i would like to speak about some of the hazards presented by installing backup batteries for wireless antennas and utility poles in residential neighborhoods, which is standard practice for these types of facilities. i have just handed you excerpts from the lead acid battery material safety data sheet from one of the battery manufacturers used by wireless companies in san francisco. please refer to section 6, fire and explosion hazard data. outdoor enclosures containing lead-acid batteries typically use passive air ventilation in an atecht to maintain strictly defined environmental conditions of temperature and humidity. in coastal areas of san francisco, like the outer richmond and outer sunset, salt, air, condensation on this type of equipment takes place that can result in electrical

arching, short circuits, and fires that can result in the ignition of hydrogen gas produced by these batteries during normal operations. and any of us who have lived in the sunset or the richmond understand our cars can rust away, the cameras can rust and there is activity with salt air. the legislation. you today -- the legislation before you today does not address this type of hazard, nor does it include rigorous rules and protocols for preventing this type of danger by, for example, requiring routine pressure washing and mon the organize of equipment on utility poles of which salt air condensation can take place. while the legislation does make residential and neighborhood commercial districts zoning protected locations for the purpose of purpose of wireless facilities for the public right of way, it needs to go further by keeping these types of facilities completely out of

these areas for safety reasons whenever possible. i am here to address corporate responsibility. i thank you, commissioners. >> is there additional public comment? >> good afternoon, mr. chairman, members of the commission. i am here today as outside counsel for verizon wireless and at&t, one of the rare situations where they agree, and encourage you to take a deep breath and i'm take a deep breath, too, and schedule a hearing amongst yourselves to look at what this legislation does and what are good possible alternative. the need is tremendous. the data demands have increased 5,000% in the last three years. verizon's wireless data demands

are increasing 300% a year and the need is in the neighborhoods and the logical place to put the facilities is in the right of way. the history really is that san francisco is not the first to put facilities in the right of way with the ordinance but probably the lance. san jose started putting facilities in the right-of-way a long time ago which makes sense. put telephone facility on telephone pole. they had to sue the city of san francisco in 2005 to get them to allow facilities on right-of-way and the ordinance was pushed through in 2007 and as you heard, most of the facilities go through planning review because of streets that have excellent views, average views -- excuse me, not average views, good views in front of parks and historical streets of significance for orientation and all those go before the planning department for review. if you look at the staff report it says that the problem was there were no standards for review and there were some poles reviewed by the planning

department that people came home to and they were ugly and unhappy and they complained to their supervisor about it. we understand the need to come up with standards for reviewing facilities on right-of-way poles that makes a lot of sense. with that history, we don't believe the current legislation does anything like that. introduced in january of this year, there have been two stakeholders meetings with the industry to discuss this and our fundamental problem with the legislation is that it establishes per inch descriptions for antennas. 4-foot antennas and one box per pole with a 12-inch width depth and a 10-inch depth box, four cubic feet or three cubic feet. there are no facilities that verizon or at&t can install today that will meet these requirements. so this legislation legislates the size of inper missbly, limits the size of box and that is a whole other story. we encourage you to think about

alternative ways and our suggestion would be a process similar to accessory use where design is reviewed by the planning department and they say yes, that design is an appropriate design for installation on the right-of-way and it gets stamped as approval for that kind of installation of facility. we urge you to take time, have a hearing, talk about alternatives, but not approve this legislation. thank you. president miguel: thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am speaking on maf to have san francisco neighborhood for antenna and the citywide grass roots coalition that focuses on the impacts of wireless technology. why we encourage you to approve the legislation that will impose long overdue restrictions on the public right of way as location for wireless facilities, there are several important issues it does not address that it should.

