Photos & captions below supplied by Ms. Griffin Click on each photo for an enlarged view.
A shot of the Verizon Cell Tower on West Bay Ave. as seen from a distance on the parkway bridge.	A shot demonstrating how well screened the tower is when viewed from the neighborhood along Nautilus Drive. The tower is behind the trees over the end peak of the taupe colored house, but can't be seen.
A shot from the corner of Nautilus Drive and West Bay Ave. The tower is in the middle of the photo, behind the trees. The tower is virtually invisible from the neighborhood because the large setback allows it to be screened by mature trees.	An artist's rendering, accurate in scale, of what the Cingular tower would look like on the proposed lot, the corner of Lower Shore and Old Lower Shore Roads. It was made to demonstrate the fact that with the enclosure starting just 15' from the property line, there would be no room to screen this tower from the road - the visual impact on the neighborhood would be huge.

We actually had a pretty good meeting last night. This time, the board allowed us to enter into evidence some photos depicting the difference between the large (150') setback of the Verizon Tower on West Bay Ave. and the tiny (15') setback of the Cingular Tower on the proposed lot, to demonstrate the fact that there would be no room for screening.

Cingular brought back an engineer, Glen Scherer, who rehashed his testimony about how safe towers are etc. The board questioned him very closely and pointed out that his comparisons of towers along the parkway cannot compare with having a cell tower enclosure fifteen feet from the property line where there are bus stops, residences and ball fields.

I testified about how my neighbors and I came to be objectors to this application. Click here to download & read Ms. Griffin's testimony (Word document). We were really encouraged for the first time in these proceedings, because the board really seemed to be listening to our concerns.

Out of the blue, Fred Rubenstein (former Chairman of the Zoning Board) asked my lawyer (Ed Liston) to put him on the stand as a witness for the objectors. The air was pretty electric at that point. The board discussed the legality of such a thing and decided that whatever Mr. Rubenstein had heard in previous meetings on this application, as Chairman of the Zoning Board, was a matter of public record anyway, but that it would be better if he testified as a resident during the final portion of the meeting.

We didn't quite reach the resident portion of the meeting, but definitely will (there is very little else left to do) at the next meeting scheduled for July 8th. There was talk of only hearing the cell tower issue that night so we will be sure to finish.