A second cell tower may come to Damascus

By TOM KANE

DAMASCUS — A public hearing to consider another cell tower to be erected by Princeton Towers was postponed because the public notice regulations were not observed.

The hearing will be scheduled for another time, said William Gager, Damascus Township Supervisor.

The tower is expected to be erected at the township hall on Conklin Road. The first tower has been approved for Route 191 in Lookout.

At the board meeting last Monday evening, planning board member Jennifer Canfield pointed out that the cell tower officials had never come to the planning board and had never sent a site plan, something they should have done before going before the township board.

“You wouldn’t have been able to hold a public hearing anyway,” Canfield said.

On another matter, planning board members who attended the township board meeting reminded the board that they had never complied with a recommendation from the planning board to have a local business, Rutledge Farm Equipment, seek a conditional use permit.

The township board issued a waiver from an ordinance requiring auto repair businesses to erect a buffer in front of their business to hide it from view.

When owner Ron Rutledge, moved from Stone House Road to the Callicoon Road, County Road 1016, complaining that the ordinance would stop him from displaying things he had for sale, the waiver was issued.

“We are not an automobile business in any respect, so the ordinance should not apply to us,” Rutledge said.

Rutledge was shut down for a few days but was opened again after the waiver.

The planning board members urged that the waiver time be limited and that the business must still submit a site plan to the planning board to seek a conditional use permit.

“I have submitted a site plan review and sought a conditional use permit,” Rutledge said. “I need to talk to those people.”

The board agreed to a 60-day waiver period.