(click headline for full text of this article)
Please note that this is a blog. Therefore the commentary you are about to read is considered an “opinion.” We are a real grass-roots group in many regards, including our limited understanding about how the political process works.
We are fortunate to have solid educational backgrounds and a lot of friends. As the individual neighborhoods affected are putting forth their best efforts to protect themselves, we are also helping them find common ground through our group which is intended to be a countywide movement.
We hope to unite all residents in DeKalb County on this issue. We find it unlikely that anyone who lives here would want to see their tax dollars wasted or our communities torn apart by poor decision-making that benefits only a few at the expense of our most valuable resource - our children. Today was an odd day. There was a lot of back and forth and politics influencing decisions and votes that we realized that if there were a pin-pong game going on right now, we would not be winning or losing - we would be the ball!
Subtitle for Article 1, Subsection to the Previously Amended Paragraph 2A Dated 2012, 06 March… (That’s How They Really Talk at the Capitol Building!)
Unfortunately, the hearing was full of bad news. At least that is how it seemed from our perspective, but please feel free to write into our comments section if you felt differently!
#1) Local Bill Drenner’s bill, the local one, is being held up by the committee chairman for undisclosed reasons. He doesn’t even live in DeKalb County, but apparently is “stalling.” The committee is called the House Intergovernmental Coordination Committee. We have no idea what they do.We were told about the various ways we could contact the chairman Chuck Sims, a Republican from Ambrose, GA ( chuck.sims@house.ga.gov ).
And we were told how to reach the two DeKalb representatives who did not vote in favor of the “Prudent Avoidance” cell tower Bill 1197 in case we want to explain our position. These folks are pretty important - Stacey Abrams - the Minority Leader and Resident of DeKalb County ( StaceyAbrams@gmail.com ). Abrams is a Democrat from Atlanta. And Howard Mosby, the Chairman of the DeKalb County Delegation, who is also a Democrat from Atlanta, howard.mosby@house.ga.gov.
We have uploaded the document that was handed out at this hearing. It has all the contact information if you would like to read it over and help this legislation make it out of committee and onto the House floor. http://www.scribd.com/doc/84122214/One-Page-for-Cell-Tower-Lobbying-Rev-1
#2) Senate Bill In addition to the news about the stalled committee and the little notes, we were informed that the bill introduced by Sen. Jason Carter was already killed and it might come up again as an amendment to a current bill already in progress. We are assuming that someone figured out the same thing we did which is the fact that we already have laws on the books that have been contested all the way to the Supreme Court of Georgia and that ruling states clearly that the exemption does not apply when the use of the property in question is for a “proprietary” or for-profit business, like T-mobile.
And, for that reason, we started to realize that maybe this legislation idea is not going to help us after all. We are not giving up on it. We still support it. But, we are losing confidence that it is going to help any of us in the short-term if we want to stay focused on stopping the cell towers that are approved and on their way.
That list includes just 7 schools at the moment:
- Briarlake Elementary School, Decatur
Margaret Harris Comprehensive School, Atlanta
Smoke Rise Elementary School, Stone Mountain
Jolly Elementary School, Clarkston
MLK High School, Lithonia
Flat Rock Elementary School, Lithonia
Princeton Elementary School, Lithonia
We will be sending email inquiries, as suggested, to the people on the list provided by Rep. Drenner. We urge you to do the same. As we mentioned in a previous article, please send any responses you receive to sayno2celltowers@yahoo.com and we will share them on our website without publishing your identity.
We have received a couple of these emails already from our previous request for information from the county commissioners or CEO’s office. We will be posting them later today.
Here Comes the Entourage…
You didn’t think that would be the end of it, did you? Of course not! Politicians have a way of making time go really fast or really slow, depending on which suits them best. As we prepared to embark on our mission to save the Drenner local bill, we received an update via email.
Remember that committee we thought was stalling? Well, apparently, they changed their minds and decided to move ahead very quickly. And they wanted all of us to jump through hoops, too.
A committee meeting is apparently going on right now (11 a.m., March 6, in Room 515). We have several representatives attending who will report back to us with any news or updates. It was extremely short notice and requires people to take time away from work, yet again, which is not always easy to do.
In attendance will be a representative from the school board and several lobbyists from the cellular industry. We assume they will try to convince the committee to do what we were already told they are doing - stall.
We started to post an urgent message for everyone to attend this meeting, but that’s when it hit us… back to the title of this article… something just doesn‘t feel right. We started getting those feelings of being bounced around and used in some sort of game.
And no one likes being the ball when it means you just keep getting hit from both sides of the table. It is possible that we could get so dizzy from all this back and forth with the legislature that we forget the other urgent matters going on right now:
#2) the possible permit applications being submitted by T-mobile to the Office of Planning and Sustainability and under the Direction of CEO Burrell Ellis’s office.
The residents of DeKalb County have been speaking out, writing, emailing, calling, protesting and basically banging their heads against podiums everywhere trying to tell our elected officials in every level of government how we feel about this issue. If they have not received that message loud and clear by now, they clearly are not listening.
Rep. Drenner is an excellent advocate for the wishes of the people and she is an expert on the effects of radiation and the studies that have been conducted to date that show evidence of biological changes that can result with long-term exposure to even the lowest levels of non-ionizing radiation from cellphone towers.
We will post an update here as soon as we have any information to share.
In the meantime, with regard to the OTHER two urgent issues listed above:
and ask that he DENY the permits being sought by T-mobile or that he require them to follow the correct process of Special Land Use Permit, not Administrative Permit, so that public notification and comment will be a part of this process.
Thanks for reading our blog. Remember to stay focused, work together and don’t let anyone use you as the ping-pong ball in their game. What we are doing is right and we already have the laws on our side! Keep up the great work!h
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