first and foremost, there is a need for explicit rules and safeguards regarding public safety hazards posed by placing wireless equipment on existing utility poles in residential neighborhoods. these hazards include pole overloading that can result in electrocution, dangers from downed power lines, explosive hazards by the hydrogen gas generate bid lead acid backup batteries installed on utility poles, salt air condensation on equipment that can result in electrical arcing, short circuits, and fires. and other inherent dangers in a city susceptible to earthquakes and high wind. the legislation is currently drafted and doesn't address any of the safety issues. as the recent san bruno pipeline fire clearly demonstrates, the california university's commission of protecting the public from the safety i will the utilities it regulates is at best a dubious one. add to that the cpuc's current

lack of any inspection requirements at all for wireless infrastructure attached to utility poles throughout the state of california and it becomes essential that the city and county of san francisco step forward and use the police powers it is granted under the state constitution to ensure that the public is protected to the fullest extent under the law when wireless companies seek to install the intrusive industrial facilities in our residential neighborhoods in san francisco. wireless carriers routinely appear before you seeking permission to place the equipment throughout the city and touting their concern for public safety and how the installation of new wireless facilities will improve 911 service for city residents. yet the same companies successfully block the f.c.c.'s attempt to mandate that they provide at least eight hourses of emergency backup power to ensure that wireless facilities continue to operate in times of emergencies. in the end, however, it doesn't matter whether the companies have public safety or

shareholder profit foremost in their minds. it is the responsibility of the local government to ensure the safety of members of the public and apply the same prudent, preventive safety practices and precautions to billion dollar corp.ings that are applied to anyone who liveses or does business in san francisco. so we encourage you to approve the legislation and look into the safety issueses and very real safety issues raised we this as well. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is henry tang. i live at 18 # 1 fulton street and i became interested in wireless communication issues when t-mobil proposed to put an antenna right outside my bedroom window. i would like to echo the safety

concerns. one important element that is missing from supervisor avalos' legislation in the current form is rules and regulations regarding safety hazards imposed by installing equipment in residential neighborhoods. as you can see from the news item i am in the process of handing to you back in 2007 wildfires were started in malibu because wireless antenna equipment installed on utility poles resulted in these poles being overloaded and breaking in 50 miles per hour winds when they were supposed to have withstood winds of 92 miles per hour. 14 structure were destroyed by these fires. president miguel: louder, please. >> thank you. this indent resulted in a number of california public utilities commission proceedings on developing a new set of rules governing the installation of

wireless equipment on utility poles. how far, these california proceedings are moving at a glacial pace and at present there is currently no inspection protocol in place for wireless facility on utility poles in the state of california. it is, therefore, essential that san francisco step forward and use its police powers you wered the state constitution to ensure that wireless facilities installed on utility poles in residential neighborhoods do not prevent similar hazards to those that resulted in the malibu wildfires in 2007. this is particularly important because not only is san francisco an eastbounding country but it is al subject to high winds on occasion as was the case earlier this year. i encourage you to recommend that this legislation be adopted

t amended to include strict safety guidelines including inspections undertaken by independent experts to be paid for by the wireless applicants seeking to install their facilities in the public rights of way. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is wendy robinson. i live on randall street in glen park. i came home a number of months ago and fell over because there were four large industrial size equivalent of buzzing on 24/7 microwave ovens installed on the utility pole at eye level 8 feet in front of my front step of my house. these are for, again, that picture you saw was very misleading. i wish that was what was installed in front of my place.

it's much bigger than that equipment which installed in front of my place and the places that i have seen it and in my case it's 8 feet from my front step which is a couple feet back from the front door. and starting at eye level and then immediately above that and it is on 24/7. it's awful. it couldn't be uglier. it's horrendous. it buzzes 24/7, buzzes and crackles 24/7. when i close my front door, i can still hear it. inside my house. talking with a neighbor or anyone in front of my house now has the sound track to it of saw 3 in 3d right there in front of my house. like i say, the pictures show, i was disappointed in the pictures. i thought they would be more representative. the one picture showed that it's

not. the equipment in front of my place really because the distance is the wos i have ever seen, although i think there's other places around town that are that close. but around town the equipment is much more terrible including the extension and the big, large, three or four foot extension they put on top of the poles. and when i opened my front door, that is all i see in my field of vision. that is it. my neighbors and i put together a petition and we must have got even in the two blocks on randall street to sign it and i think there were 60 or 70 signatures and we put together a petition that happened and submitted it to the board of voess. i speak for them here today, especially, of course, the neighbors right next to me. the neighbors in the left are in the same sig as i am -- are in

