The Honorable Carla Howell

City of Healdsburg

P. O. Box 578

Healdsburg, CA 95448

Dear Mayor Howell:

I am writing to seek information about the siting of personal wireless service facilities in your community.

As you know, the FCC has licensed a number of new wireless telecommunications providers to offer valuable services throughout our nation. To provide these services, wireless carriers need suitable antenna facilities. This means the carriers must go through zoning and related processes in thousands of communities like yours. As with all development proposals, the local zoning and site approval process plays a critical role in ensuring that development occurs in a manner that is consistent with local land use priorities. At the same time, the process should not be implemented in a manner that prohibits the provision of competitive wireless services.

We do not intend to dictate to any community where or how to permit the construction of facilities, but federal law prohibits local governments from imposing bars to providing personal wireless services. Under Section 332(c)(7) of the Communications Act, state and local governments retain authority over decisions regarding the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities, but that authority may not be exercised in a manner that "unreasonably discriminate[s] among providers of functionally equivalent services" or that "prohibit[s] or has the effect of prohibiting the provision of personal wireless services." The law further provides that the state or local government must act on any request "within a reasonable period of time."

In the year since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 became law, the Commission has worked with local governments and industry to facilitate the siting of personal wireless service facilities consistent with the language and spirit of Section 332(c)(7). Based on that work, it appears that most local governments are doing a good job processing wireless facilities siting applications. Many communities are able to process such applications in as little as two months, with some as short as one month. In other cases, the pace is slower. The underlying causes for those differences should be explained. For example, according to wireless industry sources, it is alleged that the City of Healdsburg instituted a moratorium on personal wireless service facilities siting on March 18, 1996, that is to remain in effect until May 30, 1997. If these accounts are accurate, the moratorium could result in the blanket denial of all applications to construct new personal wireless service facilities that are subject to the moratorium for a period of over 14 months.

We anticipate that we will receive Congressional inquiries about the progress of facilities siting. We also need to have the facts that can help us evaluate industry petitions relating to this issue, such as one recently filed by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. Therefore, we would like to learn more about the basis for these claims of your community's apparently slow progress on personal wireless service facilities siting. In particular, we would appreciate information regarding the nature and scope of facilities siting requests that you have received, the usual time period for resolving requests of a comparable nature, what problems have arisen, what are your principal concerns, and what issues remain to be resolved. We hope that with this information the Commission can work with you and other communities, as well as with industry, to quickly resolve facilities siting concerns in a manner that is consistent with the rights of all parties.

We would appreciate hearing from you as soon as possible, and we look forward to continuing to work together with you and other local governments to resolve the problems of wireless facilities siting.

Sincerely,

Reed E. Hundt

Chairman