Defeated Cell Tower Proposal has Lesson for Altadenans

There was a proposal to put an AT&T cell phone tower in the area near Fair Oaks and Loma Alta Drive for over two years, until last week when the Board of Supervisors to deny the carrier a permit to build it.

I supported the project, both as a member of the Town Council and as a resident.  If you live in this area and have AT&T and many other carriers as well, your mobile service is really horrible.

This area is known as a dead zone. The closer you live up toward the mountains the poorer the service may be because the mountains literally block the cell signals.

For over two years there has been a proposal to put in a cell tower that would essentially solve the problem for many AT&T and T-mobile customers who were to become the two companies funding and occupying this tower.

Originally the tower was to be placed out in the open at the 5-way intersection at Fair Oaks, Wapello, and Loma Alta Drive with no cover so it would have been totally exposed. Since this tower was designed to look like a fake tree that might not have been a very pleasant sight.

At the time the most immediate neighbor was pregnant so they petitioned to deny that tower which would have been only about 50 feet away from their home. As a group of concerned neighbors most people supported her even knowing that meant keeping the really poor cell service. It was just the decent thing to do as neighbors supporting each other.

Because of opposition to the proposed site, AT&T went back to the drawing board and proposed to move the prospective tower into the flood basin at 147 E. Loma Alta Drive just a short distance away.

Hearings were held where AT&T as well as the public spoke at the Altadena Town Council meetings. The Town Council endorsed the project but it still had to go to the Regional Planning Commission in order to get county approval, which it .

In the mean time, some new and very vocal opposition to the tower developed. It was because of this opposition that the approval for the site was appealed and sent up to the Board of Supervisors.

Residents who opposed the tower claimed that the Altadena Town Council acted inappropriately. I was even mentioned by name that I acted inappropriately as a council member. They also used other forms of scare tactics to convince the Board of Supervisors that this site was not a safe place to put a cell tower.

In order to place a tower in that site among the tall pine trees the tower needed to be 100 feet tall because it had to stand above the tree line and also 10 feet above the other carrier on the tower, which was to be T-Mobile.

Ultimately I think the Board of Supervisors made the decision to squash the project based upon the height of the tower, which was to be almost 3 times the standard height for residential cell towers.

Therefore after years of trying to get a cell tower installed to improve upon the cell signals, the neighbors in the immediate area are back to square one, which is very poor cell service.

There is a lesson to learn from this. When people come together and work as a group they can make changes in how things work. Even large corporate companies that at times try to impose their will over individuals are at times defeated when people stand together.

Most companies do not want to go against the power of the people because those are their paying customers. However the opposition needs to be well organized in order to put up such a fight.

What ended up happening in this particular case was that one group of neighbors was somehow pitted against another group so there was no unity among the people. In such cases the group that is most organized may present the best case to win.

In this case the opposition group was smaller but also much better organized. The overwhelming majority of the people in the immediate area wanted the project and 53 people even wrote the county in favor of the project.  However, the people who consistently showed up to the county hearings were against it.

Because of this, the majority was defeated. The smaller more-organized group defeated the proposed cell site. The silent majority assumed that they could either fight their battles from the sidelines or others would fight for them.

Here is the lesson: The majority of the people can easily lose simply because they do not show up for the battle.

If you want things done in a particular way you must be willing to get in the ring and fight for what you want. You can’t expect others, those that always show up for important situations, to fight your battle for you.

If things are important enough you need to get involved. Even if you go down in defeat you do so knowing that at least you would have put up a great battle, knowing that is all you can do.

We’re not sure where the battle lines will move to next, but if it is something that you want or need, you should be prepared to roll up your sleeves and jump into the middle of the battle zone.

On the other hand if it is not something that is important to you personally and you really are not that concerned about your neighbors, then continue to do nothing and hope... just hope that someone else will fight your battles for you in those really important things that are proposed in your neighborhood.

Currently there are other such battles going on in Altadena that will affect the immediate neighbors in those neighborhoods. You have the in an area that is strictly residential. If such a school were to get approved it would cause havoc in such a tight community.

You have a from the Devil’s Gate Dam, which would mean that hundreds of trucks would have to go up and down Windsor to haul the sediment away, right through a peaceful neighborhood.

If the people in these immediate areas do not fight chances are such things will pass and they would be the first to complain about what should have happened.

People, if you are not willing to fight for what is best for your neighborhood then you must suffer the consequences.