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r <br />specifications, which rate the tower secure in cighty-nilc-per-hour <br />winds. Although the city generally relics on such specifications <br />produced by manufacturers, it declined to do so in this case. In <br />addition, the tower was retractable, and the city could require <br />Pentel to retract it whenever bad weather threatened. Moreover, <br />the city in 1987 allowed a nearby amateur radio operator to erect <br />a similar tower, and that one was closer to the operator's property <br />line than Pentel's was to be. The record before us thus does not <br />establish a factual basis for the city's safety concerns. <br />Third, the city claims that it believed it reasonably <br />accommodated Pentel because she already successfully engages in <br />amateur communications. Pentel submitted with her application a <br />letter of commendation for her public services. The city's <br />planning report concluded that this letter demonstrated the <br />adequacy of Pentel's current antenna. Pentel has pointed out, <br />however, that the public services cited in the letter were not <br />related to the amateur communications in which she engaged from her <br />home. In fact, the letter makes it clear that the amateur <br />communications for which Pentel was to be commended were conducted <br />at the Air National Guard base in Minneapolis. <br />In addition, the mayor and some members of the city council <br />indicated in their depositions that they concluded from Pentel's <br />statements at the hearings that she already was communicating <br />effectively, albeit not to the extent she desired. The hearings' <br />minutes indicate that Pentel stated that she was able to reach only <br />sporadically various places in the United States, and that her <br />current antenna did not allow reliable long-range transmissions. <br />When prompted, her attorney reluctantly attempted to quantify the <br />communications: he characterized Pentel's current chances for <br />making contact at 40 percent, and estimated those chances at 80 to <br />90 percent with the improved tower. The context of these remarks <br />and Pentel's other statements indicate that these chances of <br />success referred to domestic communications only. <br />-8- <br />J