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Leominster council advances National Grid pole work on Marguerite, Pleasant and Cottage streets; one hearing continued
Summary
The Leominster City Council advanced three National Grid/Verizon petitions to add or remove utility poles across Marguerite, Pleasant and Cottage streets while holding one hearing open after a business owner said the adjacent property may not have received required notice.
The Leominster City Council moved forward on multiple utility petitions from Massachusetts Electric Company doing business as National Grid and Verizon New England on Tuesday, granting three petitions with conditions and continuing one to confirm abutter notification.
At the outset of the public service hearing, Chair Carrie Noseworthy read petition 38-26, which sought permission to install a jointly owned pole and a mid-span pole on Marguerite Avenue to support a capacitor bank for a solar/battery customer. National Grid representative Lenny Martinez told the committee the pole would be sited on the grass and that "the stakes that are there... we should not be blocking their access," adding he would coordinate with contractors and property users on design details.
Committee members focused on whether the proposed pole would obstruct a gate used by a neighboring business and asked for assurance trucks could make required turns. The chair said the committee would recommend granting petition 38-26 "contingent upon the fact that that fence be fully... not obscured by the pole and people being able to come in and out of the area." The council later recorded the committee's unanimous recommendation and advanced the petition; the transcript records the council vote on the committee's recommendation as eight in favor with one abstention.
A second petition, 39-26, proposed installing a singly owned pole on Marguerite Avenue to serve a future solar customer at 259 Lancaster Street. After Lenny Martinez described the planned installation, local business owner Eric Hanson, who owns Auto Shower Car Wash, said he was not listed as the adjacent property owner on the notice and that the actual adjacent owner, Simon of Grove Products, had not been notified. "According to the... notification requirement for a pole hearing, the adjacent property owners need to be notified," Hanson said. Committee members asked National Grid to confirm the abutter list and determine whether the pole could be shifted to avoid interfering with truck turning radii; the committee kept petition 39-26 open and scheduled a continued hearing so the affected owner could participate.
Petition 42-26 asked to remove two jointly owned poles on Pleasant Street and relocate some wires across the street so poles 11 and 12 could be eliminated. Martinez said the plan is to "bounce" the wires across the street to move them away from a nearby house and replace several leaning poles in the area. Resident Luisa Santiago, who asked whether a pole would affect her driveway, was shown the map and told the removals and new pole placement would not affect her property. The subcommittee recommended granting 42-26.
Petition 43-26, to add two poles on Cottage Street and install a push brace on an existing pole to prevent leaning, drew little opposition; National Grid said the changes would allow wires to be moved away from the corner house and provide greater stability. The subcommittee recommended granting 43-26.
Next steps: petition 39-26 will be continued so National Grid can confirm the correct abutter list and meet with the affected property owner; petitions 38-26, 42-26 and 43-26 were advanced by the committee for council action as recorded in the meeting.
