N.Y. Village Granted Extension to Answer AT&T Suit on Service Gap Remedy

The village of Muttontown, New York, asked for a two-week deadline extension to Oct. 26 to answer a complaint that the municipality dragged its feet on AT&T's application to remedy a service gap, per a letter motion filed Tuesday (docket 2:22-cv-5524) at the U.S. District Court in Central Islip, New York. AT&T consented to the delay, according to a stipulation attached to the letter motion. U.S. Magistrate Judge Lee Dunst granted the motion Thursday.

Muttontown's failure to approve AT&T’s October 2021 application to build a “stealth” wireless services facility at the Village Hall “obstructed AT&T’s ability” to remedy a service gap in the community, in violation of the 1996 Telecom Act, alleged the carrier in a Sept. 15 complaint.

AT&T sought approval from the village to mount 12 antennas with pine tree camouflaging 165 feet above ground level to remedy a service gap that’s “significant in terms of size, number of persons affected, and degree of service deficiencies,” said the complaint. The village failed to meet its obligations under the TCA “to render zoning, land use, and other state or local permitting decisions relating to wireless facility siting requests within a reasonable period of time,” it said.

Muttontown officials dragged their feet, including by refusing to schedule any meeting on the application until after the statute’s 150-day shot clock would have expired, it said. The village also tried to “coerce” AT&T into falsely agreeing that the shot clock didn’t begin running until February, instead of October when it actually did start running, it said.

Officials also tried “retaliating” against AT&T’s “refusal to acquiesce” in the falsification by belatedly requiring “time-consuming hearings” and approvals by additional local authorities, it said. “AT&T made a good faith effort to identify and evaluate less intrusive alternatives to remedy a significant service gap,” and the proposed fix “is the least intrusive means of providing consistent and reliable access to AT&T customers,” it said.

The complaint seeks an order directing Muttontown “to grant all variances, permits, and approvals necessary to allow construction, operation, and maintenance” of the proposed facility to proceed. Muttontown officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.