Gossips still hasn't seen the actual complaint, but a reader tipped me off to an article about it that appeared on Friday in Law360: "Verizon Says NY Town Can't Block It from Using Tower for 5G." The first two sentences of the article summarize the basis of the lawsuit:
Verizon is going after a New York town that has refused to grant its application for a wireless tower without imposing a set of "unreasonable, unenforceable and arbitrary and capricious" conditions, like banning the telecom from using the infrastructure for 5G. The telecom behemoth filed suit in New York federal court Wednesday, accusing the town of dragging its feet on Verizon's application before finally agreeing to grant it as long as the company paid exorbitant fees and agreed to a slew of unreasonable conditions.
Although the actual resolution passed by the Planning Board on June 23 has not been made publicly available, one of the conditions of site plan approval, as Gossips reported, is that service provided at the site cannot be upgraded from 4G to 5G without Planning Board approval. The "exorbitant fees" refers to the money charged to Verizon to pay Michael Musso of HDR Engineering, who was the technical consultant to the Planning Board for the project.
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If that’s the case then this city deserves to be sued. Following Q-Annon style conspiracy theories doesn’t make for good public policy. This technology is all over larger cities and is badly needed here. Every weekend when the town is loaded with shoppers and tourists, the system is overloaded and there is no data bandwidth. It’s hurting market vendors who are having issues using their mobile credit card readers without WiFi. Get over yourselves, this isn’t a cement factory or coal plant. Also, way to make a decision that made both sides angry, chef’s kiss.
ReplyDeleteHow many lawsuits and lawyers are the taxpayers supposed to pay for? In the real world, if a person took actions that repeatedly caused their employer to be sued, they would soon be out of a job.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely a bad move by the city of Hudson to refuse ANY new infrastructure that might allow it to retain better jobs.
ReplyDeleteThe lawsuit is the cherry on top of the next 20 years of downward spiraling census counts.