MOUNT VERNON — One of the topics Mount Vernon City Council will take up when it meets Monday night is a proposal to locate communication equipment on the east end high service water tower.

Open Range Communications, whose primary purpose is to deliver broadband wireless service to underserved rural communities, wants to install an antennae on top of the tower and run a line down the inside of the tower to a base station. The base station is projected to be about the size of a speaker’s podium.

According to Jon Szutarski of SAC Wireless, the company handling contract negotiations for Open Range Communications, it will cost approximately $300,000 to build the site. Szutarski said the site would link to a cell tower in Clinton Township, then to another site in Clinton Township, to a site in Centerburg and finally to a site in Marion.

“We targeted the water tank because it covers a good portion of the population and potential customers,” he said.