence. It will be locked and enclosed If there's additional efforts that are needed, you know, for theft or vandalism, we can take that into account if that's what comes up. If the city desires to do that, we can certainly include that at a future date. But right now it's just a fence lock.

Thank you. No further questions? Seeing no other Commissioner questions, is there anyone who wishes no rebuttal because there was no one again. Perfect. I will now close the public hearing on this item and return it to the Commission for comment and action. And then oh, oh, no. Oh, sorry. I would just like to make the comment that it's not really part of our purview, but I would recommend some kind of look at security on this one. Well, go to that park frequently. My girlfriend plays soccer there.

She's the gifted one. And that place has a lot of traffic and a lot of burnouts and a lot of people there late at night, which is great that they're there. But also if there were any of these radios we've looked at that I'd be concerned on it that one. So I don't know if a fence and just a lock is sufficient, but at least like the comments passed along as part of the review. And then

Yep, absolutely. Thank you. I Thank appreciate you.

I'll make a motion to approve 6C.

Second.

Motion by Vice Chair Biddle and seconded by Commissioner Brandt Oliver. Commissioners, please cast your votes.

My board is not coming up, so I'm just going to do a voice vote.

Yeah, can we hold off for a few moments? Can we take a break? Yeah,

I did. Chair Strickland?

Oh, Vice

yes.

Thank you. Vice Chair Biddle? Yes. Commissioner Brandt Oliver? Yes. Commissioner Cater?

Yes.

And Commissioner Martin?

Yes.

Motion passes with Commissioner Core and Commissioner Neal absent.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Next item, please.

Agenda Item seven, Communications.

Does staff have any communication items?

Chair, Commissioners, staff, we will have a March 5 hearing meeting. Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you, sir. Madam Clerk, next item, please.

Agenda Item eight, Commissioner Comments.

Does any Commissioner have any comments? I just I will add the comment that I hope the applicant's well as the process continues along, I'm really looking forward to having a reliable and increased communication for our first responders and others. So Madam Clerk, next item, please.

Agenda item nine, adjournment.

This meeting is adjourned at 07:06 p. M.