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 team who presented modeling and field-testing results to the council, said the firm had tested the existing poles and fed those measurements into propagation software. "Our goal is to work with you all to help identify working site locations that residents would be happy with, but also at the same time provide you with all the expertise and knowledge that we have from years in the industry to provide something that is robust and useful," Kais said. HQE's modeling showed the most coverage citywide using the taller (50-foot) poles proposed at three additional locations.

HQE representatives and staff discussed the differences between a 50-foot pole and multiple smaller poles. The vendor said covering the same area with 30-foot poles would require many more installations (HQE estimated five or more smaller poles to reach parity in certain neighborhoods) and would increase installation and mobilization costs. HQE also described the proposed "safe" indoor units (battery-powered receivers residents could buy for roughly $100) that synchronize with the outdoor gateways and said gateways installed on existing poles would extend indoor coverage; HQE said the city would receive gateway hardware as part of the vendor program and that resident indoor units would form a mesh that improves with uptake.

Residents filed dozens of public comments, many objecting to the visual impact of a 50-foot pole at the Chesterfield cul-de-sac and urging alternatives (for example, a Chuckwagon/Bowie curve location). Others asked for more audible field tests, asked for the vendor to provide a list of the 50 sites HQE studied, and requested testing of the indoor safe unit network before committing to new poles. Several attendees also asked about maintenance costs, lightning safety, and whether painted or camouflaged enclosures were durable. Staff and HQE said the poles are engineered to industry standards (wind-rated to 115 mph, grounded for lightning protection) and that a matte finish and site-specific landscaping were options to reduce visual glare and impacts.

After public comment, a council motion to authorize the city manager to seek easement licensing from RHCA for the two proposed locations (Upper Blackwater/Portuguese Bend triangle and Chesterfield cul-de-sac), to direct staff to continue evaluating the third pole location options (Ringbit or alternatives, and the flying-triangle / Southfield area), and to provide guidance on visual treatments passed on a 4-1 roll-call vote: yes—Marsh, Black, Mayor Pro Tem Deringer and Mayor Piper; no—Council member Wilson. The council also directed staff to proceed with gateway/transmitter installation on existing poles to enable the indoor safe network and to prioritize rollout of the indoor units; council members instructed staff to return with additional site-stake stakes and clearer overlay maps to allow residents to examine proposed pole footprints.

The council explicitly directed staff to decline the expensive full-scale camouflage package (approximately $84,000 per pole); council members and staff instead discussed lower-cost options including painting speaker brackets and landscaping (staff estimated painting at about $2,500 per pole). Staff said they would continue to pursue community outreach and to present more-detailed, street-level propagation maps and stake locations to the RHCA and affected neighborhoods before final permits or construction.

Ending: Council approved direction to staff to seek easement licensing for the two locations, to continue site analysis and community outreach on additional pole locations, to prioritize gateway installation for the indoor safe-unit network, and to avoid committing to high-cost camouflage packages at this time. Staff will return with refined maps, stake locations and implementation details.