the same situation as i am with it being so close and right there and we can see it inside. they can see it from their front window that used to be a nice view of a tree and we had some discussion on. . when the city has to once again lay off employees and cut people's salaries and make other cut -- [bell ringing] president miguel: thank you. >> can i finish this one thought? because i want to talk about the impact on -- president miguel: i'm sorry. everyone gets the samf time. you can submit any written material. >> maybe someone else will talk about the impact on even's salaries will have to be cut because of this. president miguel: thank you. is there additional public comment? >> good afternoon,

commissioners. my name is brad cahlon and outside counsel for t-mobil. i would like to foe ku on twos aspects of the proposed ordinance. we have submitted written comments to the commission and to planning and one of the things that i think is important here is that for the past year t-mobile has been responding by trying to find a technology that is something that will fit within this tier one dimension that has been with the proposed ordinance. and the proposed ordinance sets out a dimension for a single box and for an antenna. and t-mobile has been able to find a vendor that has a single

box that fits within the three cubic feet limit. it's 2.3 cubic feet. it has a depth of 10 inches. how far, it's 19 inches wide which is 7 inches beyond the dimensions set forth in the current proposal. the antenna that they have manufactured is an antenna that's 48.8 inches. the height limit, of course, in the proposed ordinance is 48 inches. so we're .8 off and i am assured by engineers and the vendors that it cannot be any shorter than that. they have shaped it as far as it can be reduced. it does have a diameter that may slightly exceed the diameter of the pole, but the point here is that industry has and is

responding to the need and there is a need for more antennas. the reason there's deficient coverage in two of the greatest cities in the world is deficiencies in antenna infrastructure, use of the right-of-way makes sense because we're using existing clutter that we have all grown up with and are used to in the streets to add additional applications to provide the service. the problem with the current ordinance is it discriminates against f.c.c. approved equipment because they are relegated to an inferior status of going through a much more protracted application process than those providers that have no f.c.c. approved equipment. and in order to avoid the preemption is to provide flexibility in tier one to allow the f.c.c. approved carriers to fit one tier one to have that

steamlined process. [bell ringing] president miguel: thank you. >> is there additional public comment? >> david tom and i concur with what doug warren said from snafu. we support the legislation and it is important to have note to neighbors and right now there is no notice and this will provide notice. how far, there are certain concerns we have about it. for example, with the tier one, the notice doesn't happen until the permit is already issued and the argument i heard yesterday in meeting with the supervisors is that these things are all okay the way they are and we have had a public hearing on it and the reality is there are neighbors who don't find out about it until it is in front of their doorstep and i think they should have a right to have an input into these, even the small tier one's before hand, not just after the permit is issued.

so that' one of the concerns i have about it and why do we want to put indonesia the public rights of way and what we are trying to do is put them underground. and so that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. and i also wanted to speak to the hazards of these devices besides the r.f.r. that we're not supposed to talk about. and they have batteries on them and those batteries have hazardous chemicals in them. the lead acid battery and the trail sheets i'm going to show you and i believe someone may have handed it to you says that the batteries have lead and sulfurics a the mid them and although they are not spillable, they are not as hazardous but when they break open in the case of case breakage or extreme heat that there is a fire. and as we saw with the san bruno fire, it wasn't doing a very good job and we need to step in

under the local jurisdiction under the local police powers and protect the safety of residents and it doesn't look like this is doing that and looks like they don't have any regulations to even monitor that. in looking at the data sheet, i have a copy of it here and may i have the overhead please? so thf the data sheet and i know you can't see it here but it sayses it's got led and lead oxide and sulfuric acid in it. and from the way i read it and in this s.e.c. here that nfpa has agreed the read iing and reactivity one and i think if he had one of the hazard fund, that would be a 3, 0, 1, and 0. and this isn't a safe thing to put on the pole. i think we need to put that in

the legislation that the public safety about these kind of batteries should be included. thank you. president miguel: thank you. is there additional public comment on this item? if not, public comment is closed. this is legislation put forward by the board of supervisor. we normally have 90 days to comment. where are we on that? >> we are over that since it was introduced in december of last year, but it hasn't been taken up by land use. president miguel: basically we comment now or we may not have a chance to. >> there is that potential. >> i have not been following all the details of this intimately. but a couple of things bother

