These are documents (generally produced by Washington County government) and news releases related to communications tower issues. Many contain both tower and non-tower related information. Some of the files were digitized by a scanner and are essentially photographs and can not be searched. However, many of the documents are text based and may be searched using the Acrobat "find" function. Searching for the word "tower" may help find the tower related part of these files more quickly.

• 20021022 - press release of the Washington County Commissioners.
• 20040829 - site plan, sheet 1. Since the plan is very large, this scan of it has been broken down into a 4 by 4 grid, hence there are 16 pages in the file.
• 20040829 - site plan, sheet 2. Since the plan is very large, this scan of it has been broken down into a 4 by 4 grid, hence there are 16 pages in the file.
• 20060124 - press release of the Washington County Commissioners.
• 20061024 - meeting minutes of the Washington County Public Safety Radio Communications System Committee and the National Parks Service.
• 20061026 - letter from Washington County Division of Public Works to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
• 20061107 - list of tower projects through out Washington County.
• 20061120 - letter from Harpers Ferry National Historical Park to Washington County Division of Public Works.
• 20061127 - letter from Washington County Division of Public Works to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
• 20061220 - letter from Washington County Division of Public Works to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
• 20061826 - letter from Harpers Ferry National Historical Park to Washington County Division of Public Works.
• 20070124 - letter from Motorola to West Virginia Division of Culture and History.
• 20070124 - letter_2 from Motorola to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
• 20070124 - letter_3 from Motorola to C&O Canal National Historical Park.
• 20070124 - letter_4 from Motorola to Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
• 20070202 - letter from West Virginia Division of Culture and History to Motorola.
• 20070212 - letter from Virginia Department of Historic Resources to Motorola.
• 20070222 - letter from Harpers Ferry National Historical Park to KCI Technologies.
• 20070312 - letter from C&O National Historical Park to KCI Technologies.
• 20070402 - letter (actually a fax) from Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma to KCI Technologies.
• 20070503 - letter from Harpers Ferry National Historical Park to Motorola.
• 20070525 - photo log report of crane test by KCI Technologies.
• 20070731 - meeting minutes of the Washington County Public Commissioners.
• 20070830 - meeting minutes of the Washington County Public Safety Radio Communications System Committee and the National Parks Service.
• 20071004 - meeting minutes of the Washington County Public Safety Radio Communications System Committee and the National Parks Service.
• 20071004 - meeting slides of the Washington County Public Safety Radio Communications System Committee and the National Parks Service.
• 20071105 - meeting minutes of the Washington County Public Safety Radio Communications System Committee and the National Parks Service.
• 20071105 - meeting slides of the Washington County Public Safety Radio Communications System Committee and the National Parks Service.
• 20071120 - letter from Harpers Ferry National Historical Park to Washington County Division of Public Works.
• 20071207 - letter from Washington County Division of Public Works to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
• 20071211 - meeting minutes of the Washington County Commissioners.
• 20071211 - press release by the Washington County Commissioners.
• 20080218 - letter from Washington County Division of Public Works to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
• 20080219 - meeting minutes of the Washington County Commissioners.
• 20080226 - press release by the Washington County Commissioners.
• 20080318 - letter from Washington County Division of Public Works to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
• 20080324 - letter from Harpers Ferry National Historical Park to Washington County Division of Public Works.
• 20080326 - meeting minutes public informational meeting held by the Washington County Public Safety Radio Communications System Committee.
• 20080326 - meeting slides public informational meeting held by the Washington County Public Safety Radio Communications System Committee.
• 20080326 - Klewis' comments to public informational meeting held by the Washington County Public Safety Radio Communications System Committee.
• 20080326 - sheriff's comments to public informational meeting held by the Washington County Public Safety Radio Communications System Committee.
• 20080401 - email from Harpers Ferry National Historical Park to Washington County.
• 20080401 - memo.
• 20080401 - press release by the Washington County Commissioners.
