The public hearing Tuesday night on a special use permit to erect a cell phone tower on property owned by a businessman already under scrutiny by the city and its citizens trampled the spirit and letter of what quasi-judicial hearings are supposed to be.

Background on this is simply that David King, who owns what was the Roanoke No. 2 mill, wanted to put up a 120-foot cell phone tower so U.S. Cellular could fill a data hole in that section of town.

In a matter of a few votes, the issue died when it came down to motions on safety, harmony and general conformity questions on the tower.

We feel council and the public erred in their duty on this question because in a quasi-judicial hearing, where people are sworn in before speaking, they must adhere to the issue at hand and not other secondary matters like the condition of King’s building, which the council has already addressed and is not even close to where the tower was to be located.

The only thing mentioned outright about the tower was whether it would interfere with existing communication devices and one comment in which the speaker said he thought the tower might devalue his property, offering no hard evidence, however, this would be the case.

In fact, state General Statute 160A-393 specifically prohibits opinions that the use of property in a particular way would affect the value of other property unless the witness is an expert on the topic.

The only evidence presented was on matters we already know about: That in March King was given six months to take care of the building, the portion nearest Jackson Street and not the other buildings on the premises.

We believe that action cleared that matter and King has told us his plans are to demolish the building.

With that said, we believe there was no other course to take but to approve the cell phone tower matter.

We are not lawyers, but we are confident that we know the cell phone tower and what King has to do with his building are separate matters, especially since staff was already convinced the project would do no material harm to adjoining property.

This leaves King with the problem of either waiting a year or finding compelling evidence that the testimony from those at the hearing had nothing to do with the tower itself but was directly linked to a different matter that council has already addressed.

We would encourage King to do just that because we believe his integrity was maligned and the spirit and letter of quasi-judicial hearings was trampled Tuesday night — Editor