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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSTUDY - 2018-10-15 CITY OF LIVONIA – CITY COUNCIL MINUTES OF STUDY MEETING HELD OCTOBER 15, 2018 Meeting was called to order at 8:00 p.m. by President Toy. Present:, Brian Meakin, Jim Jolly, Brandon Kritzman, Scott Bahr, Cathy White, Kathleen McIntyre, and Laura Toy. Absent: None. Councilmember Brian Meakin led the meeting in the Pledge. Elected and appointed officials present: Mark Taormina, Director of Planning and Economic Development; Todd Zilincik, City Engineer; Paul Bernier, City Attorney; Susan M. Nash, City Clerk; Dan Putman, Director of Information Systems; Denise Maier, Director of Human Resources; Doug Moore, Superintendent of Public Service; and Mayor Dennis Wright. Susan Nash, City Clerk, reminded everyone that on Saturday, November 3, 2018 her office will be open from 8:30 until 2:00 p.m. for election purposes only. They will be th issuing absentee ballots that day as well as Monday, November 5 until 4:00 p.m. She th stated on election day, November 6, the polls will be open from 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. Todd Zilincik, City Engineer, stated that Wayne County is doing repairs on the outside lanes of Farmington Road from Schoolcraft to Plymouth. He also stated that there is an upcoming meeting of the Citizens Advisory Road Committee scheduled for Thursday, October 25, 2018 at 6:30 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. and it will be held at the Daniel R. Andrew Public Services facility located at 12973 Farmington Road. He indicated they are looking forward to hearing comments from residents about the roads, and any concerns or questions about repairs. He stated the information is on the City’s website, the proposed 2019 Road Repair Program for concrete and asphalt. President Toy stated there will be a forum on Human Trafficking being held in the Auditorium of City Hall which will include some Wayne County Prosecutors and that is on th October 25 at 7:00 p.m. She then wised everyone a belated Columbus Day. AUDIENCE COMMUNICATION: None. NEW BUSINESS: 1. REAPPOINTMENT OF KEN HARB TO THE LIVONIA BROWNFIELD REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY: Office of the Mayor, re: for a three-year term which will expire on November 24, 2021. 2 Mayor Wright presented this request to Council. He indicated that Mr. Harb has been a member of this committee for some time and has done a good job. Ken Harb came to the podium and thanked Mayor for giving him the opportunity for his reappointment and the opportunity to serve the City. Meakin stated that he had served with Mr. Harb on the Zoning Board of Appeals and that he’s been a dedicated servant to the City of Livonia and has done a wonderful job. Meakin offered the approving resolution for the Consent Agenda. DIRECTION: Approving Consent 2. REAPPOINTMENT OF WILLIAM FRIED TO THE LIVONIA BROWNFIELD REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY: Office of the Mayor, re: for a three-year term which will expire on November 24, 2021. Mayor Wright presented this request to Council. William Fried came to the podium. Jolly stated that Mr. Fried has been a good citizen and volunteer in the community. Meakin stated that Fried is the Treasurer of the Livonia Community Foundation and Treasurer for many other organizations as well. His dedication to the City of Livonia is amazing and he may be the hardest working man in the City. He is constantly working for various organizations such as the Rotary and the Spree or the Symphony Orchestra, there are endless organizations that count on his services and he does an amazing job and he thanked him for his services. Jolly offered the approving resolution for the Consent Agenda. DIRECTION: Approving Consent 3. REQUEST TO MODIFY THE CITY OF LIVONIA COMPENSATION PLAN TO INCLUDE THE ABILITY TO COMPENSATE ADMINISTRATION AND PROFESSIONAL, EXEMPT AND CONFIDENTIAL AND APPOINTEE EMPLOYEES ASSIGNED TO STANDBY ON-CALL DUTY: Civil Service Department, re: in the amount of $450.00 for one-week of twenty-four hour/seven day on-call duty as assigned by the Department of Management Information Systems. Denise Maier, Director of Human Resources, presented this request to Council. 3 She stated that just a short time ago the IS Department took over the phone systems from the DPW. The phone systems currently in place are updated, highly technical and it made sense for the IS Department to take them over. However, if they happen to go down due to weather or computer gliches somebody has to be available to come in or work from home in order to get the system back up. In addition to the phones, IS has purchased and obtained additional computer systems that need to be running 24/7, 365 days a year, and if those go down someone has to be available and on call. She stated that the IS Department is small and it makes sense to have people that know they’re on call, that are close to home and responsible for keeping their phones nearby and if the call comes in they’re available and that is the reason for this request. She said there have been times when someone has called the emergency