About 20 residents have written to the City Council asking it to reverse a 6-3 decision earlier this year allowing Verizon Wireless to install 11 cell towers outside homes and shelve all pending cell tower applications until a state agency decides whether to investigate whether Reichental, who has a high profile in the IT industry, breached ethics rules.
"If Mr. Reichental is in cahoots with the telecommunications industry, the citizens of Palo Alto did not get a fair shake when fighting and appealing the Verizon cell node issue," resident Francesca Kautz wrote in a Nov. 16 email to the council stating the case for stopping the project.
The city maintains that Reichental played no role in cell tower decisions.
Verizon wants to install a total of 93 towers in city neighborhoods to boost cell service. In May, it sided with the Architectural Review Board's recommendation to allow 11 of them after seven residents appealed the board's ruling. The residents contended that the hardware should be placed underground instead of atop poles per the city's own utility guidelines and because, in their opinion, the devices are unsightly and a health risk.
Reichental announced last month that he was leaving his position with the city and going to work for Oracle beginning Dec. 17.
Resident Jeanne Fleming, a member of grassroots group United Neighbors, alleges in a complaint to the state Fair Political Practices Commission that Reichental violated the state's annual gift limit law by taking 114 days' worth of trips — many of them abroad — over a four-year period and that some of those trips were paid for by groups that represent telecom companies doing business with Palo Alto. The commission has not yet decided whether it will investigate the ethics complaint.
"As the city has repeatedly said to all parties who will listen, Jonathan Reichental had/has no role in the review/advice/staff work, etc., on the review and decisions regarding the cell cluster applications you refer to," City Manager James Keene wrote in an email Thursday to the Palo Alto Daily News. "These are land use regulatory decisions, staffed by our planning department with support from the City Attorney's Office."
According to City Attorney Molly Stump, the council can't rehear or reverse its May ruling. Stump said Verizon has a vested right to install the towers because it has already obtained building permits and spent a lot toward construction. She said that her office works closely with the city planning department on telecom land use issues and that she's confident Reichental didn't try to wield any undue influence.
Mayor Liz Kniss, who has the authority to add items to the council's agenda, said she agrees with staff and isn't interested in restarting the process or even delaying tower installations.
"I can't think of a more thorough process than what we did," Kniss said. "We had hours of public testimony and this decision was made with the whole council there. ... Did Jonathan have something to do with the fact that we voted the way we did on Verizon? I would very much doubt it."
Kniss said she thinks some of the people sending emails are just interested in derailing the project and hoping to use the the ethics complaint as a tool to accomplish that.
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