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LAVALLETTE — In his annual message at Lavallette’s reorganization meeting on Wednesday, Mayor Walter LaCicero publicly made reference to a lawsuit filed by Verizon on Dec. 13 against the Borough of Lavallette and the council, which arose from the governing body’s denial of applications for six small-cell wireless towers to be erected in the borough.
“Some people could say that there’s a lot of trouble on the horizon, I tend to think there’s really not,” said the mayor Wednesday. “We do have the Verizon lawsuit…They did file suit against us after we denied their applications for additional cell equipment placements.”
A case filing obtained by The Ocean Star via the PACER [Public Access to Court Electronic Records] case lookup system shows that Cellco Partnership, doing business as Verizon Wireless, sued the borough and council exactly one month following the denial of the cells at the Monday, Nov. 13 council meeting. During that meeting, the governing body held a public hearing in which the details of Verizon’s plans in Lavallette were discussed at length, with professional witnesses speaking on behalf of Verizon.
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The suit, which was filed in the United States District Court of New Jersey, requests that the court enjoin the council from taking any further action to deny the small cells and that the court “[direct] the Defendants [the Borough of Lavallette and the council] to issue all necessary approvals for Verizon to construct and operate the SWFs [small wireless facilities].”
The filing of the case in a federal district court is consistent with the plaintiff’s view, according to the complaint, that the council’s actions violated the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a federal statute intended to facilitate the deregulation of the telecom industry.
A significant portion of the suit focuses on the alleged damages inflicted upon both the company and the public through the denial of the towers, which the suit claims are “necessary to remedy a significant gap in reliable wireless service and to meet demand for Personal Wireless Services and Telecommunications Services.” The suit also calls the towers “the least intrusive means to remedy the significant gap in service.”
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