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A proposal that would have installed a 150-foot cellular tower close to a school and some homes on Sauvie Island is dead.
Multnomah County confirmed on Monday that the application had been withdrawn. In emails shared with WW, an employee with Capital Design Services put in a request to cancel the application, effective immediately, on July 13.
The tower would have been constructed on private forested property owned by Sauvie Island Grange, a fraternal organization that hosts a community gathering space for the island’s residents. (The Grange did not respond to a request for comment.) It would have replaced a patch of forest with a 2,500-square-foot site to accommodate the cell tower, which was to be surrounded by a 6-foot-tall, 50-foot-long fence.
Through spring, a growing movement of island residents, including some Grange members, said the organization had failed to provide a transparent process as they negotiated with Verizon. A petition circulating around the island collected 828 signatures. And parents at Sauvie Island School, a K–8 charter school on the southern end of the island, said the affected forest was an essential part of preserving the school’s enrollment and character. (In a justification for the tower, released in late May, Verizon said the proposal would improve cellular coverage for the island’s residents, minimize interference and take strain off of existing sites.)
“As a parent living in this community, I’m relieved to see this outcome,” says Jennifer Herrick, a parent who lives just a few houses away from the school. “What stood out most was how this played out: a lease was signed without proper authority and in violation of our local grange’s own Bylaws, yet when concerns were raised through proper channels, our concerns were ignored and considered ‘performative.’”
Capital Design Services’ withdrawal of the application came less than a week after two members of the Grange filed a legal complaint in Multnomah County Circuit Court against Grange president Lynnda Steenslid and Vertical Bridge Towers, alleging Steenslid had circumvented Grange procedures in trying to erect the cell tower. It alleges that the Grange knew about the lease long before it disclosed its existence to members and that there was no resolution presented on the sale of property to vote on.
The complaint asked, among many things, for the court to determine that Steenslid did not comply with local and state Grange bylaws, and that she thereby lacked authority to execute a lease. It also called for the court to void the lease.
“This outcome reflects what a unified community can accomplish,” an update to the community petition reads. “The opposition made clear that this project would not go forward without a fight—and that pressure worked.”
Capital Design Services, which is based out of Olympia, Washington, says it does not comment on matters related to projects they oversee. Neither Vertical Bridge, the third party that would have constructed and owned the cell tower, nor Verizon, immediately responded to WW’s requests for comment.