number and on call number and nobody is assigned, so there’s nobody available or the Department Head comes in but if he’s not available then there is an issue. Jolly stated that he doesn’t think enough information was provided to Council on this item. He indicated it didn’t say how often this would be occurring and it doesn’t provide information as to whether or not if someone is called in if there is any level of overtime that’s included in the on-call fees and was this contemplated at the time the phone system was switched over. He said that the spoke to Dan Putnam when he came into the meeting and indicated to him that he doesn’t think he can support this and after speaking to him and listening to him, he is open to hearing more on this seeing as the Fire Department and Police Department are on this phone system. He also stated that a large part of the argument that was used on this item, the dollar number that was identified in terms of the on-call fee, was mimicked from that of DPW and that he doesn’t want to see this become a standard or something that is adopted elsewhere in the City if it’s not necessarily justified. Bahr stated that Jolly had brought up many of the same questions that he had but asked how frequently this fee has been applied in the past. Dan Putnam, Information Systems Director, came to the podium. He stated that this is anticipated to have someone on call every week 24/7. They will be required to be staying within a reasonable driving distance from their home where they can come back and provide support for the critical infrastructure systems like the phone system that supports the DPW, the Police, the Fire during emergencies and such, along with systems like the library, there have been a couple of times a year and a half ago where the library system went down on the weekend and they have not been able to get ahold of somebody. Currently if the system goes down the only person that can be called is himself and he’s not always going to be available. He stated thus far there has not been an occasion where he was not available but he does anticipate times when he is on vacation and will not be available. 4 Bahr asked who in the IS Department would be the on-call representatives and Putnam responded starting off it will be the Systems Analyst and the Computer Administrator II position. Bahr then stated that when they are on call they get a $450 increase in their weekly compensation and Putnam stated that yes, when they are on call that week and it will be rotated. Putnam said he may be included in that rotation if there is a vacancy or a situation during holidays where there was a conflict with all of the employees. Bahr stated he shares some of the same of Jolly’s concerns with this item but that he understands in principle what’s being done here but that he comes with the mindset that he is in a salaried position and he is on call all of the time and he feels it’s part of the job. Putnam replied that he agrees in his position that it is part of the job, but the way the current compensation plan is set up for those staff members is not and that is why this item is being brought forward. Bahr asked how often does Putnam anticipate his staff being called in on an issue historically and Putnam responded that prior to his department taking on the phone system, it was very rare and that’s why this was never an issue. Now that they’ve had the phone system there have been four outages during the four month time period. Putnam stated that DPW, who previously handled the phone system, has a foreman on call every week of the year. Bahr offered both an approving and denying resolution for the Regular Agenda. White commented that she doesn’t have a problem with this proposal as far as employees of the IS Department is concerned, but that she does not believe it should apply to Department Heads and appointed positions. McIntyre stated she supports this if the job requirements have changed significantly to include on-call responsibilities, that compensation should be appropriately adjusted. She also said she’d like to understand how other communities deal with this if their IT departments also have the critical systems for police and fire. She stated she has some concerns with the City’s IT Department and how it’s structured within the City. She has no problem with Mr. Putnam or his staff as she thinks they’re outstanding but she said as technology has changed tremendously the IT Department’s role is critical to all functions in the City. She said she is in favor of providing some additional compensation but look at ways to do it and understand how other communities do it, and she said this was brought up during the budget discussions that she thinks it’s time for the City to investigate where the IT Department fits in given how much technology has changed the way the City does business and the fact that technology is part of every single thing we do in the City. 5 Putnam stated he has seen a few changes in the twenty-years he has been with the City. Jolly stated that he would like to offer this matter to be referred to the appropriate Council committee to investigate the role and the substantive