According to this newspaper story, East Hampton is set to erect a 300' tower on Starr Top Hill (which happens to be about 1/2 of a mile from the Montauk airport)
https://indyeastend.com/news-opinion/south-fork/eh-town-board-okays-fire-com-towers/
I remember that about 5 or so years ago, the Coast Guard wanted to erect an approx 200' tower for the new Rescue 21 VHF network at the Town recycling center which is about 1 mile from the Montauk airport. The FAA shot that down and the Coast Guard's tower was trimmed down to about 150' so as not to "interfere with air traffic".
I have to wonder how a township thinks it will be able to get permission from the FAA for a 300' tower with an airport 1/2 mile away when the Dept of Homeland Security (USCG) could not build a 200' tower 1 mile away! Maybe due diligence has been overlooked here?
Anyway, another newspaper - The East Hampton Star - just published this letter to the editor which mentions the purchase of 700 mhz radios which are still on the shelf in their boxes:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
East Hampton
October 22, 2018
Dear David:
Running the Town of East Hampton is not just a bigger version of rebuilding the Amagansett Life-Saving Station. It’s a bit more complicated than that.
Months ago, the town board purchased a new, supposed to be state-of-the-art, 700 mega-Hertz emergency communications system to replace an aging and failing system. The equipment still sits in the boxes it came in because, after buying it, the town board discovered that it could not be installed on our existing communications towers in their current condition. Some are too short, some are in poor physical condition, some are already at capacity.
A couple of months ago, I called to public attention that this meant the town board had never engineered the system as a whole before buying it. That is a pretty obvious step to anyone with experience with systems more complicated than a two-story building.
A few days after I made that point, the town board hired an engineer for the communications system. Better late than never. Last week we learned that in order for the system to function correctly, there needs to be a new communications tower, 300 feet tall, in Montauk, about twice the height of the existing tower there.
Eric Schantz, a senior planner, and Eddie Schnell, communications technician, were invited to the board work session that I attended last week to explain that the geography of the town demands a 300-foot tower and that locating the tower with others near the old Montauk dump would minimize the impacts. That’s a pretty amazing discovery this late in the game, as the geography has not changed for a few thousand years. Nobody talked about the cost of a 300-foot steel lattice tower.
Maybe they have it right this time. Or maybe not. A five-minute oral presentation is not the basis on which such decisions are normally made. So I asked Councilman Bragman about the engineering report that explains why and how the system as a whole should be built as now proposed. He said that as far as he knows there is no such report. There are plans for the individual towers, but no engineering/design report for the system as a whole.
As well, after preventing use of the tower built by the Springs Fire Department three years ago, the town board still has made no provision or proposal for covering Springs and eliminating dead spots there. Thus, the new system is being designed with a big hole in it.
Is the new Montauk tower the right tower in the right spot so that the whole system will function properly, including Springs when they finally get around to it? How would anyone know if the system still has not been engineered? And if it has been, where is the engineering report?
In the words of the immortal Casey Stengel in 1962, while managing an inept Mets team to a 40-120 season, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”
Sincerely,
DAVID GR****ER
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So speaking of due diligence, is it really possible the Town bought the 700mhz radios before doing the engineering and permitting?
https://indyeastend.com/news-opinion/south-fork/eh-town-board-okays-fire-com-towers/
I remember that about 5 or so years ago, the Coast Guard wanted to erect an approx 200' tower for the new Rescue 21 VHF network at the Town recycling center which is about 1 mile from the Montauk airport. The FAA shot that down and the Coast Guard's tower was trimmed down to about 150' so as not to "interfere with air traffic".
I have to wonder how a township thinks it will be able to get permission from the FAA for a 300' tower with an airport 1/2 mile away when the Dept of Homeland Security (USCG) could not build a 200' tower 1 mile away! Maybe due diligence has been overlooked here?
Anyway, another newspaper - The East Hampton Star - just published this letter to the editor which mentions the purchase of 700 mhz radios which are still on the shelf in their boxes:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
East Hampton
October 22, 2018
Dear David:
Running the Town of East Hampton is not just a bigger version of rebuilding the Amagansett Life-Saving Station. It’s a bit more complicated than that.
Months ago, the town board purchased a new, supposed to be state-of-the-art, 700 mega-Hertz emergency communications system to replace an aging and failing system. The equipment still sits in the boxes it came in because, after buying it, the town board discovered that it could not be installed on our existing communications towers in their current condition. Some are too short, some are in poor physical condition, some are already at capacity.
A couple of months ago, I called to public attention that this meant the town board had never engineered the system as a whole before buying it. That is a pretty obvious step to anyone with experience with systems more complicated than a two-story building.
A few days after I made that point, the town board hired an engineer for the communications system. Better late than never. Last week we learned that in order for the system to function correctly, there needs to be a new communications tower, 300 feet tall, in Montauk, about twice the height of the existing tower there.
Eric Schantz, a senior planner, and Eddie Schnell, communications technician, were invited to the board work session that I attended last week to explain that the geography of the town demands a 300-foot tower and that locating the tower with others near the old Montauk dump would minimize the impacts. That’s a pretty amazing discovery this late in the game, as the geography has not changed for a few thousand years. Nobody talked about the cost of a 300-foot steel lattice tower.
Maybe they have it right this time. Or maybe not. A five-minute oral presentation is not the basis on which such decisions are normally made. So I asked Councilman Bragman about the engineering report that explains why and how the system as a whole should be built as now proposed. He said that as far as he knows there is no such report. There are plans for the individual towers, but no engineering/design report for the system as a whole.
As well, after preventing use of the tower built by the Springs Fire Department three years ago, the town board still has made no provision or proposal for covering Springs and eliminating dead spots there. Thus, the new system is being designed with a big hole in it.
Is the new Montauk tower the right tower in the right spot so that the whole system will function properly, including Springs when they finally get around to it? How would anyone know if the system still has not been engineered? And if it has been, where is the engineering report?
In the words of the immortal Casey Stengel in 1962, while managing an inept Mets team to a 40-120 season, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”
Sincerely,
DAVID GR****ER
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So speaking of due diligence, is it really possible the Town bought the 700mhz radios before doing the engineering and permitting?
