Fearing Radiation Risk, Murray Manor Parent Aims to Move Cell Phone Tower

In a TV commercial, AT&T portrays its growing cell phone coverage with sprouting vines and orange flowers blanketing Seattle to the wonderment of residents.

In La Mesa, it’s not a shrub but a 40-foot artificial palm tree that AT&T hopes will plug gaps in service—tucked behind a Lake Murray Boulevard liquor store.

But neighbors, and the store owner, are not enchanted. And one parent—Heidi Bentz—is launching a fight to topple it.

Bentz says she was walking her son to school at Murray Manor Elementary in May when she noticed the AT&T tower going up in the parking lot of Lake Murray Liquor and Market west of the El Paso Street school.

Worried about radio-frequency radiation and the safety of her children, she spoke with Guido Magliato, the school’s principal.

After their meeting, Bentz decided to take matters into her own hands.

Inspired by the Los Angeles Unified School District’s resolution opposing cell phone towers near schools, Bentz researched FCC regulations, the U.N.’s Rio de Janeiro summit and numerous radiation studies to inform parents of Murray Manor students about the possible dangers of cell phone towers and what they could do about it.

Bentz didn’t initially receive a lot of support from people she shared her concerns with.

“I’ve had so many people roll their eyes at me,” Bentz said. “I feel like a pariah.”

Bentz made it clear that she doesn’t want to ban all cell phone towers. Indeed, La Mesa has three dozen in operation and 15 in various stages of approval or construction. (See attached)

Her main concern is how close it is to the school and more specifically the playground.

“It’s not on the school property, but it might as well be,” Bentz said.

According to AT&T spokesman Lane Kasselman, any radiation emitted from the cell phone tower is hundreds of thousands of times less than the legal amount allowed, and the responsibility to inform residents about such towers is up to local government.

The tower—near the end end of Dugan Avenue—also fills a need, he said, since AT&T does “scanning” where it checks to see if an area has bad coverage—dropped calls, no bars on wireless devices, etc.

Towers are then targeted for such areas. Part of the reason they build them as trees and church steeples, Kasselman said, is to blend in with the area and not be an eyesore. 

Bentz isn’t satisfied.

“I’m not letting my kindergartner play under there for eight hours a day,” she said last month.

La Mesa Community Services Director Yvonne Garrett said via email that when a tower is built on a commercial property—as in this case—adjoining properties do not have to be notified.

Garrett said some residents have come to city officials with concerns and they have been provided the appropriate contacts in the wake of City Council approval Aug. 10, 2010—and the green light by the city's five-member Design Review Board on July 12, 2010. (See attached)

Bentz is hoping to ultimately have the tower taken down or moved and she’s basing her argument on the FCC’s 1996 Telecommunications Act that allows residents to have a say in the placement of cell phone towers.

She also wants the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District to pass a resolution against cell phone towers near schools the way the Los Angeles district has.

Construction of the tower—formally called a monopole wireless communications facility—also has caused problems for the liquor store owner who leases the property at 6001 Lake Murray Blvd.

A few days after construction began April 25, the owner—who didn’t want to be named—says the compressor he uses to keep his refrigerators cold broke.

It left him with $950 worth of damage and a case full of warm beer, he says. He contends it was caused by an electrical short during tower construction by an AT&T contractor.

Moreover, the day construction started, workers asked the store owner if they could use his outlet and close his door for a bit to keep down on noise.

“The dude asked me to use my outlet,” the store owner said.

He later added, “How unethical is that to ask me if you can use it?”

He also said without the use of his parking lot, he’s seen a drop in customers and income.

Kasselman said AT&T has been in contact with Harmon Realtors, the management company that leases the property.

Harmon Realtors declined to comment on the cell phone tower. 

Mayor Art Madrid, who spent 35 years with Pacific Bell before his 1991 retirement, notes that phone companies rent space for their towers, sometimes paying property owners several thousand dollars a month.

Bentz feels it’s now her responsibility to oppose the tower and inform the community. She has written a five-page fact sheet to hand out in a bid for support.

If the tower isn’t moved, Bentz is ready to consider other schooling options for her children. She hopes, however, that she won’t have to go to that extreme.

She says she just wants to look out for the children at Murray Manor.

“There is no agency that is set up to protect children in this way,” Bentz said. “So it’s up to me.”

Sarah Kovash, a recent graduate of San Diego State University, is a Patch intern this summer.