Wolborsky: Would like more transparency with topics council is considering

Two boring topics: 5G and garbage. The Town Council has been procrastinating on ordinances restricting 5G antenna locations.  This is not your friendly iPhone 5G, this is commercial data 5G, which is much cheaper for the networking companies than fiber (they are also much uglier).

As it stands, they can be placed on any right-of-way, like that space in front of your residence between the sidewalk and the road. After fibrillating about the issue for many months, the council retained an attorney who is one of the country’s top experts on this issue. Many months ago, he submitted his report to the council (and we paid for it). But the council, in several 4-3 decisions, has refused to release the report to the Planning and Zoning Commission. Furthermore, they have made it impossible for anyone having read the report to even talk about it. I’m having great difficulty seeing through this government transparency.

Council representations has had a meeting with Republic Services to discuss the town’s garbage pick-up services. In keeping with the “Green New Deal,” they discussed the possibility of using electric-powered garbage trucks. We all know what percentage of air pollution is caused by garbage trucks, right. And we know Republic would save a lot of money on fuel.

But there are some unmentioned issues. Firstly, the cost of garbage pick-up would increase substantially, but we don’t know exactly how much. Second, full garbage trucks are very heavy and the electric vehicles would actually be much heavier due to huge batteries and their weight. The result would be very, very hard on all of our roads. Are roads a problem here in Fountain Hills?

Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.