BOARD
CONFIDENTIAL --- BOARD CONFIDENTIAL
Good
Afternoon,
Here
is the latest information we have regarding the state of H.R. 1301. As the
issue is very sensitive, please do not share with anyone outside of
ODV.
In
our one and a half hour meeting with CAI this past Wednesday, which was mediated
by David Redl of Walden's subcommittee staff, we were unable to reach an
understanding that would retain the “reasonable accommodation" language in the
Bill. CAI's view is that the 30
years of case law interpreting reasonable accommodation in the zoning context
would invariably favor Amateur Radio and entitle hams to towers in every
instance.
We
believe that they are wrong and have offered to explain why they are wrong, but
they are intransigent on this subject.
We left the meeting at an impasse on only this
specific issue.
It is
imperative that we come to terms on this one issue as it has been made clear to
us by both the House subcommittee AND full committee staffers that the bill will
not move forward to the full House Commerce Committee without a consensus.
We have also been told that without this consensus, the bill will also not get
past Senator Nelson (to whom this is a personal issue) without agreed upon
alternative language.
We
were left with two options. One is to rewrite our Bill in a way that
allows us to come up with a substitute for "reasonable accommodation.”
That is difficult as we would run the risk of jeopardizing virtually all of the
jurisprudence and case law on PRB-1 that we have developed over the past 30
years in the zoning context. We absolutely cannot risk that.
The
alternative is to create a separate and distinct policy applicable only to
private land use regulations written in such a way as to keep the tenets of
PRB-1 while at the same time including the operative principles that CAI asked
for which are acceptable to us.
We
believe that the attached bill accomplishes that task. It should satisfy
CAI while at the same time keeps our needs intact. And it would keep the
existing PRB-1 (Sec. 97-15b) and the jurisprudence that accompanies PRB-1safe
from alteration.
The
traditional reasonable accommodation test would continue to apply to zoning and
municipal land use cases.
We
have offered a lot to reach a consensus. Should this not be acceptable to
CAI, we believe that an intransigent approach on their part would play poorly in
the House and work to our benefit.
Please
read the bill. While it’s substantially longer than the original bill, it
does make our case. (It will most likely be made cleaner, but without any loss
of substance, when edited for style by the office of legislative counsel.)
Feel
free to reach out with any questions.
73,
Mike
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Mike Lisenco, N2YBB
Director, Hudson
Division
Chairman, ad hoc Legislative Advocacy Committee
ARRL - The
national association for Amateur Radio™
917-865-3538
n2ybb@arrl.org