Neighbors insist tower in Carlton violates public safety, with conflict of interest for officials when better site available

Editor:

North Shore Networks’ public statement issued on Thursday is a textbook corporate smoke screen. They are attempting to isolate our neighborhood, downplay severe risks, and protect their $11.2 million contract before a New York State Supreme Court judge can review the case. While they claim our safety metrics are “inaccurate,” their public defenses contain major, documented admissions of administrative shortcuts.

Our opposition to this tower baseline has always been firmly rooted in public safety and critical infrastructure protection, not just aesthetics. We submit the following point-by-point engineering, procedural, and legal facts to correct the record for the community and the state grant monitors:

1. The Explosive “Vietnam” Engineering Disclosure: North Shore boasts about having a Professional Engineer (PE) stamp. However, Rick Stacey just conducted a direct meeting with the actual Vietnam tower supplier (ARE) and the domestic engineering firm, the Paul J. Ford Engineering Group. During this meeting, it was discovered that this tower was purchased with a completely generic engineering specification.

The Cause: North Shore Networks never provided any site-specific Structural Analysis (SA) specifications or environmental criteria for the actual site location at 961 Wilson Road prior to fabrication.

The Substandard Specs: The factory generated its specifications based on generic broadband equipment, stating the tower was loaded to 68% with a generic engineered ice-loading wind threshold of only 40 mph. This is nowhere near the mandatory ANSI/TIA-222-H/G engineering regulations, which strictly require coastal wind shear loading parameters of 109 mph for the open shoreline of Lake Ontario.

The Engineer’s Admission: The engineer from Paul J. Ford Engineering explicitly stated that this tower does not—and cannot—have a valid PE stamp for this specific site location until North Shore actually provides all necessary on-site metrics for review and approval. Furthermore, the engineering group stated they were completely unaware of the extensive safety and fall-zone oversights that Rick Stacey pointed out during the meeting.

2. The Insurance Carrier Steps In Over Active Liability Exposure: The financial walls are actively closing in on this illegal footprint. Following the formal claims and risk alerts filed by our neighborhood, the Village of Albion’s municipal insurance carrier has officially contacted Village officials, demanding immediate documentation regarding the physical property damages caused by North Shore Communications’ contractors to our private road. Furthermore, the insurance carrier has demanded the Village answer for the specific Risk and Safety requirements explicitly pointed out by Rick Stacey regarding the severe human safety liabilities this tower creates. When an insurance reciprocal begins auditing its own policyholder’s structural footprint over an un-stamped, water-logged site, standard municipal immunity is completely voided.

3. Unlawful Multi-Agency Conflicts of Interest and Self-Dealing: North Shore’s statement is completely silent on the severe ethical violations guiding this project framework under New York State General Municipal Law Article 18:

The Incurable Interlocking Conflict of Councilman Ryan Woolston: Carlton Town Councilman Ryan Woolston simultaneously serves as the Director of Information Technology Services (ITS) for Orleans County—the exact entity that owns, deploys, and financially benefits from this broadband network expansion. Instead of recusing himself, Councilman Woolston has remained an active participant in Town of Carlton proceedings, explicitly voting to spend town tax dollars to retain outside attorney Bridget O’Toole to fight neighborhood residents and protect his primary county employer’s assets.

The Dual Conflict of Kevin Sheehan: The local building permit was granted by Kevin Sheehan, acting as the Town of Carlton Code Enforcement Officer. Mr. Sheehan completely lacks mandatory New York State Code Enforcement Official Certification required under 19 NYCRR Part 1208, rendering his permits legally void. Compounding this legal defect, Mr. Sheehan simultaneously serves as an elected Trustee for the applicant and land-owning municipality (the Village of Albion). He is acting as the enforcement regulator for the Town on a project governed and leased by his own elected political board.

4. Defeating Risk Category IV and Carlton’s 240-Foot Fall Zone Laws: Because a structural or ice failure directly threatens human lives, residential properties, and a critical municipal water grid, this site must legally be designated as a Risk Category IV Critical Infrastructure Site. Under these safety metrics, the engineering fall zone for ice shedding strictly expands to 240 feet (1.5 times the true 160-foot height including the lightning rod).

Town of Carlton Zoning Code strictly requires a safety fall zone of 1.5 times the tower’s height. The project lacks this room. The County and contractor are willing to go to any length to shoehorn this structure onto a lot that cannot fit it, which would require a formal modification of Town Zoning Laws—an action that mandates a strict public notification and a formal town-wide meeting. The Town of Carlton completely skipped this process.

5. The Timeline of 4 Deceptive Relocations and Underhanded Pivots: This project has been shifted and manipulated behind closed doors four separate times to evade state and local laws:

First Layout: When the ConnectAll grant was originally submitted, the tower was located on the north side of the National Grid power lines.

Second Layout: They secretly moved it to the south side of the power wires after realizing the north position heavily violated the NYS Coastal Management Review for the Lake Ontario waterfront. Realizing the lot was too small to fit, they illegally incorporated the neighbors’ private road right-of-ways into their commercial construction site plan.

