‘It cost neighbors close to $100,000 in legal fees to fight the town of Carmel and Verizon Wireless over a backroom court settlement that would have allowed the company to erect a 140-foot cell tower at the end of their quiet hilltop cul-de-sac, with no public process or environmental review.
Almost two years later, their investment paid off when State Supreme Justice Thomas Davis ruled that the town of Carmel had entered into an unlawful settlement to place the tower on Walton Drive, on one of the town’s highest peaks near the Westchester border.
The judge found that the town had no right to approve the deal by circumventing its planning and zoning boards. He also determined that Town Board member Frank Lombardi should not have voted on the settlement because he would have benefitted financially from the deal as a member of the Maple Estate homeowners association that had leased its land to the mobile phone giant for $18,000 a year since 2018.’
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