changes that would be necessary to bring the IT Department up to its proper standing, funding, and functioning within the City. He went on to say how we interact with residents on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, on an annual basis, and the payments that go to and from our residents in the City, IT touches every single on those things and if they don’t, they should, so there needs to be some changes to make that a little bit more interactive and a little more proactive. McIntyre asked Maier if there is a provision for when nonexempt employees have to do this work that they can be paid overtime and Maier responded that’s correct, any nonexempt employee that’s on call and is called to come in or work from home would be paid overtime. McIntyre confirmed that there is an ability to compensate those employees for when they do have to be called in, whether it’s physically called in or logging on from home and Maier responded in the affirmative, any nonexempt employee. Jolly stated that the on call fee would be a standard and if they were called in during that time, there would be an additional overtime compensation above and beyond that and Maier stated that’s correct. President Toy stated that she would be happy to see this item go to committee because there’s a lot of unanswered questions. She then asked how the $450 figure came into play and Maier responded that they mirrored what the DPW did back in 2014 and they thought it was a good stipend amount to be on call. Toy then stated she would like to see a list of people that would be rotated and Putnam replied there are two, Systems Analyst II and Computer Administrator II. He stated that if Council wants to take the appointee off, he doesn’t have a problem with that but the idea was if they weren’t available, and he had to take a Holiday week that would be something but he has no problem either way. He stated he has never asked for any kind of overtime, never gotten any additional compensation. Jolly stated there are two issues before them, the immediate issue of the on-call payment and then there’s the standing of the IT Department in the City. He stated he would like to see the department utilized more and be enabled to do more. Putnam stated he had been in front of the Committee only one time before in his tenure with the City and it was valuable to share information with Council. 6 Toy asked if the vendor that provided the new phone system had been contacted about the ongoing problems and Putnam responded that AT & T is responsible for the vast majority of the problems and there were also problems with training. Meakin asked if this item could be split into two resolutions to the Committee, one would involve this specific item and one would involve the future of the IT Department. Jolly responded that two resolutions were on the floor. Meakin stated he wants two different items referred to the Committee so that they are not tied together. Bahr concurred there are two issues before them, that he had offered an approving and denying for this item and Councilman Jolly offered to refer to the Committee. Bahr asked Putnam if the on-call would be split 50/50 between the two personnel and Putnam stated that would be the intent at this point but that they would also like to train some of the other staff to potentially take on that duty down the road but they’re ready at this point. Bahr asked why they are just not bumping up the salaries of these employees instead of the on-call stipend. Putnam replied that an increase in pay would have to go through another channel and the compensation plan would still have to be modified to say that those people would be on call. DIRECTION: 1) Approving Regular 2) Denying 3) Refer to Economic Development, Strategic Planning and Technical Committee 4. AWARD OF BID: Public Service Division, re: to purchase four (4) Heavy Duty Sure-Trac trailers, for use in municipal grounds maintenance, from budgeted funds. Doug Moore, Superintendent of Public Service, presented this request to Council. He stated the trailer purchase was approved through the 2017 Capital Outlay Budget, advertisements were placed on MITN and the bid opening was on th September 18, 2018 and there were two responses. The trailers are to be used by Park Maintenance Section, they will haul mowing equipment, athletic, ball diamond equipment around to the different parks. They currently have four trailers that were purchased and have been in operation since the mid ‘90s, they’re in pretty rough shape. These new trailers will replace them. The old trailers will be disposed of through the auction process. They are asking Council to approve the 7 purchase of the four trailers through Carleton Equipment, it’s a Livonia based company on Schoolcraft Road in the amount of $33,089.80 for the four trailers. White offered the approving resolution for the Consent Agenda. DIRECTION: Approving Consent 5. WAIVER PETITION: Planning Commission, re: Petition 2018-07-02-17 submitted by TeleSite Wireless, on behalf of Verizon Wireless, to erect a wireless communication support structure (120-foot-high monopole) and construct a supporting equipment shelter on property