Muttontown OKs wireless firm's signal-boost try

Muttontown officials have approved a wireless communications company's application to refit two utility poles with equipment intended to boost cellphone signals, becoming the first of several North Shore villages approached by Castle Crown to do so.

The board of trustees voted, 7-0, Tuesday to permit the firm to attach antennas and radio-access network, or RAN, boxes to two poles along Muttontown Road.

The approval is subject to terms of an agreement that has yet to be written, village officials said.

"This has made Muttontown a hub in more ways than one," Crown Castle attorney David Bronston said, referencing a network hub the Houston-based company has been building on Village Hall property.

A third unit formerly intended for Muttontown is now proposed for neighboring Brookville, where it awaits approval, Crown Castle said.

The right-of-way approval follows several months' worth of sometimes-raucous public hearings during which many Muttontown residents protested the units as unsightly, potentially hazardous to their health and unnecessary in light of what they said is adequate cellphone service.

An engineering consultant to the village at a February hearing tried to reassure residents that radio frequencies associated with the units are not dangerous.

Mayor Julianne W. Beckerman on Tuesday said the village is legally obligated "to allow telecommunications infrastructure and signals to be disseminated."

In a nod to concerns voiced by residents, she added, "The option of having nothing on the pole might be preferable to some people, but it would not leave this village in conformity with federal law and it would not leave us doing our job in representing the community."

T-Mobile will be the "anchor tenant" for the network, and two other major carriers are being considered, said Crown Castle officials, who are also in the process of seeking right-of-way approvals from villages including Old Brookville, Upper Brookville and Matinecock.The company has completed a "phase 1" modification of 17 utility poles on state-controlled roads in the area, including Route 106.