• 20080407 - email from Washington County to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
• 20080408 - memo.
• 20080408 - meeting minutes of the Washington County Commissioners.
• 20080409 - email from Motorola.
• 20080415 - meeting of the County Commissioners.
• 20080415 - press release by the County Commissioners.
• 20080506 - press release by the County Commissioners.
• Photos for the June 8, 2008 hike and balloon test performed by local citizens now have their own page. Shows how one will be able to see the communications tower, if built on the originally proposed site, from Harpers Ferry and other scenic areas! There is also a cool panoramic photo looking from where the tower would be constructed.
• 20080701 - email from the County to UPSHOTMD.
• 20080704 - response to County Attorney by UPSHOTMD. Includes Counties "request" for UPSHOTMD to remove tower documents from this web site!
• 20080707 - email from the County to UPSHOTMD.
• 20080805 - press release by the County Commissioners.
• 20080805 - podcast of August 5, 2008 update to County Commissioners on communications system (the tower).
• 20081028 - response to public comments by the County Commissioners.
• 20081104 - Agenda (and supporting documents) for County Commissioners meeting - claims to support Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area. How does one reconcile this with putting the tower here?
• 20081107 - Article in the Herald Mail newspaper about the County considering alternate site.
• 20081130 - CPPV takes its first action, asking County to be included in tower related meetings due to citizens feeling shut out of the process.
• 20081210 - the County responds to CPPV's November 30 letter.
• 20081218 - tax map and report of initial tower site.
• 20090104 - CPPV's response to the Counties December 10 letter.
• 20090113 - meeting minutes of the Washington County Public Commissioners. Commissioner Aleshire asks the Director of Public Works to respond to CPPV.
• 20090126 - Park Service Letter to County, sorting out who is responsible for balloon test.
• 20090206 - Herald Mail article, entire 911 system is delayed, and the County is still considering purchasing alternate property for our tower.
• 20090225 - CPPV sends Herald Mail a letter to the editor regarding the tower.
• 20091120 - Balloon Test.
• December 11, 2009 - The County is letting us know on December 10 that on December 11 they will re-do the Nov 20 balloon tests for the first responder tower. See below. Nice of them to give us a whole 16 hours notice! Let us hope the "correct" location of the red balloon is better! If you are able to witness it, or take photos, please feel free to share them with us. The County also sent a map.
  
  Dear Concerned Citizen: After the November 20, 2009 balloon test, is was discovered that the balloon at the lowest level was 600 to 800 feet away from the desired location. Washington County's consultant, L.R. Kimball will be floating 3 balloons to retake the photos at the some of the same locations as the November 20, 2009 balloon test. The balloons will be located at the two original higher locations and the appropriate lower location. The consultant will be performing this re-test tomorrow Friday, December 11, 2009. See information below from the County's consultant. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.
  
  Please pass on the following plan for the December 11, 2009 Balloon Event.
  1. Three balloons will be raised between 7:45 and 9:00 AM at proposed tower sites: red(Himes Farm), yellow(Himes Miller Avenue), orange (Sutton Miller Avenue),.
  2. Photographs taken during the November 20 balloon event determined that views to proposed tower locations from viewpoints 1, 2, 11, 16, 23, 24, 25 are obstructed by topography and vegetation. The red location is 100 feet lower in elevation than orange and yellow locations, and would not be visible as well. Sufficient photographs are available for these viewpoints. As such, additional photographs from these viewpoints are not needed.
  3. Kimball will collect additional photographs at the proposed tower sites needed for environmental and cultural assessments.
  4. Field crews will meet at the Cindy Dees Restaurant at 9:30AM.
  5. One Kimball representative and a NPS representative will proceed to Buzzard Rock to collect additional photographs from viewpoints 16A and 17.
  6. One Kimball representative and a NPS representative will proceed to viewpoints 26, 18, 12, 27, 3 and 4 to collect additional photographs.
