By David Rogers. BLOWING ROCK, N.C. — Whether Blowing Rock’s Board of Commissioners did enough to placate those objecting to the proposed 20-foot increase in the height of a communications utility pole on town-owned Green Hill Circle property remains to be seen, but the commissioners voted unanimously to table any decision until some kind of study is done.
That was the vote at the conclusion of an almost two-hour special public hearing on July 23. Exactly what kind of study or how comprehensive it should be remained unclear.
At its July 11 meeting, the Blowing Rock Planning Board voted 5-3 recommending approval of the 80-foot utility pole’s installation, replacing the current 57-foot pole, but added that a study should be done. While the Planning Board did not stipulate that a study be done before any installation of the proposed 80-foot utility pole, that is essentially what the Town Council decided to do — perhaps to avoid the veiled threats of one or more lawsuits posed by attorney Nathan Miller in representing a group of Green Hill residents belonging to a Protect Blowing Rock Neighborhoods LLC. When asked by Commissioner Pete Gherini, Miller was unable to provide a number for how many members are part of the LLC.
Editor’s Note: The North Carolina Secretary of State website lists Protect Blowing Rock Neighborhoods LLC’s Registered Agent as Thomas L. Ross III of Blowing Rock and the Organizer as Raymond L. Lancaster of Charlotte, as of the Aug. 8, 2023, filing of its Articles of Organization. It also states that a current annual report has not yet been filed and due.
What became clear during the testimonies of Town Manager Shane Fox, Police Chief Nathan Kirk and the several residents speaking during the public hearing portion of the meeting, including Miller and the commissioners, is that everyone values good communications among law enforcement, firefighting, and public works personnel.
The sticking points, of course, are how to best achieve that objective and at what cost.
In answer to a question from Commissioner David Harwood, Fox estimated that replacing the current 57-foot pole with an 80-foot utility pole would cost the Town of Blowing Rock between $10,000 and $13,000. That solution extends the functionality of the current VHF (very high frequency) communications technology employed by police, fire, and public works personnel since the mid-1970s.
Fox added that moving to a more modern, digital communications network would cost approximately $18,000 per employee radio, of which the town currently owns 75 of them, so replacing the radios alone would cost at least $500,000, assuming that not all 75 would be replaced (75 times $18,000 = $1,350,000). Replacing the entire network, he said, “… would be double or triple the cost of the radios, or between $1 million and $2 million.”
As with the Town’s gravity-fed water system, Fox stated that the Green Hill Circle location is the optimum site for the communications pole because it is the highest elevation in town at 3,925 feet and VHF radio transmissions require line of sight. Unfortunately, the current 57-foot pole’s utility is being degraded and diminished by the tree canopy that has grown up around it. Fox stated that police, fire, and public works employees had all noticed improved service in the winter when there are little or no leaves. Similarly, they have noticed poorer communications in recent years as the trees have grown.
What should be the mission?
What seemed to be missing by the Town Council’s decision is clarity of purpose. Okay, a study, but what kind? How much are we willing to allocate from the budget? What do we want the study to tell us?
One of the citizens speaking, urging the commissioners to upgrade the Town’s communications network and employ more modern technology than VHF, referred to raising the height of the utility pole as a “stop gap” measure.
To anyone listening to the evidence and logic, that is exactly what a taller utility pole is, a “stop gap” measure. It buys another 15-25 years of good VHF radio communications at a relatively low cost — until the trees around it are found to have grown again, interfering with the VHF signals.
Perhaps the decision that should have been made by the Town Council: to acknowledge the taller pole as a low-cost, “stop gap” solution for the VHF-based network, pass the Town staff’s proposal as a stop-gap measure and then, in the same breath, commission a comprehensive study by (presumably) a telecommunications consultant to recommend best practices for moving forward with modern, digital technology. The same study — or a partner analysis — should also recommend how to obtain funding for a multi-million dollar initiative: grant, debt and, in all probability an increase in property taxes and their staging. Don’t do a half-ass study. Go the full monty.
Finding a solution to this dilemma is not rocket science, but ultimately any solution must be paid for.
In the short run, in addition to the Town’s manageable, $13,000 monetary cost for installation of the 80-foot utility pole, payment might also have to come from a group of Green Hill residents seeing a small antenna and possibly a utility poking above the tree canopy.
Long term, maybe the utility pole can be taken down to the relief of Green Hill residents and any tourists on the Blue Ridge Parkway bothered by seeing it, but everyone in Town, including those on Green Hill Circle, should expect to pay a higher property tax rate in implementing a more modern solution for Blowing Rock’s internal communications.
Like just about every decision, there are tradeoffs. There’s also the possibility, of course, that a telecommunications consultant’s study concludes that the best, modern day solution requires a taller, more obtrusive “tower” rather than a utility pole — on Green Hill Circle, since it is already town property and the highest elevation for such a thing.
