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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA ********** House Resolution 111 ********** House Subcommittee on Telecommunications Monroeville Public Library 2615 Mosside Boulevard Monroeville, Pennsylvania Tuesday, September 9, 1997 - 1:30 p.m. —oOo— BEFORE: Honorable Paul Sentinel, Majority Chairman Honorable Ronald Buxton, Minority Chairman Honorable Anthony Colaizzo ALSO PRESENT: Honorable William Lloyd June Perry Majority Executive Director Mary Keenan Minority Executive Director Linda Farling Administrative Assistant to Representative Buxton KEY REPORTERS 1300 Garrison Drive, York, PA 17404 (717) 764-7801 Fax (717) 764-6367 CONTENTS WITNESSES PAGE Opening remarks Honorable Paul Semmel 3 Kathy Kennedy, Library Director 3 Library Joel Reinbold, Executive Director 6 Connecticut Siting Council PA Department of Transportation Craig Hornberger, Sr. Air Specialist 45 Jerry Gromlowicz 5 6 Paul Rubenstein 60 Independent Consultant Joseph Fitzpatrick, Jr., Esquire 98 PA Wireless Carriers Coalition Fitzpatrick, Lentz & Bubba, P.C. Blaine Lucas, Esquire 151 Mollica & Murray CHAIRMAN SEMMEL: The hour of 1:30, we'll do some of the informal things. At this time I'd like to thank Kathy Kennedy, the library director here who arranged with June Perry for us being here today. We say thank you. If you would want to give us a little bit of a commercial for this public facility, do so. Thank you. MS. KENNEDY: My commercial will consist of telling you this would not normally be where you would be for a meeting. I don't know how many of you heard about the rains that came through here of July 1st. Everyone has heard of Pitcairn being affected. But guess what? We were too. In our basement offices, which is our nerve center of the library, the computer room and a lot of the other technical processing offices were flooded down there from rain coming in faster than ever. It came into the front door and even went into part of our carpeting here, so we had a bit of a mess too. So, our offices had to be moved to our meeting room, which is downstairs and cooler. That's where we normally have our groups meet. We have had to put groups up here in different corners of the library upstairs until that's fixed. Hopefully, this month we'll get back to normal. CHAIRMAN SEMMEL: Your service area would be — MS. KENNEDY: Monroeville and Pitcairn. And also because we have some of the regional asset district funding in Allegheny County, we do serve people that live in Allegheny County. Nonresident we still charge a nonresident fee, but our service area you could say would be Allegheny County at this point. Every month we have a different artist in here. This month it's a photographer. We have artists every month have a reception. We have a reception and they meet the people. It's a very nice feature of the library too. It kind of mixes the art and folk world together. We are happy to have you and hope you have a good afternoon and tomorrow morning too, right? CHAIRMAN SEMMEL: Exactly. Thank you again. ! MS. KENNEDY: You're welcome. CHAIRMAN SEMMEL: With this I guess we'll start the introductions. Since we know Mary is the last one I believe scheduled to arrive, maybe you can acknowledge just for the record. MS. KEENAN: Mary Keenan, Democratic Director of the committee. REPRESENTATIVE COLAIZZO: Anthony Colaizzo, representing Washington County 48th District. REPRESENTATIVE LLOYD: Bill Lloyd, Somerset County. MS. PERRY: June Perry, Republican Executive Director. MS. FARLIN6: Linda Farling, Administrative Assistant for Representative Buxton. REPRESENTATIVE BUXTON: Representative Buxton, Dauphin County. CHAIRMAN SEMMEL: Representative Sentinel, Lehigh and Berks Counties. With that, good afternoon. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you here today for the Subcommittee on Telecommunications final hearing pursuant to House Resolution 111. The Subcommittee on Telecommunications of the House Committee on Consumer Affairs will now come to order. For those of you who do not know, the subcommittee has been directed by passage of House Resolution 111 to investigate all aspects of cellular transmission antennas and to report its findings and recommendations to the House of Representatives no later than September 30th of this year. We are here today to pursue that mission. With that, at this time we'll call on Mr. Joel M. Reinbold, Executive Director, Connecticut Siting Council. MR. REINBOLD: Thank you, sir. My name is Joel Reinbold. I am Executive Director of the Connecticut Siting Council, Connecticut State Agency. I have been director for several years. I have worked with the council for approximately 15 years. Prior to that I was district manager for the United States Department of Agriculture. I also teach at the Connecticut State University System. My written testimony today that I have passed out includes procedures, guides, outlines. I have statutes and regulations with me. I've only brought one copy. They are available on the Internet. I can make written copies available