Petersburg’s borough assembly voted 4-2 on June 1 to reject the sale of a small borough-owned parcel near the Haugen Drive fire hall to Tidal Network, the broadband arm of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. The vote capped months of contentious negotiations over cell tower expansion in Petersburg.

Assembly Members Bob Martin, Rob Schwartz, Jeff Meucci and Scott Newman voted against the resolution that would have authorized the sale of an approximately 0.23-acre parcel for $45,000 to allow Tidal Network to build one of three planned communication towers in the community.

Mayor Bob Lynn and Vice Mayor Jeigh Stanton voted yes. 

Martin said his frustration was with a proposed, separate tower location near Papke’s Landing, which he said the community had pushed hard to see relocated, without satisfactory results. “This was the only place I had any leverage to vote on how I felt about the entire package.”

Martin had consistently expressed that his support of the land sale depended on whether negotiations about relocating the proposed Papke’s Landing site produced meaningful solutions.

During discussion of the resolution, Meucci had laid out a rationale for supporting the sale, arguing that if the borough didn’t sell the parcel, Tidal Network would simply find another location — likely a privately owned commercial or industrial lot — with no regulatory oversight at all.

“I’m concerned that if we don’t vote to move forward with this sale that it is going to go in somebody’s yard here in town,” Meucci said “If I don’t vote for this to keep it up near the fire hall, ‘whose backyard?’ is a concern.”

Petersburg is not the only community where Tidal Network is encountering opposition. Wrangell’s planning and zoning commission last fall rejected a Tidal Network application for a tower near 13-Mile, citing community opposition.

The federal government in 2022 awarded a $50 million grant to Tlingit and Haida to build towers and install equipment to provide wireless internet service for unserved and underserved areas across Southeast.

Earlier in the Petersburg meeting on June 1, the assembly voted not to advance a wireless communication facility zoning ordinance that the borough had spent months developing to govern exactly this kind of tower development.

The proposed ordinance that would have established the borough’s first regulatory framework for wireless communication facilities failed its second reading on a 3-3 tie vote, leaving the borough with no formal controls over cell tower siting just as Tidal Network continues to pursue construction of towers in the community.

Among those who testified during the public hearing on the ordinance, several community members urged the assembly to strengthen it, including by extending the 1,500-foot sensitive-area setback to apply to all residential properties, not just designated sensitive-use facilities.

Meucci, in a follow-up interview, said hopes the assembly can revisit the ordinance at the next meeting.