December 12th, 2006

Denver Post on Jeffco’s TV Towers:

Merciful intervention in TV tower dispute
Lookout Mountain, already the site of TV towers, is a logical place for the digital version. We regret that a local resolution proved out of reach.

It took an act of Congress, quite literally, to clear the way for construction of a digital TV tower atop Lookout Mountain in Jefferson County. First proposed seven years ago, the tower has been the subject of heated dispute ever since.

U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, fearing time was running short for the tower, sponsored a bill last week that is meant to overcome the opposition from some citizens and the city of Golden. The city has tried to do everything to stop the tower including, unbelievably, condemning the property - even though it’s not in city limits. Allard added his bill, co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, to a bundle of non-controversial bills approved last week in the waning hours of the 109th Congress.

The bill, if signed by President Bush, will end Denver’s unenviable status as the only top-25 U.S. TV market where free high-definition TV is still generally unavailable.

We would rather this had been settled by local government leaders rather than having Congress bigfoot the city of Golden and Jefferson County. However, after seven years of rezoning hearings and court battles, a local resolution appeared unlikely. If the new tower isn’t up and running by a federal deadline of Feb. 17, 2009, more than 600,000 Denver area residents who rely on free TV could lose such service.

The battle began when four Denver commercial television stations, KCNC-Channel 4, KMGH-Channel 7, KUSA-Channel 9 and KTVD-Channel 20, announced their intent to consolidate their existing antennas on Lookout Mountain into a single 730-foot tower ahead of the 2009 deadline for switching to high-definition TV.

Towers were first erected on Lookout Mountain 50 years ago at the dawn of the television age because it was the best location for reaching the most viewers, supporters say. It remains that today.

Opponents tried to persuade Golden to buy the site for $1.75 million to tear down the existing towers and preserve the area as open space. And then there was Golden’s ludicrous idea to condemn the property - even though it lies outside city boundaries.

We think the public interest in providing the digital TV signals to Denver-area viewers outweighs the negatives of the tower. Intractable opponents must ask themselves why it took an act of Congress to advance the project.

December 11th, 2006

From Christina Walsh: Congress Fails to Pass Eminent Domain Reform

Senate Fails to Pass Eminent Domain Reform
Thousands Remain Subject To Federally Funded Eminent Domain Abuse

Arlington, Va.-Despite overwhelming nationwide public support and historic
bipartisan backing in the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate failed to
pass the Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2006 (H.R. 4128/S. 3873). As a
result, thousands of Americans will remain subject to eminent domain abuse supported
by federal dollars.

After failing to bring to a vote the reform that would have de-funded eminent domain
abuse at the federal level, S. 3873 was “hotlined” last Tuesday [Dec. 5, 2006] in an
attempt to pass the legislation before the 109th Congress adjourned last week.
(Hotlining is an expedited process that allows congressional leadership to present a
bill to the entire chamber for unanimous approval.) However, at least one unknown
senator placed an anonymous “hold” on S. 3873, effectively killing the legislation.
Eminent domain reform legislation was stalled both in the Senate Judiciary Committee
and on the Senate floor.

Dana Berliner, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, which represented
Susette Kelo in her fight against eminent domain abuse and is leading the nationwide
effort for eminent domain reform, said, “Historically, the federal government has
provided the money to throw hard-working people out of their homes and businesses to
make way for private development projects. The Senate had the opportunity to end
this abuse, and they blew it.” Under the federal Housing Act of 1949, cities were
authorized to use eminent domain to clear “blighted neighborhoods,” and in the
process displaced one million people, two-thirds of them African-American.

More than one year ago, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the “Private
Property Rights Protection Act of 2005” (H.R. 4128) by an overwhelmingly bipartisan
vote of 376-38. This bill would counter the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court’s
universally reviled decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which allows state and
local governments to use eminent domain to seize property for private development on
the mere possibility of increased tax revenue or jobs. H.R. 4128 would discourage
this by withdrawing federal economic development funding for two years from any
local government that uses eminent domain for economic development. This popular
legislation was sponsored in the House by Representatives Sensenbrenner, Conyers,
Waters, Bonilla and many others. Reform was championed in the Senate by Senator
John Cornyn but became mired in the Senate Judiciary Committee for more than a year.
To help push through the reform, Senator James Inhofe introduced an identical bill
(S. 3873) to H.R. 4128 on the floor of the Senate in September. That bill
languished and failed to pass.

Berliner said, “Throughout the past year, we called on the Senate leaders to make
eminent domain reform a priority. We showed them the polling data that demonstrated
how much the public hates eminent domain for private use and wants to see it
stopped. We set up meetings with homeowners who faced the loss of their homes
because of this abuse of government power. But in the end, the Senate never
committed to end the abuse of eminent domain using federal money. It’ll now be up
to the 110th Congress to provide homeowners with protection.”

