WELD — The Planning Board Wednesday, March 17, voted to adopt the findings of fact and conclusions from the Feb. 17 meeting regarding the AT&T SAI Communications’ application for a cellphone tower.

The board also set another meeting for March 31 to discuss a request for reconsideration of the application sent by email on Monday, March 8.

AT&T is proposing a 190-foot lattice tower inside a 50- by 50-foot fenced compound. A walk-in shelter at the base of the tower would include a generator for emergency service. The tower would allow spots for three additional carriers and one for the town. The tower would be erected on land leased from Kevin and Holly Cochran off of the Phillips Road just before Fire Lane 17 and beyond the Weld Inn.

The application was unanimously approved in September 2020, but the decision was appealed.

The Board of Appeals determined the Planning Board concluded incorrectly that the deed AT&T submitted showed sufficient proof of right title and interest to the land being leased from the Cochrans. Additionally, it said the Planning Board failed to address each of the nine standards included under Article 21, the commercial and industrial structures section of the Weld Building Ordinance.

In February, the Planning Board determined the applicant did have right title and interest to the land. It also cited page numbers in either the construction plans or record to verify the application met each of the nine standards. The draft of those findings and the conclusion had to be reviewed and verified before they could be adopted.

The board was to have met March 10 to do so, but technical difficulties meant the meeting had to be postponed.

Copies of the findings of fact and conclusion on the approved AT&T application will be available at the Weld Town Office during business hours.

In regards to the new request, there’s nothing in the town’s building ordinance that describes a process for the Planning Board to consider a request for reconsideration, Planning Board attorney Zachary Brandwein of Bernstein Shur said.

“The Planning Board has the ability to consider a request for reconsideration, you’re just not required to do so,” he said. If the board did want to discuss it, all members should have time to read the request first, Brandwein said.

Because some members had not, another meeting had to be scheduled with appropriate notice given.

The board also decided that while the meeting will be public, no public comments will be allowed.

If comments were allowed, Brandwein said to be fair equal time would need to be given both parties.

“Your job is to clarify, explain and memorialize your prior decision, not to rehear the case, reopen it,” he said. “If you believe you needed more or additional information, it probably would have been appropriate to hear.”

As a planning board member, Ernestine Hutchinson said she wasn’t made to feel she could put parameters or make suggestions in regards to meeting the requirements in the building ordinance.

“We’re getting good guidance now, in the beginning we didn’t,” she said.

“I’m of the opinion that we as a board need to discuss what the reconsideration request is, what it means and whether we should reconsider it,” Planning Board member Thomas Wheeler said.

If after that meeting the board decides it doesn’t need to do anything else, it ends, Planning Board Chair Naomi Doughty said. If not, we could open it to the public for more information, she said.

A polite reminder was given by Brandwein that no board member or any municipal official should be discussing board business outside of regularly scheduled and noticed board meetings.

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