FRANKFORT — Counties with planning commissions could decide for themselves whether to allow construction of cellular telephone towers under a bill a House committee approved Thursday.

        An industry spokesman who argued against the bill said there was “a misperception that this industry wants to build more towers.”

        The bill, which cleared the House Local Government Committee, is sponsored by Rep. Steve Riggs, D-Louisville, the committee chairman. Tower location has been much debated in Jefferson County, where a tower near homes in the Cannons Lane area stirred resentment.

        Under current law, cellular companies apply to the commission for operating certificates. Counties with local planning can register with the commission for the right to review applications. A complicating factor is that authority for towers in general is a federal matter, not state.

        Under Mr. Riggs' bill, companies would deal directly with a local planning commission. An adverse ruling could be appealed to U.S. District Court, not to the PSC. “Where there's local planning, we're out of it,” Tom Dorman, executive director of the Public Service Commission, told the committee.

        The bill also would require more conspicuous public notice, in plain language, of a company's plan to erect a tower.

        Mr. Riggs said the kind of notice now required “isn't very friendly to the average citizen. It'd refer to latitude and longitude, and you wouldn't know where the tower was going.”

        The industry spokesman, Chris Tretter, said current law is sufficient. He said only about a quarter of Kentucky counties have registered with the PSC for local review of tower applications — a ratio Mr. Dorman said was accurate.

        “There is opportunity for local involvement, and that opportunity has not been fully exercised,” Mr. Tretter said. Also, “there's a misperception that this industry wants to build more towers. We will only build them if there are no alternatives,” he said.

        Far more economical is the sharing of a tower by multiple phone companies, a process that takes one to three months and costs less than $50,000, Mr. Tretter said. Building a tower takes up to a year and costs at least $200,000, he said. Going to federal court adds a year to 18 months, he said.

        Mr. Dorman, of the PSC, said there is an interesting dichotomy in Kentucky.

        “We've got areas where people don't want cell towers going up because of aesthetics. We've got people in other areas ... begging for cellular service,” Mr. Dorman said.

        Such areas include southeastern Kentucky, according to Rep. Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, recalling a cell-phone fiasco last summer when a Japanese business delegation was being given a VIP tour around the area. No one had anticipated “dead zones,” when the businessmen would suddenly be out of touch with their offices.

        “As soon as they got in areas where they didn't have (cell) coverage, it freaked them out,” Mr. Smith said in an interview. “It was not the impact we wanted to have.”

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