Residents, officials spar over Verizon tower near ancestral burial grounds as county faces litigation

A dispute over a cell-phone tower on Powerline Road that residents say sits next to ancestral Maidu burial grounds drew multiple public commenters and drew the county into litigation and closed-session discussion on Sept. 8.

Public commenter Suzanne Trammell Sterling said she spent an entire day at the site and warned of immediate human consequences. “There are very real humans on the ground who are very scared now that they are being sued because they are here at the tradesman level with an umbrella company called Vertical Bridge, with a company called Verizon, with a company called Sierra Pacific,” she told the board.

The board moved the item on existing litigation concerning Vertical Bridge and Verizon Wireless to closed session as agenda item 5(c). County staff later told the board they had met in closed session on items including that litigation and that “there was no reportable action out of that closed session.”

After the meeting several supervisors and speakers praised County Counsel for reaching out to the tower owner. One participant told the board counsel had “contacted us and worked some things out,” and another said county counsel had acted quickly to negotiate and investigate the site.

Planning commissioners and members of the public urged the board to provide clearer on‑the‑ground responses and quicker inspections. A planning commissioner, speaking during public comment, said she visited the site and had spoken with a property owner, and asked the board when it would provide a formal report about the county’s review of the tower.

The agenda identifies the litigation as “Plumas County plaintiffs versus Sierra Pacific Land and Timber Company, the Towers of California LLC, a subsidiary of Vertical Bridge, Verizon Wireless, JFC Construction” in Superior Court of California, County of Plumas, case CB25-00207; that description was listed in the public agenda and cited in the closed‑session notice.

The board also moved the public-comment period for the litigation item earlier in the meeting so residents would not have to wait through the full agenda to speak. Beyond citizens’ concerns about the site’s proximity to burial grounds and disruption to neighbors, commenters said they feared economic and legal impacts to local workers contracted on the site.

No formal action on the Vertical Bridge litigation was reported in open session after the closed session; the board’s staff statement said only that the matter had been discussed in closed session and that there was no reportable action. The litigation remains listed on the agenda as an existing court case.