Two weeks after rejecting it, the Petersburg borough assembly on June 15 approved the sale of a borough parcel to Tidal Network for a wireless communications tower — with all four members who had blocked the deal switching to yes and the resolution passing unanimously.

The resolution authorizes the sale of a 0.23-acre borough-owned parcel to the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, doing business as Tidal Network. The resolution had failed 2-4 at the June 1 meeting.

The June 15 revote followed testimony from several residents who for months have been urging the assembly not to sell land for the tower project.

Tom Kowalske raised structural-engineering questions about Tidal Network’s Mill Road site and said the public had not received a comprehensive evaluation of alternative sites. “If you do sell based on fear, it’s going to come back and bite us,” he said.

Becky Knight said the assembly should not sell public land before evaluating impacts on residents, property owners, public safety and the environment, arguing an environmental review should have been required from the outset. She cited geotechnical, fire, property-value and visual concerns.

Judy Ohmer questioned the decision to revote at all. Bringing the matter back after it failed “is just a cover-up for failed negotiations,” she said, calling it “not a good look for governance.”

David Beebe called the matter “among the most controversial and consequential” in borough history. He said there had been “no public outcry” for more cell towers.

Opponents of a Tidal Network tower at 13-Mile in Wrangell voiced similar objections at public meetings. The borough planning and zoning commission last fall denied a permit for the tower.

Petersburg Police Chief James Kerr offered testimony in support of that community’s land sale for a tower, describing it as a public-safety investment.

He said reliable communications are critical for police, fire, EMS, search and rescue and 911 dispatch, that radio coverage is unreliable in parts of the community, and that terms of the land sale contract would let the borough place public-safety equipment on all three planned Tidal Network’s towers — eliminating a future need for the borough to build and maintain its own towers.

“When the borough sends responders, we owe them reliable communications,” he said, calling the deal “a practical, forward-thinking investment in public safety.”

In the assembly’s deliberations on June 15, members described difficult reversals of their votes.

Assembly Member Jeff Meucci, who placed the resolution back on the agenda, said he wished the tower were going somewhere “that didn’t have so much controversy around it,” but he had spent days on the borough’s property viewer measuring distances to child care facilities and the hospital, and was comfortable with the site, particularly given the public-safety equipment benefit.

Assembly Member James Valentine called it “the lesser of all evils.”

Assembly Member Scott Newman recounted a “pretty crazy vote” at the June 1 meeting, when, he said, “I literally said I was going to vote for it, and three minutes later I voted no.” On a personal level he didn’t want the tower there, he said, “but ... it’s the least bad of all the bad places.”