This story was produced by the State College regional bureau of Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to investigative and public-service journalism for Pennsylvania. Apply to our north-central Pa. newsletter, Talk of the Town, at spotlightpa.org/newsletters/talkofthetown.

RIDGWAY — An emergency communications tower at the center of a property dispute is complicating Elk County’s public safety planning as a key federal funding deadline looms.

At issue is a 106-foot-tall temporary 911 tower owned and operated by the county. While it sits on Wilcox resident Michael Anderson’s property, the roads accessing the tower were blocked by two gates placed by his neighbors, Terry and Tammy Brawand.

The tower is part of Elk County’s emergency communications network for its 911 center and first responders. It is considered a “mission-critical location” that requires 24-hour access, county staff told the Elk County Court of Common Pleas in early July.

Elk County got involved in the legal dispute between Anderson and the Brawands in the interest of public safety, court documents said. The obstruction of access to the temporary tower has weakened the county’s 911 system and interfered with its plan for a permanent tower, it was alleged.

Anderson, a retired power line worker, filed a lawsuit against the Brawands in April, claiming the sisters have trespassed on his property.

The nearly 8 hectares of disputed land encompass several sets of property rights that both parties claim to own. At stake are issues such as who controls roads and who can access the land, issues complicated by the fact that the parties have deeds dating back 180 years.

Anderson says the Brawands disrupted his mail service, removed several signs from his property and installed locked gates on roads that belong to him, according to the complaint.

The sisters took over the management of their father, William Brawand’s, estate after his death in October 2021. As part of that, they now operate three oil and gas wells located on Anderson’s land, which are accessed by roads in the disputed area.

The Brawands argue that their oil and gas leases give them the ability to decide whether and which third parties can use the roads leading to their wells. Although Anderson owns the land, the Brawand family claims he has no right to allow vehicles to access the roads if they object.

This ongoing dispute has not directly endangered public safety, county officials said during court hearings in early July, but the disruption to the roadway has caused problems.

One of the tower’s antennas had intermittent signal problems, Elk County Emergency Management Director Mike McAllister testified. Maintenance workers had been unable to repair it or work at the site for more than a year and a half, according to a county contractor responsible for the tower’s maintenance.

Thor Lehman, director of operations for the Ridgway Ambulance Corporation, told the court that if the cell tower is down, emergency communications coverage would be cut off in several areas, including campgrounds in Jones Township.

Senior Judge Thomas King Kistler, of Center County, on July 12 granted an emergency petition ordering the Brawands to remove the gates. It is “entirely reasonable” that access to the tower be unrestricted in the interest of public safety, Kistler said.

While the county regained access to the temporary tower after the court order, the dispute between Anderson and the Brawands has not been resolved. The court’s final decision could affect Elk County’s 911 system.

The county said its long-term plan for emergency communications hangs in the balance.

It was in negotiations with Anderson to build a permanent 911 tower at the same location to support police, fire and ambulance, according to court documents. County officials testified that the site’s relatively high elevation would allow for better signal and coverage, and said the site’s proximity to electric power makes it ideal for a permanent tower.

The county intended to use federal government COVID-19 relief funds for the construction, which comes with a tight timeline: If officials can’t commit to a spending plan by the end of 2024, they likely will have to forfeit the funds.

It is not clear how much funds the municipality would use for the project. The amount was not included in court filings and the county declined to comment for this story.

“There is insufficient time to find a new, better location or negotiate a new lease before the ARPA funds expire,” the county wrote in its request to intervene in the case, citing the American Rescue Plan Act. “This would be an irreparable loss.”

But Brawands questioned whether the county had fully explored other possible sites for the new permanent tower.

An earlier tower had been across the road on Brawand’s property – until they gave the county the boot in 2022.

In 2010, the late William Brawand agreed to host a 140-foot-tall 911 tower and equipment shed owned by the Wilcox Volunteer Fire Department on his property. The installation — including Elk County’s communications equipment housed in the shed — supported emergency communications throughout the Jones Township area.

Terry and Tammy Brawand told Spotlight PA in a written statement that they discovered Elk County Emergency Management had added various fixtures to the shed that were not allowed under the 2010 agreement. They also said the county unwittingly let their father shoulder the higher utility costs. They considered the agreement void when they took over the estate.

In June 2022, the sisters sent a new lease offer to the county, asking for $42,000 a year to keep the tower and equipment shed on their property — a price too high for the county.

Elk County Chief Clerk Patrick Straub emailed county commissioners the day they received the proposal: “It looks like we’re going to move the tower.”

With a little more than a month to vacate Brawand’s land, county officials established a two-part plan: they would install a temporary emergency communications tower nearby so that service would not be interrupted, and they would identify a site to build a permanent tower.

Michael Anderson could help with both. He said he wanted to support first responders: “My way of helping them,” he told Spotlight PA.

Elk County paid Anderson $1 for the temporary agreement. By August 1, 2022, the cell tower—less than a mile west of the old site—was up and running.

The county paid $20,390 to its radio system maintainer to remove the equipment from the Brawand property, prepare the new site on Anderson’s land and get the tower operational, according to Spotlight PA records.

In both court testimony and in a statement to Spotlight PA, the sisters said they were not notified that the 911 tower would be installed on Anderson’s land. They argued that the placement of the new temporary tower and the work done to clear the site endangered their nearby oil and gas operations.

The county said it considered other sites for the tower but did not seriously investigate them. The reasoning? “Because this one works,” county contractor Karl Hosterman, who maintains its radio tower, said in his testimony.

The Brawands said they suffered financially because several potential buyers interested in their mineral leases were turned off by the tower and the litigation surrounding it.

The court will eventually rule on the ownership of the disputed land, but it will take time. Citing pending litigation, County Clerk Straub declined to comment for this story.

Anderson told Spotlight PA that he would still welcome a permanent tower on his property, but it’s up to the county to decide where to ultimately go — and the deadline for federal funding is steadily approaching.

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