  7. The balloons will be pulled down once both field crews have obtained required photographs, but no earlier than 2:00PM.
• January, 2010 - Brochure with updates on First Responder Tower. Topics include: Short Hill alternative, a Saturday date for promised test, Cincinnati's experiences with a similar system, and County Commissioner contact information.
• At the January 27 CPPV membership meeting, Pete Loewenhein, the Project Manager for Washington County Communications Maintenance, gave us a surprise visit. A lively discussion ensued. We appreciate him giving up an evening to discuss the issue of the Communication tower with us. Much of the information he shared is useful. Also, a number of his points are inconsistent with information that CPPV has received in numerous documents in the past. Mr. Lowenhein my not be aware of all of the facts about this situation.
      CPPV thinks that independent verification of the technical facts is critical to the community's ability to make informed decisions about the tower. We have been told that signal degradation makes a tower at the Short Hill location not viable, but the County will not provide any documentation that proves that information to be true. The County could have invited us to the joint meetings between the County and the Park Service, but they have not. In one instance, residents were told that they need to go to court to gain access to basic documents related to the tower, namely, the Request for Proposals (RFP) which is the document the County publishes requesting bids and solutions for the communications tower network. Many relevant documents are considered "proprietary" information and are not available to the public. How is the public to judge?
      There was not enough time during the January 27th meeting for everyone to ask all the questions they wanted to ask, so Mr Loewenhein agreed to take additional questions via email at ploewenheim@washco-md.net. Feel free to send him your questions. Once he has received a number of them, he will compose his responses and send an email to CPPV. We will distribute his responses to the CPPV email list. Also, if Mr. Loewenhein agrees, we will post his responses on our web site.
      Below we will address a few of the discrepancies between Mr. Lowenhein's statements and our documentation individually. Please let us know if you feel we have misinterpreted any of the points Mr Loewenhein made at the meeting. Where possible, we will include links to the documents so you may read them for yourself. Keep in mind that there are only a few documents available to us to do fact checking.
      ITEM 1:
      Mr Loewenhein stated that the Keep Tryst location was the best location in terms of coverage.
      On page 3 of the August 30, 2007 meeting minutes, it was stated Keep Tryst was the best site, save one that was not owned by Washington County. Click Here
      On page 2 of the October 24, 2006 meeting minutes, it states "Keep Tryst is the most beneficial site for coverage and because it is already owned by the County. A site on the other side of the river was considered, but it is privately owned and buying or leasing the land was not within our budget." Click Here
      ITEM 2:
      At the meeting, Mr Loewenhein stated that the County has been open about what they are doing.
      In 2008, several citizens had gone to a public County meeting and were given documents. We put them on our web site, and were then accused by the County that we had likely acquired them improperly, and that the sheriff had been informed! We asked them to be specific about which documents were improper. They never responded with that information. In addition, we were also asked to remove information from one document regarding a contractor to protect his privacy. We immediately did so. The County sometimes was an interesting way of being open with information. The Email/letter exchange Email 1 Email 2 Email 3
      Also in 2008, three citizens submitted a Maryland Public Information Act request to the County regarding the tower. The focus was to acquire copies of documentation related to the bidding process and how the contract was awarded. The County decided that the citizens would have to go to court. The citizens decided they did not have the funds for a lawyer. The citizens are concerned about their privacy, so I have not posted these documents on the web. The reason given by the County for their actions is that the "backbone" of the system (the way the network works) is proprietary. The "peripherals" which attach to the network (the radios) are not proprietary.
      ITEM 3:
      Mr Loewenhein stated that the March 26, 2008 public informational meeting was at very beginning of the process.
