Politics & Government

T-Mobile Wants Cell Tower at N. Merrick Library

Wireless carrier in discussions with library board of trustees about tower.

T-Mobile is in negotiations with the North Merrick Library's Board of Trustees to place a 50-foot cell tower on the library grounds. 

The stealth tower, which would take the form of a new flag pole at the library, would help to eliminate coverage gaps in the North Merrick area, according to a T-Mobile representative who spoke before nearly 40 people at the library last night during a meeting of the North Merrick Civic Association. 

Tom Erwin, who works on site acquisitions for T-Mobile, was applauded by the crowd for showing up and speaking about the proposal, but he was hit with several questions about the health concerns surrounding cell antennas. 

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"A lot of the medical concerns are based on the handsets and not the antennas, and those are inconclusive," said Erwin, who made clear that he was not an expert on the topic.

Although the financial terms of a cell tower at the library were not discussed during the meeting, Tom Witt, the library's director, said afterwards that T-Mobile would pay the library $18,000 a year to lease the land if the library's board of trustees approved the deal.

Find out what's happening in Merrickwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"Our flag pole is rusty," Witt said, adding that as it stands, the library pays $2,500 for the pole to be repainted every few years. 

"It's not just a monetary issue," Witt said.  "People who have cell phones need towers so it at least needs to be discussed.  They got to be somewhere." 

T-Mobile first approached Witt with idea of installing the tower in April and the board of trustees decided to bring the issue before the civic association, which always draws a much larger crowd than do board meetings.

North Merrick residents, for the most part, were skeptical of the plan to place a tower in the middle of town. 

"There are plenty of areas where you can put a pole," resident Anthony Calabro said. "Get it into an industrial area.  Get it away from communities." 

As to suggestions that a tower be placed on the Meadowbrook Parkway instead, Erwin said that T-Mobile is only allowed to submit five applications per year with the State Parkway Commission and the company already has five pending.

"That's all you can apply for at one time," Erwin said.  "We've been down this road before."

He added that considering the state's financial crisis, "you would think they would be all about the revenue" generated from leasing out land for a cell tower, "but that's not the case." 

Witt said the library board will discuss the proposal again at its July 20 meeting.

North Merrick Crime Update

Officer Rob Segretto of the First Precinct P.O.P. unit reported on recent crime in the area at last night's meeting.  He said that police have been questioning a possible suspect in the wave of car smashings that took place last month.  

"If they do in fact close out that case, there's a lot of things linked to this possible subject," Segretto said. 

There were two residential burglaries in North Merrick over the past month, one on Pettit Avenue, where a front door was kicked in and a large amount of cash and jewelry were taken and the other on Camp Avenue on the afternoon of June 9, Segretto said.

Around the time of Camp Avenue break-in, neighbors saw two male Hispanics knocking on doors in the area saying they were there to sell books, Segretto said. 

A Noel Court resident told Segretto that he routinely witnesses what he believes to be drug transactions taking place on the street. 

"I have a list a mile long of calls to 911," said Salavatore Scarfeo, who added that he just recently watched a black car pull up behind a white SUV on the street followed by a man placing a large bag into the truck of one of the vehicles before taking off. 

Segretto said the precinct has 27 plainclothes officers out on the streets patrolling for drug busts.

"These guys are hungry," Segretto said.  "They make a lot of drug arrests.  You won't see them and they can't be there all the time, but they are out there."


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