our written submission to the board shows how relevant real-world conditions like an earthquake misaligninged antenna wasn't considered. a class 1 exemption is limited to existing utility facilities and prohibits using the exemption to expand use. clear wire, by contrast, has no existing facilities in bernal heights park and is proposing a new citywide utility system. a class 3 exemption is limited to the installation of small new equipment and facilities and small structures. the 50-foot tall telecommunications tower in bernal heights park does not qualify as a small structure. a class 11 exemption does not apply to tilts like clear wire and is limited to minor structures that are accessory to

existing facilities. commission erred because in this case there are relatively small facilities, clear wire's 5.5 point antenac attach to a major large structure, the 50 foot tower in bernal heights park. as previously noted, even if clear wire's project is determined to meet any or all of these three exemptions, the cumulative impact and significant effect exceptions to these exemptions apply and clear wire's project as much undergo environmental review per seekwa. for these and the reasons previously submitted to the board, the planning commission erred in categorically exempting clear wire's project from seekwa review. we request that the board of supervisors reject the commission's decision and require clear wire to prepare an environmental impact report prior to proceeding with construction of its new citywide utility system in san francisco. thank you.

president chiu: let me ask if there are members of the public that wish to speak on the side of the appellant. please step up to the microphone. anyone else on the side of the appellant please step up and line up in the super aisle. each speaker shall have up to two minutes. first speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is robyn mackie, and i live in bernal heights about two blocks from bernal heights park. i would like to discuss in some detail, in some more detail, why, even if clear wire's intent is proposed for bernal heights park are considered in isolation from the rest of its proposed new citywide utility system, the cumulative impact of 50 years of unpermitted antenna installations on the telecommunications tower and the

accompanying neglect on the part of the tower and the property owners are enough to require seekwa review. here are some of the recent photographs taken of the telecommunications tower and its immediate surroundings. there we go. all right. as you can see from the graffiti that was on virtually every area near the tower, and i say was. i was at the site about 3:30 today and a lot of it, much of the graffiti has been painted over, but graffiti remains at the top of the tower. as you can see, the graffiti was

on virtually every area near the tower and the tower itself. the current tower and the property owners had done nothing until this morning to maintain this facility in a manner that mitigates the visual impact the structure has vis-a-vis the surrounding public park in which it is located or the spectacular views of san francisco and the bay area afforded by the hill top location. quite the contrary, they have instead negligently allowed the tower's visual impact to be dramatically worse than it otherwise might be. it is long past due -- president chiu: thank you very much. next speaker, please step up. >> good afternoon. my name is gale mallenson and i live on bernal heights a couple of blocks away from the space where the tower is located. thank you for hearing us today. we really appreciate the opportunity to discuss this with you. i'd like to focus on some of the

inadequacies of the hammit and edison report on compliance with fcc limits for public exposure to radio frequency radiation with regard to the unusual circumstances exception and categorical exemption under seek wampt in order to determine that public exposures to radio frequency radiation levels in excess of fcc exposure standards should clear wire's highly directional point-to-point microwave back haul antennas lose alignment due to unusual circumstances such as an earthquake, all the following must take place. an accurate estimation must be made of power density levels within the point-to-point beams cross-section raid wye and at cross range where people across san francisco could be exposed should unusual circumstances

occur resulting in the lack of alignment. the make of the electromagnetic equipment clear wire plans to use at the site and indications as to any and all field modifications that clear wire intends to implement on its own must be taken into consideration. there must be unambiguous taken into consideration of all the distant end points for the plan's point-to-point transition, including distance, longitude, latitude, elevation and areas. clear wire -- thank you. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> frank egger. my permanent address is number 13 meadow lane, fairfax,

california. i'm representing the ager family who have resided on bernal hill since 1909. my grandfather built the home there. as a kid i played on bernal hill in the 40s and 50s. i'm very familiar with the area. the city and county of san francisco has the opportunity this evening to correct inequity and a wrong that has been perpetrated on the people of bernal hill since the late '50s and early '60s. just because those antennas were put up prior to the california environmental quality act going into effect is no reason to exempt them today. the applicant wants to bifurcate this project. the planning commission erred. i urge you to grant the appeal, to reject the project and uphold

the neighborhood. this is a vital interest to us all. i first hiked there in the 40s. i hiked there today and please correct this inequity. thank you very much. >> my name is charles kalish. i live on bernal hill. i didn't know anything about this. i came here for a different purpose. i'd like to ask you to make sure that an environmental study is done before anything is implemented. i got to say something, mr. speaker, i don't know whether it's your job or anyone else's job, but we are your electorate. and the disrespect that goes on that, is going on in this room, not just by ms. alioto-pier,