located in the southeast corner of the American Legion property, located on the east side of Newburgh Road between Joy Road and Ann Arbor Trail (9318 Newburgh Road) in the Southwest ¼ of Section 32. Mark Taormina, Director of Economic Planning and Development, presented this request to Council. He stated this is a request for a new wireless communication support structure that would be located on the grounds of the American Legion Post #32 which is on Newburgh Road adjacent to Churchill High School and its athletic field. This site is roughly 2.2 acres, it has 348 feet of frontage on Newburgh Road and a depth of roughly 275 feet. As you can see from the map, the American Legion property actually has three different zoning classifications, it appears as two but it’s actually three. There is the C-1 District which is where the actual structure is located for the American Legion Post. Then there’s a parking lot immediately to the south, the zoning there is P, Parking, and then a small portion of the site on the north end is actually zoned R-U-F, Rural Urban Farm. The proposed monopole structure would be on the parking portion of this site and it would be located in the southeast corner of the property. This is an aerial photograph showing the layout of the property and note its adjacency to the athletic field for Churchill High School. This relationship is actually a large part of the discussion with the Planning Commission because it was in 2015 when Verizon Wireless originally presented a proposal to replace one of the lights for the athletic field and install a wireless communication sport structure that would also include the lighting, that was something that was tentatively approved by the School District. The concern with the Planning Commission at that time was that there was a similar type of structure directly located on the opposite side of the field on the east side and the item was tabled to allow the Petitioner an opportunity to pursue co-locating on that existing light structure. At the end of that process over a couple of years, it was realized that Churchill no longer apparently and I’ll allow the Counselor for Verizon to describe this in greater detail but because that support structure was inadequate, would not be able to support an additional attennae array, it was not something that they were able to do with the current provider, plus the Livonia Public School Board did reject the proposal ultimately to install the new light structure as well as modify that existing. 8 So, Plan B, which was to approach the American Legion property and the owners for the installation of a new wireless support structure on that property. This plan shows us where that would be located, again it’s in the southeast corner, it would occupy a couple of parking spaces on the property. The structure, as was indicated, will be 120 feet tall, it would initially just include the Verizon antennaes but it would be designed to accommodate at least two other carriers which is a requirement of the ordinance. There are a couple of special requirements that apply. One, is that this structure would have to be at least the height of the tower, plus 25 feet distance from any residential properties. The property immediately to the south is zoned R-U-F, there is not a structure on that property but because of that zoning, it is required to be at least 145 feet setback from that south property line. This is only 35 feet from the property line so it fails to meet that setback requirement. This is something that Council can waive with five, with a super majority vote. Another special requirement is the fall zone from the public rights- of-way, in this case it would be 120 feet, the height of the tower. This does meet that minimum requirement so it complies with that second special provision of the ordinance. A third requirement is that it cannot be located within a half mile of any existing antenna structures and as I indicated previously there is a structure located on the east side of the Churchill Athletic field but the Petitioner I think satisfied the Planning Commission’s inquiry with respect to the feasibility of co- locating on that structure and for that reason the Planning Commission approved the request and forwarded their recommendation to Council. So we do have, as I indicated, the attorney for Verizon here as well as their RF, Radio Frequency Engineer, as well as a representative of Verizon. Thank you. President Toy opened the floor for questions to Mr. Taormina. Bahr asked through the Chair to Taormina if he knew who owns that land, the wooded land to the south of the American Legion or at least what type of owner, is it a residential owner, is it a commercial owner. Taormina stated it’s difficult to say, he did look it up but he does not have the information in front of him, it may appear in their packet as back-up information relative to the names of the owners. Do you have any idea, it’s zoned R-U-F so I assume there will be a home at some point, unless it’s somebody that owns it and intends to keep it in its current state. Taormina replied that no one has ever called him on the development of that property. It