Big Hill Cell Tower Project Delayed

Fire Chief Tim Dietman urges the Sturgeon Bay Common Council on Aug. 16 to delay a vote on leasing U.S. Cellular a site at Big Hill Park to locate a cell tower. He said a delay of up to 60 days would provide time for the County of Door to determine whether the tower would interfere with the county’s planned communication-equipment upgrade. Photo by Kevin Boneske.

U.S. Cellular’s ability to locate a new cell tower at Big Hill Park will depend on whether the tower would interfere with an upgrade of the County of Door’s communication equipment.

At the urging of Sturgeon Bay Fire Chief Tim Dietman, who’s a member of the county’s Communications Advisory Technical Subcommittee (CATS), the Sturgeon Bay Common Council agreed Aug. 16 to delay a vote on the cell-tower contract for up to two months before the county determines how the upgrade would affect equipment such as public-safety radios.

“In the next 30 to 60 days, we are going to identify, through the CATS committee and county, what system we’re going to go with, and once we do that, we can identify the sites that we’re going to need for adequate and proper coverage throughout the entire county,” Dietman said.

U.S. Cellular had identified the site next to the water-tower facilities at Big Hill Park for a cell tower because of the location’s height and coverage throughout the city, Dietman said. U.S. Cellular recently informed the Peninsula Pulse that it is looking to relocate to Big Hill Park a nearby cell-tower site that no longer meets the company’s long-term needs to provide service to the area.

Dietman said there’s a good chance that the county system and U.S. Cellular’s system could coexist by placing the county system on the cell tower.

“But if that is the case, we’d like to have that 60 days to bring back to the council what our communication needs are, and if it is coexisting on that tower, some proper language that we could have the city attorney put into an agreement with U.S. Cellular – not just the tower company – but something that is going to be allowing us to do certain things like that,” Dietman said.

City Attorney Jim Kalny, who appeared at the meeting via Zoom, said he favored the delay to work on the agreement.

“It might be a little bit more than details we have to address,” he said.

Mayor David Ward said the matter would be brought back before the council no later than its Oct. 18 meeting, and it could come back sooner, upon the county’s determination about how to upgrade its communication equipment.

The city’s Finance/Purchasing and Building Committee last month recommended leasing U.S. Cellular a 3,600-square-foot, fenced-in site for $12,000 a year ($1,000 per month), subject to the approximately 170-foot-tall cell tower constructed there not being illuminated or causing interference with the existing Sturgeon Bay Utilities communications equipment on the adjacent water tower.