{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=413379", "News 12 New Jersey reports on Smith's legislation to give local communities more say in planned telecom projects'Spring Lake residents fight Verizon plan to place 5G towers along shoreline'", "2024-10-04", "2024", "2024-10", "Republican", "House", "NJ", "Christopher H. Smith", "S000522", "chrissmith.house.gov", "chrissmith", "https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx", "scraper", "Spring Lake, Oct 4, 2024\n\nBy Jim Murdoch, News 12 New Jersey.\n\nAs Verizon makes 5G upgrades along the Jersey Shore, the message is clear in Spring Lake - stay off Ocean Avenue.\n\n\u201cVerizon is a big company. They have a lot of money, a lot of power. I feel like they are bullying their way into our town,\u201d says Laura Demeo, a longtime resident of Spring Lake.\n\nDemeo is one of more than 150 residents who are fighting Verizon\u2019s plans for a half-dozen 5G poles next to the 2-mile boardwalk after the company submitted an application back in January.\n\nRepublican Rep. Chris Smith introduced legislation in April to give more power to people like Demeo and towns like Spring Lake to fight big communication companies and come up with alternatives and compromises.\n\n\u201cThey need to say, \u2018Hey, we serve you. You don\u2019t serve us.\u2019 And again, government has to be the same way. They are just rolling over the local population, and that\u2019s a bad neighbor policy,\u201d says Smith.\n\nIn Spring Lake, there\u2019s already a local ordinance banning such towers along the immediate beachfront. An antenna in Sea Girt already utilizes an existing telephone pole.\n\nSpring Lake Borough Manager Bryan Dempsey says Verizon can add its 5G equipment to poles inland.\n\n\u201cWe made the ordinance that way because of how pristine the beachfront is, knowing there are other areas in town that have telephone poles they could utilize,\u201d says Dempsey. Spring Lake\u2019s mayor and council must now answer Verizon\u2019s application within the next two weeks.\n\nIn a statement to News 12, a Verizon spokesperson says, \u201cVerizon's network improvements provide crucial connectivity for customers and emergency service providers in the community. With consumers and businesses using increasing amounts of data each year, we continually enhance our network to meet the needs of homeowners, first responders and as vacationers in beach communities. Verizon has installed and now operates similar cell sites in adjacent communities with no negative impact on residents or wildlife. Our Company continually works to ensure we maintain compliance with all relevant and applicable Federal, State and local laws and procedures. That's been the case from the beginning and that process continues today.\u201d\n\nThis article, which was published online on October 2, 2024, can be found here.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:57:20Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=413379"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.0786880739033222, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}