County, Upper Merion battle over radio tower

NORRISTOWN >> County officials threw down their gloves Thursday by airing a brawl between Montgomery County departments and Upper Merion Township.

The township and the county have been circling each other for nearly two years now over building a radio tower that county officials say is a crucial link in its public safety radio structure.

“That’s going to hurt the whole system,” said Plymouth Township Chief of Police Joe Lawrence, who heads up the County Police Chiefs Association’s Radio Committee. “It’s like having a chain with a broken link.”

The county has been working on its $36.6 million public radio improvement project since 2012, and early in the process, approached the municipalities where towers needed to be built or enhanced.

Of the 30 towers in the project, there are only three left to complete. Two of those are well underway.

Only one tower—which is actually a 60-foot extension of an existing tower on Hughes Road— is stalling the completion of the project, and the county blames Upper Merion.

“To that end they are the only municipality that has put up roadblocks in that way. We can’t understand, and we’ve tried to explain the public need,” said Josh Stein, first deputy solicitor for the county.

According to a time line supplied by the county, appearances before the township’s board of supervisors were continually delayed. The presentation was first scheduled for a September 2015 meeting, then pushed until Oct. 8. Then?

“We were not put on the agenda for the October meeting,” said Lee Soltysiak, deputy chief operating officer of policy and planning.

In the meantime, the township proposed a zoning amendment on height that would rule out the proposed tower, Stein said. Upper Merion Township Manager David Kraynik said Thursday that he was unaware of the amendment to which the county was referring.

“Not to my knowledge was there any change,” Kraynik said.

The county took two actions to address the zoning rule. An application was submitted to the zoning hearing board for a variance.

The county also suggested that the township’s board of supervisors grant them an exemption to the zoning rule, since the township had already granted itself that same exemption.

“The township can at any time amend the zoning ordinance, to provide the county with the same exception they have given themselves,” Stein said. “They specifically wrote an exemption into the ordinance that they can use for safety or profit, they have chosen not to extend that for public safety to the county.”

The county continues to pursue options through the zoning hearing board. According to the time line, township officials told Stein, Soltysiak and Solicitor Phil Newcomer on Aug. 16 that the county should exhaust all other possible avenues.

Frustration with the delay brought Montgomery County Board of Commissioners Chairman Josh Shapiro to address the matter at the Thursday meeting of the board.