Wellness Campaign holds first Walk with the Mayor

POINT PLEASANT BEACH — Point Pleasant Beach’s Mayors Wellness Campaign hosted its first Walk with the Mayor event last Friday morning, offering residents the opportunity to discuss some of the borough’s most pressing topics with Mayor Doug Vitale.

With Inlet Drive serving as the backdrop for the first such walk in Point Pleasant Beach, the mayor and residents talked about a variety of current issues in the borough, including a possible Channel Drive land acquisition and the status of 5G radiofrequency infrastructure.

Regarding 5G small cells, one resident inquired about moving one or multiple of the poles to a more remote location like Gull Island.

“That’s what we’re going to look at when we redo these poles,” said the mayor. “We’re going to try and find locations that aren’t next to a house, like on Niblick Street.”

Vitale also explained to the attendees that the poles are owned by telecom infrastructure company Munisite, not Verizon.

“This was Verizon coming in and saying, ‘hey, we want to add to our (data capacity);’ it’s not about phone service, it’s about data service. So, that was the precipice to put these up,” said Vitale. “This is a pole owned by Munisite. It’s not a Verizon pole; it’s a company that decided, ‘we’ll put poles up, and hopefully Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile will come attach to our pole.’”

“Again, we’re still working through that, because we may…just have those telecommunications companies come to us instead of this,” he said in reference to the Inlet Drive pole a few yards away. He also said that the borough’s legal defense cannot hinge on alleged health effects from 5G radio frequencies.

“We, as a borough, can’t ban these because of health reasons. That’s what we were told from our attorney,” he said as the walk began.
The conversation then turned to the subject of a possible acquisition of property on Channel Drive in the near future. Mayor Vitale expressed support for the acquisition, which he said would ostensibly include a boat/kayak launch and a park.

“Most of you guys got the fliers in the mail; we’re looking at possibly purchasing property on Channel Drive to turn it into a town park,” he said. “I’m a huge proponent of that. I think I’d rather see a park-like setting on Channel Drive rather than condos or whatever.”

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