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Politics & Government

Column: Albany City Council's Cell Phone Farce Needs to Stop

On Tuesday night, Jan. 17 at 6:30 p.m. (one hour before the start of the regular meeting), the City Council will hear public comments before they go into closed session to discuss the Verizon lawsuit. See the lawsuit here.

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Hey, does anybody know how to contact the writers for Jon Stewarts’ Daily Show? It turns out we have a situation here in Albany that is so bizarre that is would make for a great comedy piece on the Daily Show. Unfortunately, no one is making this up, and no one is laughing: 

Here in Albany, we just learned from the city that it collects more than $300,000 annually from imposing a 6.5 percent user utility tax on our cell phones. This is true even though it is the city that is trying to prevent both our AT&T and our Verizon phones from working.

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Many AT&T customers in particular complain that their phones in Albany. This is not the fault of AT&T. The company has been working to get a new cell site installed at 1035 San Pablo Ave. for four years. The city keeps layering on new requirements at every Planning & Zoning meeting in a way that is absurd—and probably discriminatory and illegal. So far, AT&T hasn’t sued.

The same can’t be said for Verizon, the other major provider of cell services. Verizon’s cell phones get decent reception in many parts of the city, but the quality of the service depends on a cell facility at one location, a tower south of El Cerrito Plaza. Verizon has attempted to upgrade its antennas to maintain coverage, but the company has been blocked by the city. Unlike AT&T, Verizon has sued, stating that Albany’s cell tower ordinance violates federal law.

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More than a year ago, as the issue heated up, I in an op/ed piece on the Albany Patch.

It’s not that I am good at predicting the future, but rather that the City Council is so out of touch that a lawsuit was inevitable.

If the council members choose to fight this lawsuit, it only shows to what extent they have finally completely lost touch with reality. The current council will remain in power until new members are seated after the November elections. Between now and then, the council could throw away tens of thousands of dollars defending the city’s cell tower ordinance—an ordinance that should never have been passed in the first place.

On Tuesday night, Jan. 17 at 6:30 p.m. (one hour before the start of the regular meeting), the City Council before they go into closed session to discuss the Verizon lawsuit. This is your chance to speak out. 

As Albany residents and cell phone users, we ultimately pay for both sides in this lawsuit. Our Verizon cell phone fees cover the cost of the company’s litigation, while our city taxes cover the cost of the city’s attorneys.

The residents of Albany need to let the council members know that we want a strict accounting of how our money is spent fighting this lawsuit. As an Albany resident and cell phone user, I am not interested in having the council waste any more of our money attempting to prevent our cell phones from working properly.

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