but, really, everyone, not paying attention to what the public, people that took their time to come down here, is saying, it's very hurtful. president chiu: if i could ask you to limit your comments to the full board, not any one person. those are the rules. thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon. my name is gabriella schultz and i am speaking to clear wire and the planning commission's reliance on the firm of hammit and edison for their determination of the extent to which clear wire's project meets fcc guidelines regarding public exposures to radio frequency radiation. hammit and edison has, in the past, given conflicting reports on what they supposedly checked

in accessible areas in colorado. i strongly believe that given this dubious history of misrepresentation to local governments regarding compliance with fcc guidelines for public exposures to radio frequency radiation and hammit and edison's incomplete analysis of the extent to which clear wire's project will meet fcc guidelines under unusual circumstances such as earthquakes, i urge you to require environmental review under the california environmental quality act. i vote, please vote to support this appeal. president chiu: thank you, next speaker. >> my name is william. i lived up on bernal heights all my life. i moved there january 11, 1945. i was seven days old from the

hospital. my family's lived up there for about 90 years. my children are the last of the new family coming up on the hill. so when somebody's been doing something wrong for 50 years, one more time don't make it right. you know. i would just like to see a little common sense in this thing. i was a teenager when that tower went up and i didn't know why it went up, i didn't know what it was and how it got there and now i find out what's been going on for 50 years. that's a long time. take a little consideration on the people that live up there, because, you know, a little of this, a little of that, it just keeps getting worse and worse. how bad could it get. i don't know how bad it is and i don't think anybody in this room knows how bad it is or what it is. to me, this is all something i don't understand. maybe i would like to learn a little bit. this is the first meeting i've been to about this tower.

it's not going to be my last. so i hope that we could at least come up with something that could work for both sides. not just one. thank you. president chiu: next speaker. ask if you can activate the projector. there it is. >> my name is steve froehlich and i'm from san francisco. i represent the presidio heights residents for public safety and public policy which we do not have and also i want to support the community on the other side

of town as i would support any other community that's in opposition to corporate imperialism. if we can take this to extreme, actually call this tech no fascism because the american people, especially the people in the county of san francisco, cannot rebuff or challenge the 1996 telecommunications act which basically has been written by the corporation, for the corporations. they could care less about public health, radiation, microwaving to illuminate us to the health implications. this is happening throughout the city so i put this before you,

the commonwealth club will be having a discussion. i appreciate the opportunity to support my friends in bernal heights and other areas. it doesn't matter what difference what company it is, they're going to take on every building, every church, every synagogue, every mosque where they can put up their antenna. christ did not die on a cross. you would think he died on an antenna. president chiu: thank you, next speaker. >> i'll try to keep out the religious comments, here. i'm working with the appellant on this case. i spent time on bernal heights

and i'm familiar with the location. i actually went up there at site and was talking with people at the area. almost everyone i talked to, they didn't realize there were something like 63 antenac up there and my understanding is a lot of them don't have the permits they're supposed to have. i urge you to vote yes on seekwa, especially. and as far as the issue of meeting fcc requirements, they haven't done an adequate study to show that and this was brought up before. there must be an unambiguous identification of all the existing end points for the planned point-to-point transmission. the intended intersection and ongoing alignment for each microwave dish in san francisco must be documented. clear wire must provide

clarification that the power level being used at each of the point-to-point transmission sites and the crossing transmission beams across public areas. clear wire must document the contingency plans to shut off the facility should loss of alignment of these dishes take place, including automatic deenergizing of all transmission capability. however, there is nothing in the hammit and edison report or the clear wire application that clear wire gave this information to hammit and edison or that hammit and edison used this information in writing the report. my understanding is they're property taxes at that site. that's in your documentation. thank you. president chiu: are there any members of the public who also wish to speak on the behalf of the appellant?

>> tara sullivan from the planning department. i'm here with erica jackson, the project planner, as well as noni terrell, the environmental planner and patrick who reviewed the applications for fcc requirements. to give background, to set the stage for this appeal, i would like to give background which applies to this appeal as well as the conditional use appeal as to how the bernal heights power became what it is today. in 1960, the owner of the property had applied to the planning commission and received the conditional use authorization to install two towers, specifically for antennas. both were to be exactly the same as the one constructed today. the owner only constructed one and a lot of time passed. we didn't see a lot of permit activity from 1960 until about two years ago. in 2008, t-mobile came to the

department and requested a conditional use authorization to install some additional panel antennas. when we were reviewing that application, it came to the department's attention that from 1960 until 2008 there had been a lack of permitting going on in terms of the antennas that were on the tower. over time, the towers were originally constructed for radio and television and technology has advanced, it has been a receiving site for a lot of cellular installations. the governments there, the local governments as well as many other major carriers. what we did, we worked with the american tower corporation, put the t-mobile application on hold and worked with the owner of the property and the tower, american tower corporation, and what we did is we did a survey or we asked them to do a application . how they are active, who they