#

Christina Walsh
Assistant Castle Coalition Coordinator
Institute for Justice
901 N. Glebe Road, Suite 900
Arlington, VA 22203
(703) 682-9320
www.ij.org
www.castlecoalition.org

P.S. HELP THE CASTLE COALITION GROW! Forward this message to your friends. They can
sign-up here: http://www.castlecoalition.org/join/.

December 10th, 2006

Act of Congress Approves HDTV Towers in Jeffco

Congress oks TV tower
By Ann Schrader and Anne Mulkern
Denver Post Staff Writers

12/10/2006

Convinced local officials were deadlocked and time was running out, Colorado Republican Sen. Wayne Allard decided to discreetly present a bill that would allow a digital TV tower to be built on Lookout Mountain in Jefferson County.

The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., was introduced Wednesday in the U.S. Senate and approved later that night by unanimous consent. It was bundled with more than 30 bills deemed noncontroversial.

The proposal was forwarded to the House, where it passed on Saturday and now awaits President Bush’s signature.

If the new tower is not in place by Feb. 17, 2009 - the Federal Communications Commission’s deadline for digital transmissions - more than 600,000 metro-area residents who rely on free broadcast television would lose such service, Allard said.

“The choice is simple: We go digital or we go dark,” Allard said in a statement Saturday. “Going dark is not an option for the many Colorado households who rely on free over-the-air broadcasts … particularly those who cannot afford satellite or cable.”

The legislation, which would essentially push aside local jurisdiction on the matter, stunned Golden officials and activists who opposed the tower’s location.

“If this can be done to us, no community is safe from having their local rights taken away from them,” said Deb Carney, attorney for a group of Lookout Mountain-area homeowner associations - Canyon Area Residents for the Environment - that fought the tower.

Jefferson County officials had “no idea” the bill was coming, said Kevin McCasky, chairman of the Board of County Commissioners.

The county board has been considering a rezoning request from a local TV station consortium that has been seeking to build a 730-foot-high digital tower on Lookout Mountain since 1999.

The consortium, called Lake Cedar Group, contends Lookout Mountain is the best site to broadcast the widest coverage. Opponents have raised concerns about health effects, electronic interference and tower failure.

Seven years of rezoning hearings and court cases followed with the debate yet to be settled.

In Golden, e-mails and phone calls to city hall on Friday indicate “people are pretty outraged,” City Manager Mike Bes tor said.

“Even people who have no position on the tower have a position on fairness,” Bestor said. “People are upset with the process.”

The protracted battle over the Lake Cedar Group’s tower proposal led to Allard’s decision to have Congress intervene, said Sean Conway, Allard’s chief of staff. Two years are needed to take down the existing tower and put up the new one, he noted.

Negotiations had broken down with the city of Golden, Conway said, adding that Golden had stopped talking to Allard’s office in the past two months.

Allard had been waiting to introduce the bill, Conway said, because he was “holding out hope that some accommodation on the local level could be done.”

Still, Conway said, citizen concerns were considered when drafting the bill, noting that it requires the height to be lower than the highest existing tower, which is 834 feet.

Marv Rockford, spokesman for Lake Cedar Group, said Denver “is the only TV market of any consequence that has not deployed this technology.”

If the federal deadline is not met, the FCC could redeploy the current analog frequencies, Rockford said.

The TV consortium “had been talking to the Colorado congressional delegation for years” about the situation, Rockford said, including within the past week.

Salazar said congressional action was needed “to ensure that Colorado does not become a dark hole of digital broadcasting.”

All of the members of the Colorado delegation in the U.S. House were told about the bill early in the week and none objected, Conway said.

Salazar spokesman Drew Nannis said Allard, as bill sponsor, handled the timing. “We had an opportunity to get this done, and we took it,” Nannis said. “To paint the timing as something nefarious or underhanded is simply wrong.”

Republican Reps. Bob Beauprez and Tom Tancredo and Democrat Mark Udall - who represent portions of Jefferson County - did not immediately respond Friday to requests for comment about the legislation.

The debate’s tenor shifted for Allard in April when Golden began a condemnation action for the 65-acre proposed tower site on Lookout Mountain, Conway said. The property is owned by the TV stations and is outside of Golden.

Bestor said the congressional action “doesn’t impact our ability to use eminent domain.” He also suggested there could be a challenge to the legislation’s constitutionality.

Staff writer Ann Schrader can be reached at 303-278-3217 or aschrader@denverpost.com.