At its June meeting, the Village of Roslyn Board of Trustees rejected an application by Sprint Spectrum to install three panel antennas to an existing transmission tower by Rallye Motors. Sprint had hoped to use the antennas to provide cellular phone assistance to local residents.

Despite the rejection, Sprint lawyers, according to company spokeswoman Kathleen Dunleavy, still hope to pursue alternatives with the BOT and see if they can work out another location. "Our customers in the Roslyn area still need this service," Ms. Dunleavy said.

Opponents of the Rallye site had suggested an alternate site for the antennas, one near Acura Motors, also on Northern Boulevard in Roslyn. Lawyers from Sprint, however, rejected that site claiming that the Acura tower would have to be 244 ft. high in order to be effective. The tower near Rallye is 90 ft. high. Lawrence Ray, a lawyer for Sprint, said a 244 ft. high tower would also have a negative visual impact on the area.

"We're very disappointed," Ms. Dunleavy said about the June BOT vote. "We were really hoping that having these antennas on an existing site would have been acceptable to the community."

Opponents of the Rallye site included many residents of the Appletree Lane section of East Hills, a neighborhood which sits directly above Rallye Motors. Led by East Hills Board of Trustees member Linda Nathanson and Town of North Hempstead Councilwoman Doreen Banks, the opposition cited possible health hazards, especially cancer risks as a main reason for opposing the plan. They also claimed that property values in residential neighborhoods decrease once such structures were built or activated.

The 1996 Federal Communications Act forbids local municipalities to reject such offers due to potential or perceived health risks, something that was noted in the BOT's findings of fact on the project. Instead, the finding cited violations in local setback requirement laws and also claimed that Sprint failed to demonstrate why the alternate site was not acceptable to them.