Veto of cell antenna bill urged
mayors of five California cities, including San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, urged Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday to veto a bill that would shift much of the power to regulate the placement of wireless communication devices from local municipalities to the state.
The bill, SB649, introduced by Sen. Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, establishes a uniform set of rules that cities and towns would have to follow when considering a company’s request to install smallcell devices — compact ancials tennas usually affixed to street lights and telephone poles.
Telecommunications companies such as Verizon and AT&T say small-cell antennas are essential tools in meeting growing demand for mobile bandwidth, particularly in dense, urban areas located far from large cellular towers. There are perhaps as many as 10,000 small-cell antennas in San Francisco alone, city offiThe estimate.
Hueso, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, has framed the bill as a way to streamline the permitting process, allowing companies to deploy the devices faster and improve their services. Creating a statewide framework for small-cell permitting, proponents of the bill argue, is preferable to the cumbersome process of getting permission to deploy the devices city by city.
But the legislation, which Senate passed last week, has been assailed by critics as an end-run around local sovereignty that sharply curbs the ability of cities to manage public property.
“This bill quite literally takes the authority over local permitting away from local governments and hands it to a private, for-profit industry,”
the five mayors said in a letter to Brown. The mayors of Los Angeles and Bakersfield also signed the letter.
Many cities, including San Francisco, are also concerned about the prospect of losing out on millions of dollars of revenue because the bill caps the amount cities can charge to host the antennas at $250 per device each year, in addition to other fees. Currently, cities could charge higher rates for antennas installed in high-population areas.
San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission estimates the city would lose $33 million over 10 years if Brown signs the bill. The bill would also throw thousands of existing small-cell agreements into question, according to Barbara Hale, the assistant general manager for power at the PUC.
“We have a process, and it’s been working,” Hale said. The bill “is a
The legislation “constrains what cities can do going forward.” Barbara Hale, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
huge overreach. It puts the historical agreements into question and constrains what cities can do going forward, to the detriment of the city’s coffers.”
In April, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution opposing the bill. More than 300 cities statewide have formally opposed SB649, according to the League of California Cities, transforming an otherwise tedious bill into a power struggle pitting the state and local governments against each other.
“This measure is a broad overreach of our local authority and will have significant negative impacts on our communities,” the letter said. “Our cities have developed reasonable regulations that balance the desire for rapid expansion of services with the need to protect public health, safety and quality of life,” the mayors said.
Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, voted in favor of the bill only after several amendments aimed at protecting “local decision-making” were added, Weiner said in a text message. Those amendments included provisions that would allow cities to establish design standards for the antennas and set aside space on city poles exclusively for municipal use.
“The author accepted my amendments, so I voted for the bill,” Weiner said. “Asking for amendments and then voting ‘no’ after they are accepted guarantees people won’t work with you on amendments in the future.”