110-I. Reconsideration Petition dated 12/9/10.pdfATTACHMENT I
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My name is Shaul Berger and I am a Cupertino resident at 11371 Bubb Rd. This petition
follows the city of Cupertino guidelines for Reconsideration petition as defined in
2.08.096. The main reason for this Reconsideration petition is that the council members
voted without having all the facts and at least two of them voted against my appeal based
on completely wrong understanding of the facts,. rendering the council decision
completely unsupported by real facts. I intentionally decided not to include in this
petition issues that maybe controversial and will just add to the arguments
The city rendered a decision which was not supported by findings of fact and the findings
of fact were not supported by the evidence. We will also prove that relevant evidence was
improperly excluded at the planning commission hearing on 11/9. We will show that City
Council failed to provide a fair hearing.
Alternative cell sites — The council never reviewed alternative cell site options that
provide better solution to all parties. They provide better coverage, are farther away from
Regnart elementary school and also located hundreds of feet away from densely
populated areas. The mayor and other council members suggested alternative sites to T-
Mobile representative who was ready to evaluate these sites (was not aware at all of the
area and these better suited locations which indicates that T-Mobile did not do proper due
diligence). T-Mobile representative said that they looked only at pole based locations and
never considered a tower alternative. Had the city done proper design review, this
planning flaw of T-Mobile would have been discovered much earlier and resulted in an
alternative solution with better coverage and co -location "savings". She was also not
aware of the proposed AT&T tower at Results Way industrial complex location which
will provide complete coverage for most of Bubb Rd. neighborhoods. Council member
Santoro said in his justification to vote NO on the appeal that the AT&T tower location
can not support our area and this is completely incorrect. The claim by the planning
commission that T-Mobile has already two facilities nearby is irrelevant because they are
very low antennas that can not provide the coverage needed. Verizon is providing good
coverage to the area without having any nearby towers or antennas on poles. They
provide good coverage based on two towers, one located on DeAnza campus near 85 and
one on 10110 California Oak Way. The second tower is 94 ft high and is located in a
complex of many towers including a new one approved for Clearwire which will be more
than 140 ft high. In contrast T-Mobile has a tower there that it is only 47 ft tall. We
believe that T-Mobile never explored the option of getting higher tower with good
coverage. The other potential explanation maybe what T-Mobile representative said in
the hearing, admitting that T-Mobile is way behind technologically. One of the key
reasons for NO vote (against the appeal) by council member Mahoney was the claim that
big antennas do not work and solve the problem at hand. This has been proven wrong and
inaccurate by Verizon. This rendered the council's decision unsupported by facts, .since
council members Santoro and Mahoney voted based on wrong assumptions how
coverage can be achieved. During the meeting they never asked the city technical
consultant to verify the "false" facts that they used to justify their NO vote.
Cupertino T-Mobile subscribers — T-Mobile could not provide any information about
how many of their subscribers live in Cupertino and how many will benefit from the
proposed macrocell. This question was asked by the mayor, but never answered or
estimated at all. Based on survey that I did among my neighbors, none of them has T-
Mobile service. The same is true among parents at Kennedy Junior High and students at
Monta Vista High — It is mostly Verizon or AT&T (because of iPhone). Together with
the petition we have signatures of more than 30 mobile phone users who live in our
immediate neighborhood and none of them is using T-Mobile. This means that the whole
new macrocell coverage area may be servicing no more than 1 or 2 T-Mobile customers,
maybe even none The council made a decision without knowing if there are any T-
Mobile users among their citizens that might benefit from the new macrocell. T-Mobile
representative claimed that their decision was driven by statistics of inability to place
calls, dropped calls and lack of capacity collected by their technical experts. It is very
hard to have all this information when you do not have subscribers living in the new
coverage area?
Technical Analysis - The appellant, Shaul Berger, presented in the 11/29 meeting
technical evaluation done by our technical expert, Prof. Willie Lu, which showed much
higher levels of radiation beyond the approved government levels. Even council member
Mahoney defined it as 6x higher than the findings of the T-Mobile consultant. Council
member Santoro asked for the report to review it. In spite of this the council voted
without checking the facts. This appellant (himself a wireless consultant) suggested to
review the two technical evaluations because the difference was significant and indicated
different set of assumptions. City Council voted without knowing the radiation facts and
without doing due diligence to verify that indeed the levels are below the government
levels.
Proper Design Review — The city did not conduct proper design review as would be
expected for such a significant proposal. This type of design review is being done in other
cases and other cities (like Saratoga). The director of Community Development decided
that the proposal will not be controversial and based on these grounds defined it as a
minor change. Minor change (as defined. in 192.132.020) means alteration or
modification of an existing plan. This T-Mobile plan certainly does not fit this definition.
Converting a PG&E utility pole to a wireless communications pole with 3 powerful
antennas and 4 communication boxes can hardly be described as minor change. It is very
clear that the director of Community development made a wrong judgement can that the
public will not oppose this proposal and it will not be controversial. Based on this minor
change classification, the city avoided Public Design Review hearing that would have
addressed many of the issues raised in this petition and by many Cupertino citizens,
including council members during the 11/29 hearing. We are asking the city council to
return the proposal to the community development department for a proper public design
review that will follow the city procedures. The planning commission had the opportunity
to schedule the design review after the planning commission hearing on 11/9/2010. At
that meeting, this appellant saw for the first time the city's and their consulting firm's
response to the appeal's claims. We did not have the opportunity to study their answers at
all. The appellant stated clearly at the beginning of the 11/9 meeting that this procedure
does not meet any reasonable standards and certainly does not represent "good faith
effort" approach that the planning department uses as their guideline (see chapter
19.132).
Summary - We fully support the efforts of the city to provide superior connectivity
(broadband, wireless, etc) to its citizens. The problem is that the current wireless master
plan will not achieve it. Quite the contrary! In addition to health risks that nobody is sure
what are the long term effects of this type of radiation, this solution is very localized and
solves an issue for the least popular carrier in CA. This means that soon all our streets
will be full of ugly power poles, each addressing different type of wireless connectivity.
Even the planning department admits that the proposed antenna does not solve
connectivity to big parts of Cupertino for T-Mobile (meaning that we will need many
more ugly poles for them and other operators).
We think the right approach is to erect a high tower on the Cupertino hills which will be
far away from dense housing (and thus less health risks). This tower will be able to
provide much better coverage to most of the city and can be shared by all wireless
providers without the aesthetic damage that the current approach will bring to our city.
We are asking you to put the approval on hold and request all the other carriers (that are
also applying for antenna approvals) to come up with a joint proposal that will put a tall
tower on Cupertino hills, solving the coverage issues without making our streets look like
military wireless compound full of ugly antennas.
I strongly urge the City Council to pass a resolution for citywide cell phone tower plan
that will reduce the wireless antenna clutter in the city to minimum by sharing facilities
between all operators.
Regards
l2/9/(q 010
Shaul Berger
11371 Bubb Rd
Cupertino Resident since 1988
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We the following residents, residing on and nearby Bubb Road, hereby declare that we do not have or
use any of the T-M We strongly object the Cupertino City Council to allow any Wireless
Antennae or Towers installed near our homes or schools. Instead we strongly urge the City to
consolidate all the applications from Service providers and place the antennae on tall towers on the
Cupertino Hills or any commercial properties.
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