Dear Commissioner Elaine Boyer,

(click headline to read full text of this letter)

Original email dated Sept. 14, 2011

Dear Commissioner Boyer,

I am contacting you on behalf of a group of concerned citizens, parents, homeowners, taxpayers, residents, association members and business owners.  Our group covers every demographic category and the full span of this county, from the South, Central andd North Regions.  We have assisted with lobbying the school board to remove three schools prior to their vote on cell towers on school grounds back in July.  At that time, we were all told that the other schools would have an opportunity to address the zoning issues during the public comment portion of their Special Land Use permitting hearing.  We have now been told the school board is claiming exemption to this entire process, but no one has cited any case law to back up their claim.

(Get the Cell Out, by the way, has cited case law to various members of the commission that shows that the school exemption does NOT apply when the property being leased will be used for proprietary purposes.)

We are very concerned about the recent actions of the School Board, which they took while the Interim Superintendent was in place, and without following their own rules of conduct which require them to hold a public forum and consider the input of their communities before voting.  This has not happened and their own vice-chair Paul Womack has admitted that the notice was not sufficient during a meeting at Briarlake Elementary.

A partial transcript of that meeting is available on the DeKalb School Watch Blog.  Mr. Womack's comments are very shocking as he bluntly tells the parents that the school board did not put up signs, and they did not knock on the doors of the residents immediately surronding the school's property.  He claims they used other media outlets, but this is a misleading statement.  The AJC article being referenced was not published until after all the meetings had already been held, except the three schools that were scheduled for the last day of meetings.  WSB-TV has found no record of anything airing on their station except for a story the night prior to the July vote, but that story was initiated by us and was not an announcement of any meetings.  It was a story about our efforts to get the word out ourselves because the school board had not done it themselves.

We are counting on you to get this information into the right hands so that the county can consider it and take appropriate action.  Please do not let these cell towers go up if you are not certain the decision has been made following the letter of the law.  T-mobile has been known to start construction without required permits and will build towers that are not up to code.  Specifically, the base of these towers is not planned to be up to the Rev-G standard the is necessary to ensure stability in high wind conditions.  This should be of particular concern when you think about the fact that they want to put the towers with "fall zones" that include schools and homes. 

They have not proven that their towers will comply with the regulations necessary for respect of airspace since they will be near the DeKalb-Peachtree airport.  They have not shown anyone that they will respect the necessary setback requirements and they have not given anyone their plans for the cabinet or building structures that will be at the base of the towers or the fencing planned that will have to be sufficient to deter children from getting into the restricted area and trying to climb the towers.  Please remember, many elementary school children do not read or are just learning to read.  Typcial warnings on cell towers will not have any meaning to them and we have heard no plans for how they will be training anyone on staff at the school about what to do in an emergency or what to tell the children to ensure they understand the dangers. 

During the meeting at Brairlake, Mr. Womack even admitted that he did not carefully read the contract.  Did anyone?  How can we allow HAZMAT materials and a dangerous, tall industrial structure to violate the very essense of our zoning codes without questioning whether these leases are even legal and the structures will be sound?  And, if there is truly nothing to worry about, then why isn't anyone coming forward to tell us that? 

We are not involved in this issue because it is interesting to us.  We are involved because we feel we are being compelled to do so because of the lack of knowledge, accountability, interest or even minimal response we are so far getting from anyone and everyone we would expect should be wanting to protect us, the taxpayers, the ones who have elected all of you for the specific purpose of representing us. 

We don't know anyone who wants these towers.  So, who exactly is being represented and what do we need to do to show you that there are a lot more people on our side than they have on theirs?

Sincerely,

Get the Cell Out - Atlanta

Please visit our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/Get.the.Cell.Out.ATL, currently at 10,184 page views for this month alone, up 167% from this time last month.

NOTE:  The RF Emissions Report submitted by T-mobile to the school board is dated 2009 and is certified by someone in Colorado, not Gerogia.  The pole document is from Fulton County and the mount evaluation does not meet current safety codes.  We are not experts, but these were all errors that were easy for us to spot.  If you are looking at an application, we are sure you will see many more issues that concern you as well.