One day in March, 1995, workers arrived and, without warning, quickly erected a 100-foot tower, with cellular phone antennas, on the Borough-owned Alta Vista Drive lot used by the Ringwood Ambulance Corps. They took down a small, unobtrusive antenna which had been used solely for emergency services. With the 100 foot tower and its microwave transmissions less than 50' from the nearest house, next to their living rooms and children, the neighbors were appalled.

Borough officials claimed they did not know who signed the contract for the tower. They announced that a special attorney, Glenn Kienz, was being retained to explore a new ordinance and to try to find the answers to questions being asked by residents:
How did the  100 foot tower get put up without a public application, public notice or public hearing?
How did AT&T cellular phone antennas get added when  such commercial use is not allowed in residential zones?
Who approved it, who knew about it?  One document reported in the press indicated that some Borough officials knew about the tower and the AT&T antennas as early as Fall, 1994.

Soon, however, Borough officials suddenly reversed themselves and denied that investigating these questions was ever their intent. They said the only role of Mr. Kienz, and of a committee headed by Councilman Heck was to draft a new ordinance for future antenna sitings. When residents tried to get answers to their questions at one of these meetings, they were quickly silenced. At Council meetings, residents were told to save their questions for some future Board of Adjustment hearing. From the fall of 1995 to the spring of 1996, hearings were scheduled but then postponed. None was ever held.

Except for an initial meeting with a neighborhood representative in April, 1995, officials continuously excluded residents from discussions about the tower and refused to meet with them, would not return residents' calls ("there's nothing to tell you"), and were rarely available when called. At one point, Borough Manager Cenicola claimed that there could be no public hearing because the Borough "is in litigation."  This was a very curious response, since no litigation involving this tower is known to exist. Later, Ms. Cenicola said that there isn't any litigation; she offered general reassurances, but provided no information.

In January 1996, former Planning Board member Tom Sergi (who was purged from the Board for his environmental interests) made a proposal addressing both the Alta Vista Drive and Hilltop towers. His proposal was that both commercial operations (AT&T and Bell Atlantic/NYNEX) be moved to the top of a hill on a commercially zoned, Borough-owned property (the "sand pit"), far from residential properties. The idea is that the hill would provide good elevation and, being wooded, would help conceal typical 40 to 60 foot towers. He also suggested that the Ambulance Corps continue to  receive revenue from the commercial use, as they reportedly do now from AT&T. The Council embraced the idea (eventually claiming it as their own) and promised to convene a citizens committee to be headed by Councilman Heck, to look into the proposal. This "committee" was later confined to ordinance-specific discussion only. The Borough proceeded to lock citizens groups out of meetings with phone company representatives on the proposed relocation.

The product of these secret meetings is a the 120 foot tower which is visible well above the tree line. We consider such a height to be completely inappropriate for location in this part of the New Jersey Highlands region.
 

Borough officials have been congratulating each other for months now, for supposedly arranging for the offending Alta Vista tower to be taken down, and the antennas moved to the new site. Meanwhile, more than  three years after the questionable tower went up,  the serious issue of the impropriety, if not illegality, of the Alta Vista Drive tower has been swept under the rug. Why have these questions gone unanswered, and why has this illegal commercial use continued operations?

The long talked-about (replacement?)  celltower has finally gone up on a ridge behind the new library in  Ringwood. Contrary to the recommendation, intention and desire of the residents who came up with the idea for the new, non-residential site, the new tower looms very far above the treeline, marring Ringwood's scenic character.  It is reportedly not yet in service.  Despite promises from Borough officials for years that the old tower would be decommissioned and removed, it remains in use.