Over a year after a lawsuit was filed against the Village of Flower Hill by ExteNet Systems following a rejection of 18 applications for cell nodes, both parties will file motions for summary judgment in 2021, according to court documents.
According to a Dec. 1 letter signed by attorney Brendan Goodhouse of the White Plains-based Cuddy and Feder LLP, representing ExteNet, to Judge Frederic Block of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, the village and ExteNet have agreed to serve their motions and supporting papers on each other by Feb. 1, with responsive papers required to be filed with the court by March 1.
“The parties have also agreed to cooperate with each other should either request a brief extension of the February 1, 2021 date for service of moving papers,” Goodhouse wrote.
Verizon Wireless contracted with ExteNet four years ago to install small cell devices in a number of Long Island communities to improve local 4G and later 5G networks.
In Flower Hill, ExteNet applied with the village in 2017, before the board implemented a yearlong moratorium on cell nodes to last from August 2017 to August 2018.
After its application for 18 cell nodes was rejected by Flower Hill’s Board of Trustees in September 2019, with trustees citing ExteNet’s failure to specify the exact locations of the proposed cell nodes despite village requests for clarification, ExteNet sued the village, contending that a determination that ExteNet had provided the board with a special permit application with conflicting plans and options instead of “specific alternate plans” is a “charade.”
At the village’s Board of Trustees’ Zoom meeting on Monday, Norman Glavas, a resident who says a cellular node will be placed near his home should the plans from ExteNet come to fruition, asked for an update on the case at the meeting.
“Essentially, it has been pending for motions to be made,” village Attorney Jeffrey Blinkoff said. “We are awaiting those to be submitted to the judge and for a response from the court.”
In addition to Flower Hill, the villages of Lake Success, Plandome and Plandome Manor are in litigation with ExteNet. The Town of North Hempstead was also sued by the company, lost the case, lost an appeal and subsequently voted to accept a settlement to build 12 cell nodes in the Manhasset-Port Washington area.
Mayor Brian Herrington, also at the meeting, added that the village had been “monitoring the decisions in some of these surrounding cases.”
“So just so you’re aware, we’re working,” Herrington said. “Our legal counsel is monitoring that. And we’re aware of those developments.”
He and Blinkoff clarified that the North Hempstead case had come about due to issues of timeframe and that the town had not voted to reject the applications as Flower Hill had.
“Federal cases take quite some time, and this is not unique,” Blinkoff said at the meeting. “We’re still waiting.”
