The St Francis City Council unanimously approved the first reading of an ordinance on small cell technology at their April 20 meeting.
The item, per Public Works Director Paul Carpenter, was a housekeeping move designed to keep up with 5G broadband technology. St Francis currently does not have an item related to this in their code.
The ordinance gives St Francis the ability to control aesthetics, safety and the cost recovery of small technology in the city.
Council Member Kevin Robinson asked Carpenter what had prompted him to review and look at the move, to which Robinson said that the move had been on his to-do list for the last four years.
The move comes directly from the League of Minnesota Cities, Robinson said, as well as working with the Barna, Guzzy and Steffen law firm.
“If you’re driving through a city, and you look on top of light poles, and you’ll see antennas poking out everywhere,” Carpenter explained. “That’s what small cell is. And if you don’t control it earlier, or have an ordinance in effect, they can put whatever they want out there and we have no control.”
Carpenter, by they, specified different broadband companies, as well as anyone else from the public using this technology.
“If it happens here, we want to be ahead of it,” Carpenter said.