In response to the town’s poor cellular coverage, the Bow selectboard has established a committee to develop a wireless communication plan. This comes after a warrant article that aimed to set up a committee to design a cell tower coordination plan was not approved at the annual town meeting.

The newly formed Bow Telecommunications Plan Committee, chaired by Dee Treybig and Deb McCann, will be working to create a town plan that will recommend a minimum number of towers necessary to achieve maximum cell coverage. In addition to providing a timetable for the tasks it recommends, the committee will also be responsible for exploring various wireless communication options available to the town.

The committee’s goal is to achieve “maximum cell coverage in the town of Bow with the minimum number of towers,” said Treybig, who, like most Bow residents struggles with connectivity issues.

To make uninterrupted calls, she sometimes needs to position herself near a window in her house to get a better signal strength.

In Bow, residents have long complained about poor cell phone service, with many dead spots scattered throughout the town. To handle the issue a warrant article was approved last year that allowed the town to lease land for no longer than 30 years to a cell phone carrier to install a cell phone tower, which could offer better reception for residents.

Rising Tide Towers, LLC, a wireless infrastructure company, was granted approval by the selectboard to build a 190-foot cell tower on a 62-acre parcel of town-owned land on Branch Londonderry Turnpike. However, the project has been met with opposition from abutters who are unhappy with the way the town has handled the situation.

Initially, the company had agreed to build the tower in a location that was agreed upon by residents. However, the company later proposed to build it closer to residences, and at a height of 100 feet above the tree canopy. The abutters expressed their opposition, but the planning board waived the town’s zoning ordinance, including height and camouflage regulations, and approved the project anyway.

“We were railroaded,” said Kris Parisien, a resident whose property line would be fewer than 300 feet from the planned cell tower. “From the beginning, we did not have any option to negotiate. They [planning board and selectboard] were not interested in what we had to say.”

An appeal has been filed by the Parisiens with the New Hampshire Superior Court challenging the project approval granted by the planning board, specifically the board's decision to waive the town's zoning ordinance.

Residents say that the answer is never just to put up one single tall tower. Instead, many smaller towers, dispersed throughout could be the solution.

As Bow already has a school agreement with Dunbarton and the two towns work closely together, the committee is also considering partnering with Dunbarton to install cell towers to address the coverage issues near the Bow-Dunbarton town line.

The Committee would be made up of a selectboard representative, a community development director, a member of the community citizen group and resident volunteers.

Unlike the previous process, in which the town chose a company recommended by a group of residents to erect cell towers, the committee will issue requests for proposals (RFPs) and evaluate independent sites. Before beginning the RFP process, the committee will also prioritize acquiring site approvals.

The committee will discuss the draft charge and goals of the committee at Tuesday’s selectboard meeting.

]]>