MOHAVE COUNTY – The Mohave County Board of Supervisors (BOS) voted on Monday, April 7, to reject a proposal to build a cell tower in Dolan Springs. The developer Vertical Bridge submitted an application to build a 200-ft tall cell tower in a residential area. Prior to the BOS meeting, the project proposal was rejected unanimously by the Planning and Zoning Commission after nine residents spoke against the proposal at its meeting, but nobody spoke in favor.
A woman speaking on behalf of the developer at the BOS meeting on Monday said that they were approached by three cell phone carriers to build a tower in the area. The developer did not hold any public meetings, but it did receive negative written feedback on the proposal.
Several citizens spoke against the tower at the BOS meeting, citing concerns about fire safety, light pollution at night, and diminished property values. Most of the residents who spoke complained that a 200-ft tower in their community would be an eyesore.
The person that owns the property also does not live in the state, one resident pointed out, and that property has several abandoned structures on the lot that residents fear may pose additional risk of fire hazard. The proposed tower would have included a diesel generator that would have to run once a week.
One resident claimed she spoke with the fire chief of nearby Lake Mohave Rancho Fire Department, who told the resident that they don’t want or need the tower because they are in the process of installing satellite communications on all their vehicles.
Another objection raised by Supervisor Ron Gould was the fact that most of the dead zones covered by the tower would be on federal lands, not the residential area in question. The spokeswoman for the developer told the BOS that the company is required to exhaust all other options before they can ask the federal government to build on its land.
Gould also objected to the technology. “This is obsolete technology that’s going to go away shortly,” he said, just before the vote was taken.
“This is not wanted or needed,” said Supervisor Don Martin. “Normally what would happen is residents would come to the Board and say, ‘Hey, we don’t have service out there, we need a tower, we need some service.’ In this case, we got people coming and saying, ‘We got service, and we don’t need a tower out there.”
