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Residents urge COVID mitigation in safety programming and press city to help resolve mobile‑network outages
Summary
Two public commenters asked the Mountlake Terrace City Council to broaden its community safety series to include airborne disease prevention measures and to press T‑Mobile for timelines after multi‑month outages that have created local dead zones near schools and transit hubs.
Mountlake Terrace — During general public comment at the council’s Feb. 19 meeting, two residents urged the city to act on separate but locally consequential public‑safety issues.
At the start of the meeting, a speaker identified only as Adam urged the city to add airborne‑disease precautions to the community safety series the city is rolling out. “Why do we think of safety primarily in terms of crime?” Adam asked, arguing that COVID‑19 reinfections can cause long‑term organ damage and long COVID that can lead to job loss and homelessness. He asked the city to “commit to using [masks and air filtration] instead of pretending the pandemic magically ended like the rest of the country,” and suggested distributing N95 respirators and deploying air purifiers in schools and other public settings.
Adam’s comments were framed as community advice rather than a formal request for immediate council action; councilmembers did not debate or respond to the substance of his suggestions during the meeting.
Later in the public‑comment period, Peter Triandafillo told the council he has been tracking what he described as multi‑month outages affecting two T‑Mobile cell towers in Mountlake Terrace, including one near the Safeway and another by the water tower. Triandafillo said he had a Feb. 7 email from the carrier that read in part, “Our teams are working to resolve these outages as swiftly as possible and appreciate your patience throughout this process,” and that T‑Mobile had opened repair tickets as early as Aug. 2. He said the outages have produced “dead zones” that affect ordinary calls and text messages and pose risks for emergency communications near schools and transit centers.
Triandafillo asked the city to assist in escalating the issue and to seek clearer timelines from the carrier. Councilmembers did not take formal action during the meeting to pursue the matter but the city manager noted the manager’s office had received related materials earlier in the month.
What happens next: The council did not take immediate formal action in public session on either topic. The public‑comment appeals were recorded in the official meeting record; residents who want a response or city follow‑up should contact the city clerk or city manager’s office for status updates.
