Koor communication, inc


III. Does the Law Recognize a Takings Claim Where the City of Lebanon Takes



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III. Does the Law Recognize a Takings Claim Where the City of Lebanon Takes

Koor's License? (Question on Appeal 7).

The City argued that Koor's FCC license was a property interest for purposes of the due process clause, citing Appeal of Plantier, 126 N.H. 500 (1985), but not for purposes of the takings clause, citing no case law.

The Superior Court granted summary judgment dismissing Koor's takings claim. The Court held that assuming an invalid ordinance, there could be no takings claim and a license is not property.

The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution protect the property rights of Koor against deprivation by the City of Lebanon. See also, 16A


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Am. Jur. 2d Constitutional Law; §§580-586 and 590 (1979). This is the right protected by Appeal of Plantier, supra.

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CONCLUSION
Though Koor is quite mindful of the fact that the cellular telephone preemption at the heart of Omnipoint Communications v. Town of Lincoln is not controlling law in the case at bar, the August 2, 2000 decision of United States District Court Judge Edward F. Harrington offers this Court a philosophy we commend to this Court's attention. In that case, Judge Harrington wrote:
This case dramatizes the perpetual clash between national and local interests and between material progress and natural beauty. In the Nineteenth Century railroad tracks were layed by Walden Pond; in the Twentieth Century telephone poles were the trees that grew on urban streets; in the Twenty-First Century wireless towers will become familiar landmarks across the suburban landscape. A universal technological advance cannot be permanently stayed by a local stratagem devised to preserve the character and beauty of a locality. The enduring principle of local control of land use shall be honored, but only if a federal law which promotes the establishment of a comprehensive nationwide wireless communication network is not thereby subverted. For good or for ill, Hamilton's, not Jefferson's, vision of America has prevailed.
Omnipoint Communications v. Town of Lincoln, 107 F. Supp. 2d 108 (D. Mass. 2000).
RELIEF REQUESTED
Koor Communications respectfully requests that this Honorable Court enter partial summary judgment in favor of Koor in accordance with its motion of November 20, 1997 (Appendix at 42), or in the alternative, reverse the Superior Court's order of July 11, 2001 granting summary judgment to the City. (Appendix at 637).
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REQUEST FOR ORAL ARGUMENT
Plaintiff requests the opportunity to present oral argument not to exceed 15 minutes, to be presented by K. William Clauson, Esq.

Respectfully submitted,


December 31, 2001 K. William Clauson, Esq.

CLAUSON & ATWOOD

10 Buck Road

Hanover, NH 03755

(603) 643-2102

Fred Hopengarten, Esq.

Six Willarch Road

Lincoln, MA 01773-5105

(781) 259-0088

Maine Bar No. 1660

DC Bar No. 114124


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1 Koor notes that there are only two other local New Hampshire AM stations: WTSL-AM, owned by Clear Channel Communications, Inc., a Texas-based owner of over 1600 radio stations in the Untied States; and WDCR-AM, owned by the Trustees of Dartmouth College. Koor represents local ownership and management.

2 Koor’s position was and is that, as a broadcaster, it is a First Amendment “speaker” subject to “reasonable, narrowly drawn statues [that] may regulate the time, place, and manner of expression but that . . . blanket prohibitions of expression are invalid. . .” Plaintiff’s Memorandum in Support of Partial Summary Judgment, October 25, 1999, at 11.
Broadcasting is clearly a medium affected by a First Amendment interest. United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U.S. 131, 166 (1948). “But the reach of radio signals is incomparably greater than the range of the human voice and the problem of interference is a massive realty.” Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367, 387-88 (1969). “[I]f two broadcasters were to attempt to transmit over the same frequency in the same locale, they would interfere with one another’s signals, so that neither could be heard at all. The scarcity of broadcast frequencies thus required the establishment of some regulatory mechanism to divide the electromagnetic spectrum. . . .” Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U.S. 622 (1994) (internal citations omitted). The FCC’s regulation of minimum antenna heights, specifically required to avoid interference with other stations on the same or nearby frequencies, is a part of the regulatory mechanism. The City cannot create an effective total ban on this form of First Amendment speech by creating an effective total ban on new AM broadcasting. See Metromedia v. San Diego, 453 U.S. 490 (1981) (holding that a total ban on billboards was not a time, place and manner restriction). Under a First Amendment analysis, the City’s height ordinance requires a higher level of scrutiny than an ordinary land use regulation.
The City’s response to Koor’s claim of an effective total ban on First Amendment speech was that Koor “has provided no evidence that AM radio towers could not be constructed elsewhere in the City where allowed by special exception.” Defendant’s Objections and Response to Plaintiff’s Motion for partial Summary Judgment, November 30, 1999, p. 19. This response ignores Koor’s repeated citations to 47 CFR §73.190, Exhibit 7.
The result of this thrust and parry on the First Amendment brings us back to the question of whether the FCC would permit an array of 42-foot antennas. To Koor, the answer is that the FCC regulations speak for themselves, do not permit 42-foot antennas in this instance due to interference problems, and the City’s zoning bylaw is invalid as it is both preempted by Federal regulation and a violation of the First Amendment. See Letter of Peter H. Doyle, FCC, Appendix page 400.



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