could be split into a couple of sites under current classifications, otherwise it would have to rezoned for anything more than maybe a couple lots. Bahr then said the original thought had been to build this on one of the existing poles that doubles as a lightpole for the football field and Taormina stated that’s correct. Bahr then stated his understanding is it wasn’t structurally at a point that they could add this extra equipment on there and then asked Taormina if it has ever been considered or is it even feasible to build a new lightpole that is 9 structurally sound? He understands the schools are on this now and he should call somebody on the School Board and decide what their decision process was, but as a City Councilman I’m looking at this and saying I’d rather have a tall lightpole that doubles as a – I’m sorry, a tall Verizon pole that doubles as a lightpole than have two towers right there. What that ever considered, rebuilding a lightpole? Taormina responded that was what the request of the Planning Commission to the Petitioner to consider that and it would have to be replaced entirely in order to accommodate the additional carrier and it’s his understanding that the School Board and Crown Castle, the owner of that, rejected that proposal but it mostly deals with the LPS and what they’re willing to do. We do know that the lease area would have to be expanded and the tower would have to be replaced in order to accommodate that additional carrier. Again, Mr. LaBelle is here and he had direct conversations both with Crown Castle as well as Livonia Public School on that same question. White asked through the Chair to Taormina, to restate where the other closest tower is located? Taormina put an aerial photograph on the screen and zoomed in on the north side of the visitor grandstands, you can see the shadow of what is the actual cell tower and that also doubles as lighting equipment for the athletic field and that’s where it is located in relationship to the new cell tower. White then asked other than that tower, where would be the next closest tower and Taormina replied that he would have to look into it, he doesn’t have it off the top of his head. White then stated the reason for her questioning is the City has a policy to encourage co-location and what she really wants to know is that other tower, why can’t there be a co-location occurring with respect to that, not the one on the school property, but the next closest one. Taormina responded that is probably a question for the RF Engineer in terms of the precise location of siting this tower and why this area fits that requirement. Meakin expressed concern with that property to the south, it being an R-U-F, so technically someone could buy that property and build a home right now without coming before Council and asked what kind of problems would that cause for the Petitioner if all of a sudden a home is within 50 feet of their tower. Taormina responded he didn’t think it would necessarily cause any problems for the Petitioner and Meakin asked if they’d be granfathered in. Taormina stated if this is approved and that special requirement is waived relative to the setback then it would allow him to build that structure within that setback and it would be authorized. 10 Jolly asked when those determinations and setbacks are laid forth, that he would presume there’s a health and safety reason for doing so, or is there other rationale for doing so. He stated if they are thinking about waiving it, he’d like to know what the premise is behind having it to begin with other than it falling down. Taormina stated that the theory behind that more than anything is the fall zone requirements but their structural engineers can address that issue as to how these are built and what that likelihood is. I think that’s the basic theory behind those setback rules, it probably stems from the original thought that if they fell it would not cause damage to adjacent properties. Bahr asked if adjoining property owners were notified of this and Taormina responded in the affirmative. President Toy asked the Petitioner to come to the podium. Rob LaBelle, attorney for Verizon Wireless, 32543 Cambourne, Livonia, came to the podium. He stated that with him is David Antoun who is from Telesite. Telesite is the site acquisition specialist, basically our broker, for the purpose of finding and locating sites. Also with us is Mike Avery who is the RF, Radio Frequency Engineer, who is the person who identifies where, and he’s going to send David to find a location for us. He stated he thinks the best way to answer many of these questions is to go back to the history and that will give you an answer to many of the questions you’re asking about here. And then I’ll go from there and talk a little bit about the setback requirement and then take questions. So the basic question here was what happened. Back in 2015 we had proposed to put on this site, actually both sites. The original proposal was actually a split proposal. Part of the site would have been on the American Legion Property and part of it would have been on the Churchill property. The part on the Churchill property would have