Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

That’s the way the City Council decided to handle the appeal by Crown Castle on Tuesday night for a conditional use permit to install a 25-node Distributed Antenna System to improve cell phone network infrastructure throughout Davis.

Understanding that Crown Castle likely would sue the city should they deny the permit, council members gave themselves options on how to address all potential outcomes of the firm’s application. About two dozen residents attended Tuesday’s meeting to protest the project that many have characterized as a visual blight on Davis’ neighborhoods.

First, the council unanimously approved a motion asking city staff to prepare a site-by-site report of the 25 proposed antenna locations for review at its April 3 meeting.

The report will contain information on each proposed antenna site with details on all possible pole types and any viable alternative locations. It also will include input from the city, Crown Castle and the residents who live near each site.

Council members hope they can find enough sites acceptable to all parties, allowing the project to move forward and a lawsuit to be avoided.

But if that idea doesn’t work, the council formed Plan B.

The second part of the motion asked city staff to bring back a draft of findings for denial of the permit in case the council decides in April that an acceptable compromise cannot be reached.

As a Crown Castle lawsuit would be likely in that case, the council also asked City Attorney Harriet Steiner to advise it on how to craft the city’s preferred project proposal that a court might approve should it rule in favor of Crown Castle.

Because the state considers Crown Castle a public utility, giving it the right to install its equipment on public easements, city staff believes Crown Castle likely would win any case in court.

To help gather information for the 25-node report for the next City Council meeting, the city’s principal planner, Mike Webb, has asked residents who live near the proposed antenna sites to email him at [email protected] with ideas about acceptable alternatives.

However, many Davis residents who spoke against the project during public comment made it clear they want to see no antennas at all.

“This proposal would create a whole new level of intrusion into our residential neighborhoods,” said East Davis resident Jill Theg.  “These antennas are unsightly, they’re ugly, they’re out of character with residential areas and the ground cabinets that would have to accompany them are very bulky. They’re large, they’re unsightly and they’re noisy.”

Added Stonegate resident Meredith Herman, “Rather than listening to the concerns of residents and providing installations and technology that address these concerns, (Crown Castle is) threatening to sue us if they are not permitted to place cell towers of the kind they, rather than we, want and locate them where they, not we, choose.

“Threatening to sue because a community of concerned citizens refuses to be taken advantage of is the act of a bully.”

At one point during Tuesday’s deliberations, Councilman Dan Wolk made a motion to ask for findings to deny the application outright, but he was voted down 4-1 by his colleagues, who wanted to weigh their options at the next council meeting.

“I feel like at the end of the day, this is about local control,” Wolk said. “And Crown Castle, essentially, with the consent of the state government and the federal government, is seeking to usurp that local control and I find that very discomforting.”

— Reach Tom Sakash at [email protected] or (530) 747-8057. Follow him on Twitter @TomSakash

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