Collierville joins Farragut in 5G watch
Smoak’s ex-boss: 5G push has sudden stop in Collierville
Having stayed in close communication for months with David Smoak, Town of Farragut administrator, about the 5G technology push and resulting “poles” to be dealt with per state law, James Lewellen has a natural connection in Town Hall.
After all, this almost 25-year Town administrator from Collierville in northern Shelby County (estimated population 52,000) was once Smoak’s boss — Smoak served as assistant Town administrator there before coming to Farragut in 2010.
“I’m a friend of David Smoak’s and I’m talking to him regularly about what Farragut is doing,” Lewellen said. “… We share the same sentiments, I think, that the city does up there about the appearance and trying to regulate where all the ugliness could be hidden.”
However, “It hasn’t really started here yet. … Not much has happened in the Memphis-Collierville area,” he said.
“There will be some stand-alone poles, but the backbone of the system will be attaching, especially in the subdivisions, (5G) to the streetlights.”
Dating back to 2018, “We were trying to have a major role to play in it, on the approvals, and then the state passed a law” granting the carriers broad powers to plant 5G poles within municipalities, Lewellen said.
With AT&T and Verizon the major carries in Collierville, “After the law was passed, they basically stopped talking to us,” he added. “But then they started working with (Memphis Light, Gas & Water).”
However, AT&T and Verizon “couldn’t work out a deal with MLGW on pole attachments,” Lewellen said. “Back in the fall, I believe, is when we had (the most recent) conversations about it. … So I just think (AT&T and Verizon) directed their attention elsewhere.”