been the tower itself. On the American Legion property would have been our compound where you locate things like the communications equipment, etc. The one on the Churchill site would have been built on another lightpole that was opposite of the side where the Crown Castle site had been. So we would have had one there, on that pole. It would have been very similar to the one on the other side in that it would have had lights at about 100 feet and at about 120 feet you would have seen the antenna structures on the antenna platform. And that’s what it would have been set up. At that time we presented that to the Livonia Planning Commission and we were told to check into the question of whether we could co-locate on the existing Crown Castle which is on the opposite side of the Athletic Field, if we could go on to that site. Crown Castle leases its space that it has at that location from the Livonia Public Schools. The actual structure, the tower that’s there, is owned by Crown Castle. It was originally built actually by T-Mobile and T-Mobile sold it to Crown Castle, T-Mobile is the antennas 11 that are actually on there. So Crown Castle would have been the one operating that particular tower. We spent the next almost three years following that, trying to work with Crown Castle to find some way to be able to use that tower. We started with just simply trying to co-locate, put our own antennas onto that structure that was already there. That failed structurally, miserably. In your file packet that was given to the Planning Commission you’ll see the various structure reports and depending upon what you’re talking about, it was either 135 to 195 percent of the structural capacity of the site for various reasons, wind load, height, structural strength, etc. So you physically could not relocate yourself on there. To be candid, we’re here partly because of the fact that when that tower was originally, it was not built for co-location ever. Nobody else could have gotten on that tower whatsoever. And basically, like I said, it failed so badly that there’s no chance that anybody else ever could have gone on that tower. So that’s the first thing. You try to work with them and try to do that, that failed. So the next question was okay, can we try to replace the structure that you have there. To replace the structure you have there we would have had to have built a taller structure than was already there, replace what was there and then also expanded the compound that was in the location because to expand the tower, you also have to expand the base of that tower pretty significantly in fact. Again, it’s in that structural report that is in your packet. The result of which would have been that you would have had to get additional leasing space from the Livonia Public School System. And top of that you’d also have to pay for the costs of being able to put up a tower in the first place. Crown Castle rejected and the Livonia Public Schools rejected that. Neither was will to do what was necessary to cause it to be increased. So as a result the Livonia Public School System wouldn’t agree to us being able to expand it as a result. So finally after all of this failed, we went back to our original proposal which was to try to deal with putting it partly on the Livonia Public School System and just creating a tower on the opposite side and also putting the compound within the American Legion property. That ended up as Plan B actually, that was the Plan B. We’re on Plan C now. Plan B died when Livonia Public School System told us that they were no longer interested and not placing anything, facilities on their site at th all. They did that at an April 25 matter and the question here was why, we don’t know. We were not invited to that particular board meeting and if you look at the minutes for that particular board meeting, you can’t find them on line. So I’m not able to tell you the reason why the Livonia Public School System rejected us, especially after we’d been working with them for so long but they did. So now we’re stuck with Plan C where we put the entire building on the American Legion property. The reason why we’re putting it on the American Legion property where we are and why we’re looking for the setback waiver in this case is because the they’re trying to place it as far away from existing structure and existing roads and most importantly, existing concentrations of residential development. To the north of this property, the American Legion property, there’s a rather substantial 12 residential development. And as a result if we don’t put it there to the south and we actually meet the setback requirements, we’re moving ourselves north. And if we do move ourselves north we’re now in the middle of what is the outdoor meeting area, if you will, activity area, for the American Legion. And it would eliminate a lot more parking spaces to do that as well. And basically it just simply makes more sense for it to be on this side and closer to that edge than the other. And the reason why this also works in general we would say is because the tower that we’re proposing is a Verizon monopole, a Verizon specification monopole, in other