at your request. I will today provide a brief description of the council's jurisdiction, a model of regulation that the council uses to regulate wireless facilities, our goals, our decision standards, examples of technical analysis, an outline showing consistency with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, common elements of a decision, and examples of the paradigm change from high-level wireless facilities to low-level wireless facilities. I will then provide a conclusion, giving some of my viewpoints on the model of state regulation of telecommunication facilities. I would also like to add that I'm delighted and honored to be here to help the State of Pennsylvania today. With that, I have some slides, overlays. The first and foremost thing that we try to recognize is, you are not the only state out there who is faced with this situation. It's a national problem and several other states have consulted me and asked for recommendations. The jurisdiction of the Connecticut Siting Council is for community access, television, state-owned and operated facilities, public service companies as the utilities, intrastate services and cellular as defined by the FCC. We also have a role in tower sharing. The electromagnetic spectrum is finite. It's been carved up. There will be other facilities; there will be other frequencies. There will be other licenses. The jurisdiction that we have in my estimation is relatively small compared to what is out there. REPRESENTATIVE BUXTON: What's that microwave oven representing? MR. REINBOLD: This is the electromagnetic spectrum. This demonstrates frequencies from which these facilities operate. A microwave oven is somewhere between 915 and 2450 megahertz. It's a transmitter. j IO g g cellular telephone facilities since 1984. The reason why we have jurisdiction over cellular telephone is because it's a network-based system; a system that uses low-power transmitters that require cell handoff and frequency reuse. The service area can became saturated. The idea behind it is to provide seamless coverage. Consequently, these facilities may have effects that transcend municipal boundaries and their need may transcend municipal boundaries. That's precisely why the State of Connecticut has taken a jurisdiction for the regulation of these facilities in a centralized manner. Our goals, State of Connecticut's goals, for the siting of these facilities is first to protect: the community, public health, welfare and environmental resources. We also want to protect the industry. We are looking for a superior telecommunications network both for the telecommunications industry and for the industry that's served by improved communications. Public safety, public convenience are also important goals to protect. We are also pleased that competition has provided innovative technology, lowered the price of service and improved quality. Our decision standard is based on a balancing of need with effects; the need for a particular facility at a particular site against the environmental and community effects that would or may occur from the siting of that facility. Our decisions are in writing based on evidence and they are substantiated at public hearings. The process that we use for a new tower is to require preapplication consultation with municipalities before an application is even filed with us. We want this application to go to the municipality for some informal comment. It can and often is formalized during our proceeding, but we want to have the municipality involved right from the beginning in the process. We require application in service to public officials both state and local. Notice of the application is in the local newspaper. Abutting property owners are also served notice. There's a public site inspection. The hearing is held in the site municipality, site community. The hearings are somewhat formalized with the submittal and cross- examination of all evidences by parties and intervenors. There's also opportunity for members of the public who are not parties or intervenors to make comment into the record. After the public hearing there's an opportunity for members of the public and parties and intervenors to review the transcripts, submit additional comments, propose decisions, memorandum of law and legal briefs. The council deliberates after the close of the record and makes its decision in writing. Other administrative processes that the council uses in an attempt to streamline the regulatory decision-making process for these facilities is to allow regulatory exemptions for placement of antennas on existing towers when the tower height, boundaries and noise levels are unaffected and radiofreguency power density standards are complied with. That process can take as little as two weeks. It's streamlining to encourage the use of existing facilities. Tower sharing is also a streamlined process where certain changes to existing sites can be made on a showing of technical, legal, environmental economic feasibility and a showing that public safety concerns are addressed.