There’s a cellphone riot goin’ on
Who knew Santa Fe had a Riot Control Ordinance?
That’s the part of the city code that Mayor Javier Gonzales used to declare an emergency.
We haven’t had a riot recently (and we won’t have another Entrada protest at least until next September). Gonzales didn’t order Santa Fe’s streets cleared and didn’t ban public assemblies, and he passed on shutting down bars, liquor stores or brewpubs — all of which the Riot Control Ordinance empowers the mayor to do when “a public disorder, riot, disaster or emergency exists in the municipality.”
But cellphone service in Santa Fe can be really bad. Gonzales used the mighty powers of the Riot Control Ordinance to proclaim that “an emergency exists in the City resulting from insufficient telecommunications capacity,” which causes “danger, or injury or damage to persons and property within the City.”
The Riot Control Ordinance is apparently obscure enough that no one knows how to use it properly. City Hall bungled the details — the Riot Control Ordinance says the public was supposed to be notified when Gonzales signed the emergency declaration, which was Nov. 21, but it wasn’t disclosed (or actually proclaimed or declared, under the common meaning of those words) until Monday, about three weeks late. Also, while Gonzales’ proclamation said it would last for six months, the Riot Control Ordinance states that a proclaimed emergency “terminates” after three days.
After the Journal North pointed out these details, the city came back with a news release saying that the mayor’s proclamation from Nov. 21 had in fact expired after a “code-specified” three days, so now he will issue new emergency declarations “as needed” to allow installation of temporary wireless antennae on seven cityowned sites.
The city is working with Verizon, which has come in for the most criticism over spotty cell coverage, including for the poor performance of GPS devices installed in the city’s vehicle fleet.
The Riot Control Ordinance doesn’t define emergency. But the mayor’s declarations say improving cell service is a public safety issue, needed “so that emergency responders, like police, fire, and EMS will be able to better communicate with their departments, other agencies, and most importantly, the public.”
The intended effect is to allow temporary wireless antennae to go up without Verizon having to jump through various regulatory or land-use requirements. During the six-month period mentioned in the original emergency declaration, Verizon is supposed to find long-term ways to fill the gaps in Santa Fe’s cellphone coverage.
The mayor’s emergency move is certainly a creative way of getting a quick fix to Santa Fe’s frustrating cellphone problems. The city locations planned for antennae, such as on top of the convention center’s elevator shaft, the parking lot of the Genoveva Chavez center and behind a couple of fire stations, seem unobtrusive. The temporary facilities are a good idea.
But Santa Fe’s vocal anti-wireless advocates are already going after Gonzales’ emergency declaration. We may find out, in court, whether the Riot Control Ordinance really can apply to telecommunications shortcomings. And Verizon still has to come up with some permanent solutions.