OCEAN CITY — With the city being sued over its plan to put a 125-foot cell tower at 33rd Street and Bay Avenue, council members were forced to listen to citizen comment on the topic July 16 without being able to respond.
Greg Sirianni and his brothers have been among the vocal neighbors of the proposed tower who have appeared regularly at council meetings to note their opposition and the growing list of signatures on a petition fighting the placement of the tower.
“Everybody is adamantly opposed to this,” Sirianni told council.
He suspects some council members were regretting how it was handled. Some of you, he told council, said, “We probably shouldn’t have done it that way.”
A few years ago, the Planning Board denied the application for the cell tower atop the former Compass building at 34th Street and Haven Avenue, but Cellco (Verizon Wireless) appealed in federal court, alleging the city was in violation of the Federal Telecommunications Act because cell phone companies have rights as quasi-utilities.
To settle the lawsuit, according to city solicitor Dorothy McCrosson in her report to council in April 2025, Ocean City spent almost a year reviewing properties where a cell tower could be built. The city initially considered the corner of Bay Avenue and 34th Street, where the city has a lifeboat on display, but that did not work out.
The city instead settled on the lot where the former American Legion post used to be before moving to a new building at 46th Street and West Avenue.
Sirianni said the movement against the tower began a few months ago when 50 people attended a meeting and then signed a petition. Those 50 signatures, he said, have grown to just under 1,100. “It will probably be 1,300 or 1,400 when I come here in two weeks.”
Gene McCaffrey of 3220 Bay Ave., who lives “just five houses down from the proposed cell tower site,” said he’s been watching every meeting he can for the past two years.
He believes there was a lot of pressure for the city to settle on the 33rd and Bay Avenue site.
McCaffrey said he hasn’t seen how the city evaluated other potential sites to settle the lawsuit and that the resort boiled its options down to 33rd and Bay and the youth ballfields at 35th Street, before deciding those weren’t suitable.
After noting the improvements on the 34th Street entrance to Ocean City and the fact the Seaspray condos at 34th and Bay Avenue that have been closed for a few years are about to be demolished, he said, “I couldn’t believe, for a moment, that you guys would put a 120-foot cell tower in a residential zone at the gateway to this wonderful community.”
McCaffrey added that by watching the meetings he can tell City Council members care and that outside of mayoral races, work together. However, he said, “For me, it looked like you folded the tent to Verizon. You wanted to get out of a hot situation where you thought you weren’t going to win it. We seemed like the area that you can get away and put it. You own the land and boom, it was done.”
He said the resort “was tripping over” itself to accommodate Verizon, but walked into problems.
“It’s not just the spot zoning, it’s not just the failure of the Planning Board to act properly. It’s the local land and building law and the notices,” he said.
“Where are (homeowners) in the equation for you guys? We are just the lesser of two evils,” McCaffrey said.
“Within the next few months (city solicitor) Dottie (McCrosson), everyone else, will see exactly, with clarity, what was done wrong,” he said, adding more and more people will be coming to council until the end of summer as they realize where the cell tower is supposed to be built.
Sirianni said his brother, Tom, found 91 possible other options instead of 33rd and Bay and if they were properly vetted, the city wouldn’t be in this position.
He said council should worry about the growing number of people signing the petition, inferring problems for council members in future elections, but that he hoped the council president or vice president would end up at the microphone talking about how they found a solution.
“I know we’re under litigation now, but that’s the announcement that everybody’s saying, ‘That has to happen.’ It will be victorious for City Council. It’ll be victorious for Verizon. It’ll be victorious for Ocean City and most importantly, it’ll be victorious for the people you were elected to represent.”
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