are leased to, and as a result of that, they brought forward that application, the conditional use application to the planning commission in october of 2008. they basically legalized what had occurred over the past several decades and set a very hard cap at the number of antennas that can go on this power without any additional conditional use authorizations. they also delineated the type of antennas that can go on, some up to 71. there would be 14 dish antennas and 17 other types. there are nine dead antennas on the tower. the removal of the 57 or however

many are on their, to come in and legalize, they would need an additional conditional use authorization. in addition, they agreed to submit a landscape plan and an improvement plan as you have seen from the photos. american power agreed to do that. that was the 2008 conditional use authorization that basically set the standard for what is going on today. the conditional use or the categorical exemption was appealed to the board of supervisors. with the larger c.u., all applications that we get our first sent over and referred to the department of public health. the department sets a cursory review -- but they do a check to make sure that is within the fcc

mandated guidelines. they go out to the site and take measurements of the existing transmissions, waves, and have that as a base of measurement. they have an idea of what the proposed panels will do and they will determine if it is within fcc limits. they go back out to the site and make sure that the measurements are the same and do not exceed the levels. this measurement is checked every couple of years. they did a cumulative checked in determined at all of the antennas did not exceed the fcc radiation levels. the determination that we issued at that time also determined that there was no significant environmental impact. there was no health impact, and

the site is not on an earthquake-prone locations. that is what occurred several years ago. this spring, a new carrier came up to the planning department and they wanted to modify the conditional use that was granted a year ago. they only wanted to modify the number of a dish antennas, they did not want to modify the cap number. they wanted to allow more dish antennas because that is the technology that they utilize. the commission did grant a conditional use as well as the -- the planning department did categorically exempt this because based on that particular and data, they did not find that they would exceed any fcc regulations.

it would have no impact on them. that the structural integrity of the tower is sound, and they would ensure that it would be continually earthquake ready. as i mentioned, there were no cumulative impact by the installation of these antennas. i will keep that brief in terms of the determination. supervisor mirkarimi: to the planning department, thank you for that context. as it applies to fcc as i understand as it relates to these and tell us, i doubt chernobyl would exceed fcc regulations.

i wonder that the predicament we are growing -- from a larger view, an important illustration is that with greater frequency, we are seeing a number of these requests and appeals that is taking a considerable amount of time and rightfully so to deal with what the federal government handicaps us from being able to deal with. for me, i would like us to figure out the master plan kind of health care day, why don't we have some sort of master plan that allows us to consolidate what latitude we have to influence the decisions such as the constant upgrading and modernizing of these and does. [applause]

>> thank you, supervisor mirkarimi. there are a couple of answers to your question. i have to refer to what the city can do in terms of regulating the fcc requirements. this board of supervisors and the planning commission did do the comprehensive plan that you're referring to, and they came up with guidelines. they came up with some basic design criteria, and that is where the five-year plan came in. the planning commission and the planning department is working with what we have in front of us right now, a very constantly moving permit process because of the technology. there are a variety of carriers out there. not that hospitals are simple,

but there are not many doubt entities or locations. the technology is constantly upgrading. when at&t comes to us, they get their permits and they install everything. they're coming back to us to upgrade because of the number of people on their system as well as the upgrade. we have some master plan for the city, but we don't have a comprehensive updated one. supervisor mirkarimi: i would endorse the idea that maybe collectively, we might find a way through similar offices to help shepherd what a plan would look like, knowing what our limitations are. i think there is more that we can exercise. we have rejected attendance before, but it has not been on

public health grounds. we have broken ground in the debate, but it is still not very well evolved. supervisor campos: i know that there are a number of people waiting, so i want to thank the residents of my district and my neighborhood for being here. there are a number of important issues. if i might just as a couple of follow-up questions to the planning department. why not just do an environmental impact review for something like this? based on the findings of the health department, where there was compliance with fcc regulations, but is that the only test in deciding whether or

not there is a need for an eir? i am just wondering what your thinking -- you are thinking in terms of that. >> the project before you is the five excess restructure's on the tower. -- accessory structures on the tower. there would be no reason to do an environmental impact report for this limited project. supervisor campos: i know that there are differences of opinion on that. on the issue of the adequacy of the study of the health

department's review, what about the issue that has been raised in terms of the cumulative impact that these dishes -- a number of these things have been approved a citywide. is it taken into account in making the health analysis? >> i want to answer the second part of your question and the dph will answer the first part. while the department requires a five-year plan from carriers to determine what they think their capacity is and where they believe these installations will go, it isn't just that. it is'