Approval of the permit, however, came in an unconventional method as three council members abstained from voting, which under Robert's Rules of Orders counts as a yes vote, while two voted in favor of the measure.

Council had little choice but to overturn its decision after the state Court of Appeals concluded the lower court erred and remanded the matter back to superior court , which was ordered to give city council instructions to grant the permit.

City Attorney Gilbert Chichester told council after the city prevailed in the lower court, David King, owner of the former Roanoke No. 2 mill where the tower will be located, appealed the decision. “It was a very close case. The North Carolina Court of Appeals disagreed that the city had enough evidence to deny the permit.”

Chichester said the appeals court ruling was based on federal law passed during the Clinton Administration to aid in the spread of cell towers. “(Halifax County Superior Court) Judge (Alma) Hinton didn't have any choice. We have done everything we could do. We pursued this through the courts. Now we have an obligation to abide by the court's decision.”

Councilwoman Suetta Scarbrough, one of the three to abstain from voting on Wayne Smith's motion to grant the permit, said, “We might as well be cardboard cutouts on this issue because the decision has already been handed down.”

Asked following the meeting if she regretted not casting a no vote on the matter instead of having her abstention turn into a yes vote, she said, “I wouldn't change a thing.”

Scarbrough, along with Carol Cowen and Ernest Bobbitt, abstained while Smith and Carl Ferebee voted in favor of the matter.

Bobbitt said near the close of the meeting he abstained because there is nothing in state law regulating emissions from towers.