Cell Tower Update from Councilwoman Caitlin Donovan

Hi everyone,

I wanted to drop a quick note about a little ordinance that the Belmar
Council passed last night.

In my last email, I wrote about how the Supreme Court had recently handed
down a decision impacting the Chevron doctrine. Through the Chevron
doctrine, courts deferred to federal agencies’ interpretation of ambiguous
federal legislation, allowing federal agencies to write rules and
regulations even if the courts disagreed, as long as they could be
considered a reasonable interpretation of the statute. In the new Loper
decision, the Supreme Court scaled back the Chevron doctrine, basically
leaving room for new challenges to federal agencies’ rules and regulations.

When that happened, I asked Belmar’s telecommunications attorney how this
decision might change things for us.

*The result is Ordinance 2024-18, outlawing cell towers on Ocean Avenue.
https://ecode360.com/BE4028/document/753078804.pdf

That’s right!! (Are you celebrating? I’m celebrating.)

Okay, now that we’ve celebrated, you should know that this isn’t foolproof.
The Monmouth County vs Verizon lawsuit is still in the works, and those
parties could still agree to construct however many towers on Ocean Avenue.

BUT…*if *the judge in that case orders the case to basically start over
— *which is possible *– then this ordinance is in play.

If that happens, there are three possible outcomes:

1) Verizon sues us, and they win.
2) Verizon sues us, and we win.
3) Verizon decides that losing to us could carry grave national
consequences and that they don’t want to take that risk. They walk away or
decide to work with us for a mutually agreeable outcome.

I bet you know what I’m hoping!

Hope you are all having a great summer. Oh! And if you have time, save the
date for October 6th, when we’re having a cornhole tournament to raise
money to redo the girls’ softball field – flyer attached, if you’re
interested.

As always, thank you for all that you do.

Cheers,
CD