Subject: Proposed Cellular Tower in Cedar Hills: Info & Survey Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 18:07:28 -0700 From: Christen Warwick To: Selected Recipients Hello! You have received this message because of your previous interest in Land Use Planning and/or developments in Cedar Hills, east of Snowflake, Arizona. The purpose of this email is to give you information about a proposal by Cellular One to place a 180-foot tall cellular tower in Cedar Hills on "Black Mesa," in order to improve digital cellular service in Navajo and Apache counties. Also, this email is your invitation to answer a three-question survey and give feedback about the proposed tower. As a resident of Cedar Hills involved in Land Use Planning, I believe in an "informed citizenry" and in hearing from the local community. This email incorporates both those goals. Land Use Planning requires long-term consideration of what is best for a community. The area around Snowflake is projected to have substantial growth in the next ten years. Growth is a natural phenomenon in a healthy community. Some people want more growth, while others want less growth. One of the best things that Land Use Planning can do is help to "guide" growth, for the best interests of a community. There is now a good opportunity to secure a prime site for a cellular communications tower in Cedar Hills, to meet current and future community needs. Cellular One has agreed to allow "co-location," which means that other radio services can be placed on the site, as well. This could include police and fire department repeaters, etc. An advantage to this arrangement is that antennae need not be scattered around Cedar Hills, and can be consolidated at one location. Those involved in Cedar Hills Land Use Planning have benefited from the expertise of a telecommunications technician (not employed by Cellular One) and an electrical engineer, both residents of Cedar Hills, who anticipated that there might be a proposal at some point to place a cell site in Cedar Hills. Before they were advised of Cellular One's proposal, these technicians concluded that Black Mesa, south of Concho Highway and east of Snowflake was a good "candidate location" for a cell tower. The tower would provide omni-directional digital cellular phone coverage in Navajo and Apache counties, and could "network" with the cell towers north of Snowflake and in Holbrook. Also, a tower on Black Mesa minimizes the electromagnetic impact upon the environmentally-sensitive community in Cedar Hills, which is mostly-based several miles to the west. A medical professional in Cedar Hills has been consulted, and he has no objection to the tower at Black Mesa. Representatives from the environmentally-sensitive community have also been consulted, and they think that the proposed location of the tower on Black Mesa is probably the most practical and best placement we can achieve, in balancing everyone's interests now and in the future. Apparently, Cellular One concluded that Black Mesa was the best location, too. An application for a Special Use Permit to allow a cellular tower is now pending. A hearing is scheduled before the Navajo County Planning & Zoning Commission on July 21, 2005 at 6 PM in the Board of Supervisors chambers, County Complex, Holbrook, AZ. Interested persons are invited to attend. More information about the tower can be found at the Cedar Hills Land Use Planning web page, http://www.cedarhillsplan.org/cellsite.htm What follows is a three-question survey, which uses numerical values. This allows for better analysis of the responses. A suggestion how to email your brief response is shown after the questions below: Question 1: On a scale from 1 to 10, do you favor a cellular telephone tower in Cedar Hills, in order to provide better digital phone service to both Navajo and Apache county? Examples: 10 = highly favor 5 = no opinion 1 = don't favor Question 2: On a scale from 1 to 10, do you support the placement of a cellular tower on top of Black Mesa (which is south of Concho Highway and west of the former Property Owner's Association building in Cedar Hills)? Examples: 10 = highly support 5 = no opinion 1 = don't support Question 3: In what general area do you live? 1) Cedar Hills in Navajo County 2) Snowflake/Taylor 3) Other area of Navajo County 4) Apache County Your email response can be as simple as "8,5,1" -- which means that a person generally favors improvements in cellular phone service by adding a cell tower in Cedar Hills, has no opinion whether to place the tower on Black Mesa, and lives in Cedar Hills. (Those who consider themselves in "Cedar Hills, Apache County" should select "4" for purposes of this survey.) Please send your email reply to: christenw27@cybertrails.com preferably no later than July 14, 2005. If you have any additional comments on the proposed cellular tower, please feel free to send them along to me. Please include the word "tower" or "survey" in your email reply, as it will help me to filter and route your email. I will collect the responses to this survey, analyze them and pass the results on to Navajo County Planning & Zoning. Thank you for your time and interest. Best regards, Christen Warwick Volunteer Participant in Cedar Hills Land Use Planning http://www.cedarhillsplan.org