Verizon Reaches Settlement With N.Y. Town, Resolving Cell Tower Dispute

Verizon, co-plaintiff Tarpon Towers and the defendant town of Saugerties, New York, agreed to settle their wireless infrastructure dispute “without the need for further litigation,” Verizon’s counsel wrote U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Stewart for Northern New York in Albany in a letter Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-00107). Stewart granted the parties a seven-week deadline extension in June to accommodate their ongoing settlement talks (see 2306290004), Saugerties was alleged to have violated the Telecommunications Act by refusing to act on Verizon’s cell tower application before the expiration of the statute’s shot clock (see 2301190046). Under the settlement agreement, Verizon and Tarpon would withdraw their complaint without prejudice, conditioned on the town’s approval for the construction of a 125-foot tower, plus a 4-foot lightning rod, to accommodate the antennas of local emergency services.