SPRING LAKE -- A few dozen borough residents are urging Spring Lake officials not to settle a lawsuit with Verizon that could allow the company to install 5G cellular poles along Ocean Avenue.
More than 30 residents gathered at the municipal building on May 27, where they urged Mayor Jennifer Naughton to continue to fight Verizon's 5G poles plan. Last November, Naughton announced that Verizon was suing the borough over the issue.
The lawsuit, filed last year on behalf of New York SMSA Limited, working for Verizon, alleges Spring Lake's Council, mayor and zoning officer created an "unreasonable delay and effective denial" of the project.
Verizon applied to the borough to build six small wireless facilities, as the company calls them, in order to provide greater cellular coverage to Spring Lake residents and summer visitors.
The mayor said that the litigation was ongoing.
"Please don't let them (Verizon attorneys) bully you into settling," Kelley Badishkanian, a member of the group called Spring Lake Against 5G Towers, said to Naughton during the May 27 meeting's public comment section.
Badishkanian said in a separate conversation with an Asbury Park Press reporter that if Verizon's plan moves forward, 5G towers would "be all over town" before long.
"This is a no-go," she said. "They (Verizon representatives) are trying to do this all over the coast."
The towers would be a maximum of 35 feet high, or up to 110% of the heights of the surrounding buildings; would be designed to accommodate at least three phone carriers; and would address the area's "serious wireless capacity problem," according to Verizon's application.
"Over the summer months, there is an exponential increase of visitors to the borough's beaches," the company wrote in its 11-page application. "That increased demand on Verizon Wireless' network far outstrips available capacity which, in turn, has inhibited the ability of residents and visitors to make and receive phone calls or text messages or use their devices to access the internet."
Attorneys for Verizon said cell phone service is essential for safety, emergencies and for being able to call 911.
A 2018 federal law gives preferential treatment to wireless broadband companies to expand their service infrastructure. The law also limits the degrees to which local governments can resist the construction of such small wireless facilities in public rights of way.
But critics of the 5G towers say the poles would be ugly, clash with the borough's historic character, and emit electromagnetic fields and radiation.
In other surrounding towns, "once one tower was approved, dozens more followed," said Spring Lake resident Laura DeMeo during the borough council meeting. "We must stand together and say no new towers in Spring Lake, not on Ocean Avenue, not on pavilions where kids and families spend their days, not anywhere."
Mayor Naughton told the crowd in the municipal building that the governing body also did not want to see 5G towers along Ocean Avenue.
"The borough's put an enormous amount of financial resources in finding the specialists and finding the attorneys to help us do this (resist the towers)," she said. "I think we have the right people."
Amanda Oglesby is an Ocean County native who covers education and the environment. She has worked for the Press for more than 17 years. Reach her at @OglesbyAPP, [email protected] or 732-557-5701.