Sunroom Desk

The head of Coalition for Local Oversight of Utility Technologies, a national umbrella group which includes Glendale Organized Against Cell Towers, sent this comment to the FCC today:

Dear Chairman Genachowski and Commissioners Copps, McDowell, Clyburn and Baker:

I write to urge you to refrain from further restricting local government authority over the regulation of cell towers and related wireless facilities at your November 18 meeting. As co-founder of a nationwide grass-roots organization dedicated to strengthening local government control over wireless siting, CLOUT (http://www.cloutnow.org), I can attest to the strong desire of residents in communities across the United States to see local regulatory authority not only maintained but strengthened with regard to cell towers and other wireless facilities.

If the FCC insists on further tying the hands of local governments with respect to siting decisions, then at the very least it should reopen the question of the health and environmental impacts of wireless facilities, including the non-thermal biological effects of low-intensity microwave radiation used by these facilities, based on the substantial and growing body of scientific research evidencing these effects on people, wildlife and the environment, as has been called for by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and other locally elected officials around the country.