Cell Phone Towers and Schools—and City Council Agenda Discussion

As I approached our City Hall last week, I noticed the absence of any personal wireless service facilities on the premises.  No big antenna on the roof.  No fake palm or pine trees on the property. 

Though the city would stand to earn quite a chunk should they place a facility on city property, they've wisely opted not to.  Good for them.  Now let's see if we can get them to show the same regard for our school kids.  

A week ago I blogged about the community's concern regarding RF radiation emanating from cell towers, and the need for our city council to do whatever they can to protect our children by keeping such towers far from schools.  

Interestingly, the outcome of a meeting I had last Thursday with our City Attorney Glenn Sabine and Assistant City Manager Yvonne Garrett yielded their promise of this issue coming to the open agenda for a city council meeting. 

As Mr. Sabine said, no one wants to work or live under one of these towers.

HOWEVER, they also promised to contact me to let me know in advance when this would happen so that they could "help with wording" for the zoning ordinances we wanted considered in such a meeting.

Perhaps our Mayor was so concerned by the issue that he rushed it to the agenda without pause.  Perhaps he is excited to hear our concerns at the upcoming meeting and eager to support the community in protecting our kids.  I hope that's the case.

Each person wishing to speak to the issue of cell tower safety at this Tuesday's meeting (July 26, 6pm) gets only 3 minutes to do so, so we've got little time to cover a lot of ground.  In a nutshell, this is what we're asking them for:

1.  A resolution to be passed by our city council echoing those resolutions also passed by other Californian cities:  Glendale, San Francisco, Agoura Hills, Sebastopol and others. We feel this would give the community a sense that the city council is in solidarity with our efforts to fight cell towers being approved in contentious locations (such as adjacent to public schools). For the list and brief description of these resolutions, go to http://www.cloutnow.org/localres/

2.  An ordinance stating that whenever the zoning board looks at an application for a wireless facility permit, it will also look at a satellite map and identify whether any schools or daycares are located within 1500 feet.  If so, they will endeavour to suggest a more appropriate location for the structure.  They can cite any number of reasons—safety (a celltower is a dangerous temptation for young children to climb), property value devaluation of surrounding residential areas, etc.

3. We also ask that the city create an ordinance that says that 1500 feet from a school constitutes "residential" because children reside in such areas for up to 12 hours per day, which is oftentimes more time than they spend in their residences.

4.  Ask that the city council mandates that whenever a tower permit is requested within 1500 feet of a school or daycare (public or private), the city must inform the principal or owner of the school or daycare facility immediately upon receipt of the application.  The head of the school or daycare is required to inform parents and staff of the impending tower.  This will give the community a small advantage of time to mobilize against the tower via a written record. 

5.  The City of La Mesa should create a very user friendly means by which community members can map out the locations of cell towers, as well as the applications pending approval of future cell tower cites.  Such a page should offer to send email notifications to any interested/concerned citizens.

I'll see you there!

murraymanormom@yahoo.com