Sunroom Desk

Initially T-Mobile proposed to erect a 120-foot cell tower on Rutherford pool ground in the park. Viewing it as a source of revenue, the Rutherford Area Swimming Club Corporation Board decided to go ahead and signed a preliminary lease with T-Mobile on 6/30/2009 with neither pool membership vote nor majority community approval. The pool board received $5,000 from T-Mobile upfront and would get $1200 per month if the tower would go up.

Having learned about the proposed tower from the Rutherford quarterly newsletter on 7/11, I wrote and e-mailed my immediate neighbors in Hidden Creek a short essay on the potential adverse impact of a cell tower on health, property value, and aesthetics on 7/24. On the same day, I posted the essay with 2 medical studies on the Rutherford listserv asking the pool board to reconsider its decision. This action rallied neighbors of Hidden Creek, a community of about 35 families residing on elevated ground in the path of electromagnetic radiation emissions of the proposed tower. A 3-person anti-tower committee was formed on 8/13. The first tower-free group meeting took place on 8/17, when I invited the campaign leader from our adjacent neighborhood ILDA pool to share her experience. (ILDA defeated a T-Mobile cell-tower proposal in 2006.)

Over the 2 following weekends (8/22 and 8/29), we distributed flyers in areas close to the proposed cell-tower site and beyond. Neighbors, especially those in the vicinity of the pool, voiced deep concerns via e-mail and phone to the pool and Civic Association presidents and county officials, which resulted in the Civic Association’s decision to conduct a Rutherford neighborhood survey.

The survey, conducted from 9/27 to 11/7, was a neighborhood vote with one vote per household. During the 7-week survey period, we first did face-to-face and door-to-door flyer distribution, speaking with residents living close to the pool, and then blanketed the entire Rutherford with the flyers. Each flyer distribution raised neighbors’ awareness and gained supporters who joined the efforts. Over the 7th weekend before the survey closed, we did a mass mailing.