County concedes Victoria cell tower suit The Ellis County Commission has conceded in a civil lawsuit filed in December by a group of Victoria plaintiffs who opposed construction of a cell phone tower east of town, to be located near U.S. Highway 40.

County Counselor Bill Jeter said that, in preparation for a hearing scheduled for Thursday, he concluded that prior notice for a public hearing of the Ellis County Joint Planning Commission was insufficient.

State statute requires distribution of public notice at least 20 days before the hearing. In this instance, the notice was published in The Hays Daily News 18 days before the commission's public hearing last October.

Regulations also mandate that written notice be mailed to all property owners within 1,000 feet of the proposed project area. Those notices were distributed 19 days before the public hearing.

Thus, the vote of approval by the planning commission is void, and  ultimate approval by the county commission, which was granted Nov. 26, has been vacated, Jeter said.
To proceed, the applicant seeking the conditional-use permit for the cell phone tower will have to file a new application with the county zoning administrator.

For more on the story, see Thursday's Hays Daily News.