Verizon Has ‘Alternatives’ to Installing Small Cells for GOP Convention, Says Milwaukee

Milwaukee and its public works commissioner, Jerrel Kruschke, seek the dismissal with prejudice of Verizon’s Nov. 24 complaint to force the city to approve the installation of four small cells on newly constructed poles in the public rights of way in the city’s Deer District in time for next summer’s Republican National Convention (see 2311270034), said their answer Thursday (docket 2:23-cv-01581) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Wisconsin in Milwaukee. The pedestrian mall outside the Fiserv Forum, site of the July 15-18 convention, is leased to the Wisconsin Center District and subleased to Dear District LLC and "is not right-of-way" for the purposes of the FCC's enforcement of the Telecommunications Act, said the answer. Milwaukee and Kruschke “admit and affirmatively” allege that Verizon initially proposed collocating the small cells on existing poles that were not owned by the city, it said. The existing poles are owned by the Deer District LLC, and neither state nor federal law authorizes the city “to require a third party to allow Verizon to collocate on poles owned by the third party,” it said. The defendants also “affirmatively allege that Verizon has alternatives to the proposed small cell installations,” it said.