Third Layout: Once Rick Stacey blocked North Shore and their contractors from trespassing on private land, they pivoted again. They sent out a deceptive “Notice of Rescheduled Planning Board Meeting” to move the August 5th meeting up to August 3rd. At this rigged meeting, they forced through an emergency amendment to relocate the main driveway to Wilson Road, trying to protect their non-compliant footprint without public oversight.

Fourth Layout: After Stacey provided measured tower layouts showing the county, town, and village that they do not have the proper fall zone safety requirements for this tower location, the county asked North Shore to conduct an instrument site survey. They are now pivoting once again by trying to relocate the tower even closer to the National Grid power lines without proper professional engineering design approvals and National Grid approvals for the unsafe exposures they are creating. This is pure negligence in trying to complete their contracts. This location still does not alleviate the fall zone and falling ice shedding risks noted by Rick Stacey.

6. Outside Counsel Acting Without Legal Board Appointment: At the August 3rd Planning Board meeting, Rick Stacey explicitly pointed out these structural and safety deficiencies. In response, attorney Bridget O’Toole stepped in, acted as self-appointed judge and jury, and told Rick he could not speak any further, flagrantly pushing the vote through while silencing the public. The shocking truth? Ms. O’Toole was not even officially approved or hired by the Carlton Town Board until this week’s meeting on August 11th. She was running public meetings and threatening to have Rick Stacey removed from the meeting before she even possessed a valid contract with the Town.

7. The Core Engineering Lies and Blindfolded Boards: Core Engineering and Core Environmental submitted a report to the zoning board claiming this tower has “no environmental impact, visual impacts, or value impact” to neighboring properties. This is an absolute fabrication. When we personally interviewed Town of Carlton zoning board members, county legislators, and Village of Albion employees, they openly admitted they were never given physical elevations, models, or visual renderings of this tower installation.

8. Concealing the Massive 82″ Above-Ground Monstrosity: Not a single local official, county legislator, or employee at the actual Village of Albion Water Plant was made aware of the physical reality of this tower’s base. They were absolutely shocked when we brought the manufacturer blueprints to their attention showing that this monstrosity features an 82-inch high steel base attached to a 20-foot wide concrete ballasted foundation protruding entirely above ground right on the open shoreline overlay.

9. Point-Blank Power Grid and Fire Suppression Threat: The tower sits inside a hazardous 28-foot window of National Grid distribution lines, which connect directly to the main transmission lines 200 feet to the west that feed the municipal water plant. Shifting this tower closer to the lines completely ignores the lake-effect ice-shedding projectile risk. A structural failure or an ice-shattered line corridor will trigger a cascade grid blackout, shutting down the Water Treatment Plant, wiping out county water pressure, and completely crippling vital emergency fire protection services across the entire district.

The County and Towns ignored a perfect compromise to keep the project moving

Our neighborhood has proven from the beginning that we are not trying to block broadband expansion in Orleans County. To protect our community and completely resolve this hostile administrative deadlock, Nesbitt Farms officially stepped forward and offered a much more appropriate, safer piece of their personal farm land as an alternative inland location for this tower.

The Nesbitt family has farmed this area for 58 years (since 1968). Moving the tower inland to their orchards handles the county’s connectivity needs perfectly, achieves full TIA-222 structural compliance, and completely removes the threat to the public utility grid. Yet, despite this generous and logical community offering, Orleans County has completely ignored Steve Nesbitt’s plea, offering absolutely no response to the proposal.

Evasion of public transparency: broken promises and FOIL violations

Worse than ignoring our solutions, local officials are actively hiding the paperwork. The Town of Carlton, the Village of Albion, and Orleans County are all intentionally holding Rick Stacey’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests. They have systematically refused to supply the requested documents, prolonging their responses far beyond the legal timeline limitations mandated under New York State Public Officers Law. They are trying to run out the clock to keep the community in the dark.

This is a direct continuation of their broken promises. On Tuesday, July 28, 2026, at 4:30 p.m., Rick Stacey personally attended the Orleans County Legislature meeting. He stood before the full board, pointed out these exact engineering deficiencies, and requested a personal meeting to review these critical structural findings. Legislature Chairwoman Lynne Johnson explicitly acknowledged Rick Stacey on the record and replied, “We will set up a meeting.” To this exact date, that promised meeting has never happened. They chose to ignore the evidence, avoid the sit-down, and send in un-appointed lawyers instead.

Submitting generic, sub-standard Structural Analysis specs, stalling statutory public FOIL data, ignoring formal requests from citizens, and allowing conflicts of interest to guide public funding violates the covenants of Empire State Development’s ConnectAll program.

We have officially escalated this entire paper trail to the New York State Comptroller and Empire State Development under the New York False Claims Act to request an immediate administrative freeze on all grant draws for Site 21. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. This backroom deal ends here.

Respectfully submitted,

Rick Stacey

The Unified Neighbors of Oak Orchard on the Lake / Wilson Road

Nesbitt Farms