words it’s built to our specifications. No Verizon monopole has ever fallen. They’ve been hit by hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, vehicles, a whole host of things and none of them has taken it down. They’re actually designed to not do this, not to topple. They’re designed to either telescope on themselves or to crumble so they’d go over like this. And either way the basic fall zone as you’ll see in the letter that we did provide to the Planning Commission and it should be in your packet as well, the structural engineer was talking about this, talked about the actual fall zone for this site in reality is 40 feet, or 50 feet rather because it’s structurally designed in two spots to be broken off. So it would be 50 feet, not 150 feet. I’m sorry, it’s a 120 foot tower so there would be three would be 40 feet apiece. So that’s the concept of why we’re doing what we are doing. The property to the south, we happen to know mainly through the American Legion is a piece of property which the American Legion actually has been trying to buy for years. And the party who owns it currently is not a residential, it’s a company. So there’s a company that owns this piece of property, they were given notice as was mentioned because they’re within 300 feet of this particular location so they would have gotten notice with regard to it. Our guess is that they are probably going to try, if they ever do try to develop it, it won’t be for residential purposes, it would probably be for commercial purposes of some sort. But whatever the case is, there’s no current residents there. There are to the north and in order to try to keep it farther away from the largest density of existing towers or existing developments, we pushed it to the south as opposed to the north or farther north than it would otherwise be. I think another question that was asked, the question about what’s the closest tower in where we could use something else instead, I’m going to have to have David come up here and Mike, if you could, too. David Antoun, Telesite, Inc., 1015 Southfield Drive, Novi. I originally drove the location and I always try to co-locate because it’s so much cheaper, and a lot easier in zoning. But there was really nothing in the area to co-locate on except for the tower that was on the other side. And I already knew that it was too short of a tower and we needed more height. So that’s why in the beginning I tried to duplicate that same thing that they did, that T-Mobile tower did on the other side. But again, Mark asked us if there was any way we could co-locate first. So we did spend over two years trying to figure that out and we’re not able to co-locate. But 13 there are no towers that we can co-locate on besides the T-Mobile one. All the other towers are a mile or so further than this one. Rob LaBelle returned to the podium and showed Council a propagation map which he stated was also in their packets in a smaller version. It refers to the levels to which an existing towers propagates their signal. The signals seen here in the green, yellow and red which Mike can describe in more detail the more technical end, but the basic concept is you want it all green. The idea is to get complete coverage here from the standpoint of linking up every single tower. Each tower, the reason why it’s called a cell tower, cellular phone, because each of the individual towers creates a cell around them, roughly circular. Each of those cells need to match up with every other cell created by all other towers, they can’t overlap significantly because if they do they’ll cause destructive interference within the area of overlap and they can’t be divided from each other because of this small gap between the two, that small gap is permanent because you will never be able to place a tower within that area without creating a massive zone of destructive interference. So there’s a very small area to be able to locate on, link up these sites. Think like a honeycone, it kind of makes up each of the cells next to each other so that they gently bump up into one another. And that’s what you’re trying to do in that circumstance. And the closest tower that we occupy Attorney Rob Labelle and Dan Newton from the American Legion presented this request to Council. Meakin offered both an approving and a denying resolution for the Regular Agenda. DIRECTION: 1) Approving Regular 2) Denying 6. MASTER PLAN PETITION: Planning Commission, re: Petition 2018-09-07-01, to forward the proposed Comprehensive Master Plan (Livonia Vision 21) to the Livonia City Council for review and comment, and thereafter authorize distribution of the Plan for public comment pursuant to MCL 125.3841 of P.A. 33 of 2008, as amended, more commonly known as the Michigan Planning Enabling Act. Paul Lippens from McKenna & Associates gave a presentation to Council on the Master Plan. Kritzman offered an approving resolution for the Regular Agenda. DIRECTION: 1) Approving Regular AUDIENCE COMMUNICATION: None. 14 As there were no further questions or comments, President Toy adjourned the Study Session at 10:05 p.m. on Monday, October 15, 2018. DATED: October 29, 2018 SUSAN M. NASH CITY CLERK