Staff and consultants: station-adjacent tower needed for redundancy; grain-silo and harbor sites limited by inundation and access

City staff and New Horizons consultants answered commissioners’ technical questions about alternative tower locations and system design during the July 22 hearing.

Nate Devon and staff explained the system is designed as a hub-and-spoke network: an in-town site is needed for reception and a separate out-of-town repeater (for example at the grain silos) repeats signals out the road. Devon said that moving the hub from the grain silos to Fire Station 1 reduces single points of failure and improves access to emergency operations equipment and power. “So essentially, what we're doing is removing the hub from the grain silos to Fire Station 1,” he said.

Matthew Osborne, the city’s IT director, explained frequency and propagation trade-offs and cited operational lessons from past earthquakes: in a worst-case scenario, ground runs and local generator support at the fire station can restore dispatch. Osborne also told the commission the project team reviewed coverage maps and a preliminary study showing in-town gaps the proposed tower would address. Consultants added that camouflage or faux-tree towers are possible but can be structurally, operationally and financially impractical in Valdez’s wind and snow environment.

The commission balanced those technical constraints against residents’ concerns before approving the conditional use permit.