From: michele misino de Luca
To: _CityCouncilListPublic
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Verizon Debacle
Date: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 10:36:13 PM
What a sad and humiliating experience! With the exception of Councilman Alvarez, no one asked any pertinent questions. How we miserably wasted our time! Our precious life’s time.
The big corporation hires lawyers, engineers, all paid to slant the picture in Verizon’s favor, and they celebrate after their win. Good job! Crafting their application and their briefs just the right way. Omitting just the right amount. Spinning just the right amount. Depending upon the fact that there are no experts or lawyers on the people’s side. And there are no experts on the City’s side who could actually ascertain the validity of Verizon’s sales pitch.
And our stand for truth was weak and pathetic. This David was horribly crippled and could not find any stones with which to fight this Goliath. We do not have the deep pockets as Verizon had. We do not have teams of engineers and attorneys and high paid spin doctors.
We could not stand tall against this Monster. And neither could you.
For the record:
1. The original notices were no way in 10 pt. print. They must have diminished the size of the print to fit the information. Maybe 7 pt. Maybe 8. The notices were barely legible (why not have requisitioned a sample of one?). Plus, most residents got them the Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving for the initial hearing to be held the following Tuesday. Some residents did not receive them at all.
This was mentioned several times during the hearings before the Planning Commission. Our information was dismissed.
We greatly appreciated Councilman Alvarez’s concern that Spanish-speaking residents were not informed.
The fact is, no one was.
2. The City was corrected at the Planning Commission meeting that Vintage Park is not a senior care facility. These are individual apartments and its residents are independent.
It seemed as if we had two adversaries, Verizon with its teams of experts, intent on providing you the picture most likely to gain them their win, and the Planning Commission. One of their members condescendingly told us that these were “esoteric” issues and hard to understand. We are old. We have much life experience. We are intelligent. And we are wise.
But there is no path to have our voices actually heard. We have no lawyers. We have no engineers, all paid to do our bidding. We have no deep pockets. We have only our voices and 2 minutes.
We felt that we were had throughout this process. So were you.
Tell me, how can we possibly trust you again?
Our hearts our broken. We don’t believe as Verizon does, We don’t believe as you do. We actually do matter.