On November 11, the Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils sponsored workshops led by members of the Los Angeles WTF (Wireless Telecommunications Facility) Working Group for residents and members of Los Angeles neighborhood councils, and distributed these helpful handouts:

What Can Neighborhood Councils Do to Control Cell Tower (WTF) Siting & Aesthetics?
Los Angeles WTF Working Group Position Paper on WTF Regulation
Cell Tower Background Information and Concerned Organizations
Resources
Glossary of Terms & Phrases re WTF Proliferation/Regulation (with summaries of pertinent federal and state laws and high court rulings)

This morning, Sherman Oaks residents staged a protest over a T-Mobile installation (link to KTLA coverage) on a neighborhood street corner, and will later carry the protest to Los Angeles City Council member Paul Krekorian’s office. Yesterday, San Francisco residents won a victory against Clearwire when the Board of Supervisors overturned a CUP permit for 5 point-to-point microwave backhaul antennas proposed for a Bernal Hill tower.

More on the San Francisco decision and an Oakland protest in the next post, and on the Sherman Oaks protest in an upcoming post.

The resolution calls on the EPA to perform appropriate research and the FCC to analyze and update existing standards and adequately measure the health impacts of wireless facilities. It also calls on the California Congressional Delegation to introduce federal legislation to repeal limitations on state and local authority imposed by the Telecommunciations Act of 1996.

San Francisco now joins Glendale, and other communities in California and in other states that have adopted similar resolutions:

In California –
Glendale
Agoura Hills
Albany
Los Angeles County
Santa Barbara
Sebastopol

Communities in other states -
Portland, Oregon
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Tucson, Arizona

The Coalition for Local Oversight of Utility Technologies (www.cloutnow.org) has more information about these efforts, and an online petition individuals and community groups can sign.

Page 12 of the pdf –

US Zoning Regulations – Health / Environment Issues +
Lost Property Value Creating Obstacles for Wireless Network Rollout

…[from bullet point 5] Recently, many local authorities have contested Section 704 regulations and believe they should have the ability to prohibit cell site construction based on the negative environmental and human heath-related impacts of wireless technologies that they perceive. Local authorities in Los Angeles and Portland, OR, recently took measures against Section 704 health preemption and are calling on the FCC to change its regulations.

Link information courtesy of Burbank group No Cell Tower in our Neighborhood.

“…although the FCC has stated that there are no health concerns at the emission levels allowed, certain precautions would still be advised,” – from the Glassell Park Improvement Association “Position on Telecommunication Towers” written awhile ago but revisited last night at a community meeting. Cell tower siting will be on Glassell Park Neighborhood Council board agenda for discussion next week.

Culver City residents published this notice of a January 19 city council meeting to organize protest against a proposed cell tower near homes and a school:

“Health risks associated with these sites are frightening. Unfortunately the Federal government in the Telecommunications act of 1996 eliminated the ability of local governments to restrict the placement of these types of antennas on the basis of health concerns.

Federal law does not allow the city to restrict placement of these transmitters to protect our health. However, the city government does care about the community, and we are certainly not restricted in expressing any of our concerns. We can do so on January 19 2010, at City Hall, 7PM.

San Francisco is considering a new ordinance that would assert municipalities’ rights to control wireless facility installations in the public right-of-way, using the 2009 Palos Verdes Estates Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision as its justification. The city is also revising its wireless guidelines to establish a tiered system (similar to the draft wireless ordinance now being reviewed in Glendale) and to reclassify all residential zones as non-preferred for wireless installations.

Portland, Oregon’s Respect PDX, opposing installation of a Clearwire cell tower, was featured for an hour yesterday on a talk radio show. An audio file of the interview with two Portland residents is here and worth listening to: it reinforces the commonality of residents’ concerns, highlights citizens’ justifiable anger at having no recourse as a potential health risk is forced upon them, and shows the uses to which telecom companies are putting public right-of-way laws in their expansion plans.