      We have been able to find records for meetings with the Park Service regarding this tower starting in 2006, 17 months before the public informational meeting: Click Here
      Also, according to a 2008 press release, the County had been talking with the Park Service about the tower since October 2006: Click Here
      It is interesting to note that this press release contains a statement that the proposed tower cannot be seen from the Town of Harper's Ferry, Kroboth said, because the cliffs of Maryland Heights stand between the site and the Town. It was determined that you can see the balloon from Harpers Ferry. It was demonstrated by the County: Click Here It was also demonstrated by the CPPV balloon test: Click Here
      ITEM 4:
      Mr Loewenhein stated that emails were sent to citizens about the scheduled day for the recent set of balloon tests, as well as the 2 bad weather days.
      Three emails were sent: Email 1 Email 2 Email 3
      The first email was a good attempt by the County to inform us, but had 1 bad weather day listed (as opposed to 2 as Mr Loewenhein stated). The third email was sent less than 24 hours before the test! While this last test was ultimately canceled due to bad weather, the short notice meant that CPPV had to scramble to find folks to witness the event.
      It appears that Mr Loewenhein was correct when he noted that the only citizens who received the emails are the ones who sent the County comments about a year ago.
      ITEM 5:
      Mr Loewenhein stated that the County had looked at history of the area and considered it.
      At the April 15, 2008 County Commissioner meeting, it was stated that they sent a letter to MD Historical Society and received no reply. MD Historical Society has a reputation for not returning such letters due to being understaffed. The County never verified that the MD Historical Society even received the letter. During the public participation portion of the meeting, citizens gave the County information regarding the historical homes and cemetery. Click Here
      While the County did make some effort to check for impact, the letter to the MD Historical Society is not an isolated case. For example, we could find a letter to Virginia Department of Historic Resources which stated that they would need additional information before they could asses potential impact. We can not find any follow-up correspondence. Click Here
  
  
• March 17, 2010 - Balloon Test.
  
• August 24, 2010 - Public meeting to formally decide to acquire the land for the South County communications tower site. The County Commissioners will hold a public meeting at the Keedysville Town Hall. There is a public input section at 7:30 PM. At 8:00 PM, a report (and probably the final decision) regarding the acquition of the land for the South County communications tower site.
• Video Debate On How To Address Inadequacies In First Responder Communications System. CSPAN's weekly series called "The Communicators" recently had a show on first responder communications systems like the one being considered for Pleasant Valley. Very, very informative. The former FCC Chief Engineer mentions Motorola by name (who makes our system) as an example of the hodgepodge, dated system we have. If the FCC can not get cooperation, the money allocated by congress to build a unified, efficient first responder system may be revoked. Watch it and decide for yourself.
• County's report on the latest balloon test for the First Responder Tower. Warning, this is a large file!
• CPPV's photos of the latest balloon test.
• Interesting reports on First Responder systems by the same vendor as Washington County's
  • Emergency Radios to Cost Florida Taxpayers $1.6M More - Florida
  • Dropped Calls Put Firefighters in Danger - Cincinnati Ohio
• Hearing on the First Responder Tower. Monday, May 10, 7:00 p.m., Pleasant Valley Elementary. Slides presented by the County. Public comments accepted at the meeting. Written comments will be accepted for 10 days thereafter at 100 West Washington St., Room 238, Hagerstown, MD 21740. CPPV's verbal and written testimony, as well as results of our survey. To summarize the main point of CPPV's testimony: We have received input from the community ranging from "I don't care if the people who live near the tower hate how it looks, I want the tower anyway" to "I just can not live with this tower". The one thing most people seem to agree on is that we should have a system which is both adequate and has the least adverse impact on nearby residents. CPPV is hoping to facilitate this by trying to convince the County to grant Citizens the information needed to verify for themselves if the proposed system is both adequate and has the least adverse impact on nearby residents. Despite the fact that this system was bought with tax payer dollars, the County has not given citizens that information. If they were certain that the tower is truly the answer to our problems, why not be more open with such information?
• December 13, 2010 - The County files FCC Form 620 (TCNS 68751).
  
• February 2, 2011 - Maryland Department of Planning Maryland Historical Trust letter to the County.