Thanks to everyone who was able to make it to the meeting. Another grueling night with the issue to be carried to yet another meeting on May 13th.

It was tough going, but I'm hoping that our engineer was able to get through on some of his points concerning the inappropriateness of the proposed site. We're concerned that even the Zoning Board doesn't realize just how unsafe and intrusive this cell monopole would be so close to the road on the proposed site. And we're concerned that they don't realize that there absolutely are alternative and more appropriate sites available!

Here's a summary of the points we are trying to make:

Here is a copy of the artist's rendering we had hoped to enter into evidence at the meeting last night. It wasn't accepted by the board because the artist wasn't there to testify as to her method. She couldn't be there because she lives in Hawaii.

At any rate, the photo shows the tower's close proximity to the road at the intersection of Lower Shore and Old Lower Shore Rds. which is the entrance to the Barnegat Jr. Bengal's ball fields.

Residents are concerned that because the tower is so close to the road it cannot adequately be screened, it poses an attractive nuisance to kids, and it changes the character of an otherwise historic and scenic stretch of road - one of the last pastoral, wooded and relatively untouched areas in Barnegat.

The township owns several other tracts in the immediate area where the tower could be placed back in the woods, off the road and without requiring variances. The proposed site requires a multitude of variances (up to a 75% reduction in the front yard setback) among others.

If the township doesn't choose to offer another, more appropriate site, all of the private landowners in the immediate vicinity are also willing to offer their land for the tower and again, the tower could be put back off the road, out of site and away from human activity.

We understand that there needs to be a tower in the area. We are just asking Cingular and our town government to consider a more appropriate site.

If the tower were placed further from the road in the wooded area, across Lower Shore, from the proposed site, it would be visible from a distance, but it would not be visible to someone driving, walking, biking or jogging along the road. It would not be an attractive nuisance. The trees in the area would be able to screen it.

Again, with the proposed site, the tower would be so close to the road (the near corner or the chainlink fence is only 15 feet from the property line) that no reasonble degree of screening is possible.

Jamie Griffin