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the technical aspects. The County could also have a consultant to market public sites in the County. This would be a different type of consultant. Commissioner Brown asked how many towers would be out of compliance after this ordinance, particularly with the lighting. Craig Benedict said that there are about 50 towers in the County. The FAA regulates lighting. Commissioner Brown asked about lights around the base of the tower and Craig Benedict said that we could control that. This is not specifically addressed in this ordinance, but can be added. Commissioner Brown asked about going back into existing sites to fix the lighting problem. Craig Benedict said that he thinks the industry can work with the County with light pollution. This will be added into the ordinance. Commissioner Halkiotis asked about the six-month moratorium and if it included the towns and Craig Benedict said no. Commissioner Halkiotis asked about the tower behind Lowes on US 70 and if we could invite the towns to be a part of the process. This tower has no aesthetics. Craig Benedict said that the towns could be brought into our Master Telecommunications Plan. Commissioner Halkiotis wants us all to work together. Commissioner Gordon asked about something not in the hearing but in the Master Telecommunications Plan. Craig Benedict referred her to page 16 of the agenda. He said that they will bring to the Board of County Commissioners and the Planning Board a Master Telecommunications Plan (MTP) and if they adopt it, it will become a part of the ordinance. Commissioner Gordon asked about how the public sites would be specified. Craig Benedict said that there would be a public hearing on all of the sites that want to be a part of the MTP. Commissioner Gordon asked about the process if someone volunteers a site. Craig Benedict said that this process has not been developed yet. If the MTP is not adopted, then this ordinance is still better than the existing one. Commissioner Gordon suggested that there be criteria and guidelines for the MTP. Chair Jacobs said that they would put the Master Telecommunications Plan on the September 3'' agenda because of the short time left in the moratorium. Chair Jacobs suggested that the ordinance state that there will be a sign about the balloon tests for residents near a tower. Chair Barry Jacobs referred to news articles about Person County's towers. Person County hired some consultants from Greensboro that review all tower applications for compliance. He pointed out some differences on page 12, item c-5. Person County has wording where they want the applicant to show that the site is the least visually intrusive. He asked if there was anything like this in our ordinance. Craig Benedict said that there were inferences. This can be added to the ordinance in item c-5. Chair Jacobs also pointed out that Person County uses 110 % of the height for a fall zone instead of 100%. He asked Craig Benedict to look into this because it seems to add a margin of additional safety. Chair Jacobs asked about the general thrust of the ordinance. He wants to make it is as easy as possible to have co-location and make it as difficult as possible to have taller towers. He wonders if we have adequately accomplished this in the ordinance. Craig Benedict pointed out the major incentive for co-location will be to allow a class B if the tower has four users. He thinks this ordinance is trying to meet the balance between height and amount of users and trying to bring the towers down overall. Chair Jacobs stated that we need to investigate the balance of these towers both with telecommunication and the environment. He distributed an article on birds and telecommunication towers from the Internet and asked that we invite a bird specialist from one of the universities to look at the flight patterns in this area so that we do not put towers in bird flyways. Commissioner Carey asked the Planning staff how we would respond to any public versus private sites and the criteria that we would use so that biases will not come up between the County and other entities. Craig Benedict said that they were discussing making voluntary ag districts a preferred site so that farmers could continue their farming operation. The staff is going to look at public competition. Commissioner Brown wanted to clarify the process of notification of the balloon test for locating towers. She asked if the applicant pays for this to make sure that the residents are notified. Craig