Council authorizes staff to pursue easements for two siren locations, seeks additional site direction and rejects camouflage option

The Rolling Hills Estates City Council on Wednesday directed staff to pursue easement licensing with the Rolling Hills Community Association (RHCA) for two proposed outdoor siren locations and gave guidance on selecting additional pole sites and visual treatments for the emergency siren notification system.

City staff introduced the item as an update and requested direction from the council on three points: (1) whether to authorize the city manager to seek easement licensing from the RHCA for proposed sites, (2) which additional pole locations the council preferred among several modeled options, and (3) whether to proceed with cosmetic camouflaging or alternative visual mitigation strategies.

Management analyst Samantha Crew briefed the council on the history of the project, noting the city began a phased outdoor-warning installation in 2023 and that 2025 testing revealed coverage gaps caused by the city's terrain. Crew said HQE, the city's vendor, modeled multiple site and equipment options and presented trade-offs between shorter LS30 speaker poles and taller LS120 speaker arrays; the taller poles provide substantially more distance coverage while the shorter poles reduce visual height and concentrate sound locally.

Kais, a member of the HQE leadership…