NEDERLAND — There’s still a place in Boulder County where phones never ring during meetings, drivers don’t swerve into oncoming traffic while texting and waitresses never have to ask Blackberry-clutching customers to keep their voices down.
But the mobile phone revolution seems likely to reach the mountain town of Nederland soon. The demand for cellphone service has only gotten louder since the town’s the Board of Trustees in January denied a request from Verizon Wireless to put up a temporary cell tower west of Barker Reservoir.
Trustees worried the tower would mar the site, which will be the future home of a park. But now that the lure of cell coverage has been dangled so close — Verizon was promising coverage as early as May — the demand for a few decent bars of reception has only gotten louder, particularly by business owners and emergency responders.
“There’s definitely some extreme interest in getting it done, especially since the fatal shooting at Eldora,” said town Trustee Kirk Barnett, referring to a December incident when an employee of the ski resort shot his manager and later killed himself.
“We’ve been having this conversation for seven or nine years,” Barnett said. “And through the years people have come to realize that cell phones have some benefits. There’s real value there.”
See what local law enforcement says about better cell phone service at .