me. one is the possible safety to the battery and that has been brought up over the years and it is something that obviously at least is not really covered directly in the legislation. and the other, i take exception to a comment that was made a few moments ago that we should continue using, if my quote is right, the existing clutter in our streets. i believe that this commission and the entire city should do away with the existing clutter as much as possible and not add to it and i take direct exception to that statement. commissioner borden? commissioner borden: i amgenly supportive of this situation, but there are a lot of safety

issue t not addressed and i thought an earlier version went to the health commission. is that not the case? it goes to the health department in general, but one of the things we discussed is having a hearing at the health commission and that seems like an appropriate place to discuss the r.f. and the safety issues and has come up quite a bit at this commission. some of my concerns, though s that i feel like there are a lot of unknown factors and we had an earlier wireless facility that came up and that is not clear to me what the impact on the existing and the private wireless facilities with this legislation. and the concern of the overall existing sites and it is not clear how that would not happen if we are redirecting the antennas to private property away from public property. am i wrong in understanding that? >> well, there are two different process and they are for similar types of service, but i believe

the private property installations will continue to be the primary forms of macroinstallations because the public utility poles cannot us a tan a macro facility. however, this is a way for the carriers to provide service and to increase their ability to handle capacity in residential neighborhoods that are quite honestly difficult to find appropriate private property locations. commissioner borden: this legislation deals with n.c.'s, but only public -- >> i'm sorry to interrupt, but just to clarify, this legislation is exclusive to the public right-of-way. so this has nothing to do with the private property >> on the building if they design a building, it is still permitted? >> it could be permitted under both circumstances. this legislation only deals with public right-of-way. and any service provider can

submit an application to row kate on a public utility -- to locate on a public utility pole and on private property. commissioner borden: right, but the only concern is if it's perceived that it is easier to do it on the private property and i don't want people to think we are eliminating it from the neighborhood, but it's still going to be there. >> it makes it easier to locate it on the public right-of-way which is why the carriers fought so vehemently to get the rights to install them. >> existing, right, and this is the process, how would it impact that? >> it would bring it closer to par with how we regulate on private property, but we also encourage through the tier one process a standard by which it is ar aesthetically pleasing to carriers to strive towards. commissioner borden: my question is there was debate about the antenna size which how did the

number and the antenna size that was come up with in this legislation, was that based upon what the existing antennas or trying to figure out and the industry people are saying they don't fit the size we're luthing and i wanted to understand how the number came up. >> what we did is -- first of all, the background information. the tier system emerged at the request of the carriers themselves, maybe not in the form they had desired, but it was to create a nonsubjective format where they can go to look at where to place the antennas. we looked at what the arts commission in new york city approved and we really strived towards that standard and so the tier one dimensions came out of that approval in new york city.

and in the workshops it was told very clearly to us that it would not allow for certain carriers to install their types of equipment, so we said, okay, well, since it is -- somebody is able to do it now and in the future more will be able to make smaller antennas and smaller utility boxes, so that we will streamline that process to go anywhere in the city without administrative review. however, the tier two process so if you don't fit in tier one, it doesn't mean you can't go in, but you have more in the planning process. and if you don't fit in that criteria, those dimensional requirements, we're still not saying you can't go in. you simply have to go through a tier three process. so the arguments that are being presented by the carriers are frustrating for me to hear because they really initiated

this standardization of dimensions and thresholds of where we can go and how big we can go. commissioner borden: and i wasn't clear on this issue of f.c.c. versus non-f.c.c. approved. i am very confused about that. >> i am a little bit of a layman on this as well, but my understanding is there are individual carriers and the verizon's, at&t's, t-mobiles that have f.c.c. issued licenses and a bandwidth to propagate their -- >> is there a safety advantage by having an f.c.c. approved antenna versus a nonone? >> i believe they are all approved by the f.c.c.. i'm sorry, maybe i misunderstood the xhe. >> there is some non-f.c.c. approved antennas that would fit and so in this systems not

regulated by the f.c.c.. they don't provide the service. they provide the infrastructure. commissioner borden: maybe the person who said it can explain the difference. they made an example of this and inferior antennas would be allowed basically over the approved federal antennas. maybe that gentleman can explain that to me. i am at a loss to what that meant. >> commissioner borden, brad calhoun representing t-mobile. the distinguish is that as was explained, there are basically four carriers that use f.c.c.-approved equipment under the f.c.c. license. there are other types of providers that are