DeKalb School Board Racers Take Their Marks! July 31 VOTE!

For more information, see www.dekalbvotes.com.

Cell Tower Histories for these districts are as follows:

District #2:  

This district includes two schools originally on the cell tower list:

Medlock Elementary School:  This neighborhood school and neighborhood association was given advanced notice by T-mobile about the possibility of having a cell tower located on their grounds, according to a report made by a Brairlake parent at a Sept. 2011 public meeting with District #4's school board representative Paul Womack.  Womack was chairman of the Budget, Auidt and Finance Committee in Aug. 2010 when GTCO-ATL has determined was the first public meeting where cell towers were introduced as something Facilities Director Steve Donahue should check into by writing an RFP.  We have yet to determine who actually made the initial request.  Womack eluded to the possibility that it was a request from the county commissoners or the CEO's office, but that is not confirmed.  To date, CEO Burrell Ellis has not responded to GTCO-ATL's letters directly.  His office has responded that they are not responsible for the zoning of these cell towers.  Yet the commissioners and the state as well as the FCC are not claiming to be responsible, either.

Apparantly, Medlock's commity met several times with T-mobile who promised them a variety of options for their tower, including making it look like a light pole or painting the school's mascot on it.  When they refused, it was soon announced that their school would be closing.  Medlock fought back with a very vocal opposition to the closure and a highly attended T-mobile meeting in May 2011 which turned into a meeting more about the closure than aobut the cell towers.  Not everyone who attended were there because of Medlock, however.  Parents who had caught wind about the suject matter of the first few T-mobile meetings held at other schools were encouraged to attend meetings on the last day.  Medlock was one of those meeting.  In June and July, Medlock made appearances at school board meetings. 

Unhappy Taxpayer and Voter group reports that Melock's association may have been given some of their research data that had been delivered to the BOE members to ask that cell towers at all schools be denied as it was the same information that these residents presented during the public comment portion of the July board meeting. 

On July 11, 2011, Don McChestney, the Incumbant rep for District #2, Medlock's district, offered an ammendment to the cell tower proposal that removed three outspoken schools from the list.  Medlock was one of them.  They did not receive a cell tower, but did end up having their neighborhood school closed.  It has since been announced that the International Community School will take up residency in the former Medlock building.  The International Community School had been searching for a home for five years.  It serves a portion of the immigrant population of DeKalb County.  It had previously been using United Methodist facilities in Avondale and Avondale Estates as well as a satallite campus in Stone Mountain.

(VIDEO) Here's an interview with Medlock's community leader Pat Camp along with Get the Cell Out - ATL leaders immediately after the vote by the board in July 2011.  Shortly after the decision, plans were announced to move the children from Fernbank into the Medlock school while Fernbank was under construction.  GTCO-ATL finds it interesting that these moving arrangements were being planned even before the SPLOST IV funding had been approved by voters.  That's confidence, isn't it?

Don McChestney is running for re-election in this district.  He was responsible for taking Medlock off the list (as well as Brockett in District #4 and Meadowview in District #3 (which is not voting) as his ammendment was approved by the board.  He has been voting and acting in a more responsible manner within the past year since GTCO-ATL has been tracking the cell tower issue.  He often works with Dunwoody's Nancy Jester, who has an excellent track record of voting responsibly for the benefit of all of DeKalb's children, not just her own district. 

His opponent, Marshall Orson was is outspoken parent and leader in the Emory-LaVista Parent Council.  Orson misled the media and many community groups into thinking that a yes vote on SPLOST was a necessary component to reducing the size of the school board and that a mandatory vote for all new members would be a direct result.  He was also the vulture ready to pounce on the Medlock building as soon as it was worked out that they were closing. 

(VIDEO) Here's an interview with Orson and GTCO-ATL leadership during SPLOST IV.

Margaret Harris Comprehensive School - this is a K-12 school for the severely disabled children of DeKalb County.  Community members did not learn about the cell towers until GTCO-ATL leadership drove throught their community and stopped to talk to people out walking in the neighborhood.  They have been vocally opposed ever since and have started their own website to keep their community informed of their efforts to stop T-mobile for putting a cell tower literally right outside many of their backyards.  http://www.briarcliffheights.org/  This group is currently soliciting donations for a legal fund to fight the cell tower.

GET THE CELL OUT - ATL recommends:

(Incumbant) Don McChestney

for District #2 Voters

Concerned About Cell Towers

on School Grounds

District #4:

This district includes six schools originally on the cell tower list:

Lakeside High School:  This is the upscale high school currently undergoing its rennovations from SPLOST III funds.  This was also an area that had many SPLOST IV signs in yards as advocates on behalf of the school board, despite the problems that have been widely reported regarding the nepotism and possible criminal mishandling of taxpayer funds. 

Paul Womack, the incumbant for this community has several friends at Lakeside, including Principal Joe Reed who was hand-picked by Womack for his position.  Mr. Reed is also on the Vahalla Group, a booster club that helps support many projects and activities at the school.  Some say the booster club does more for the school than the PTA which is why they were able to get some sympathy from the community when it looked like SPLOST funds were running short and several of their "ammenities" were going to be cut from the construction list. 

We commend the Vahalla Group for supporting its students, but what is unclear is the connection between the principal's claims to the school board member, Paul Womack, that the school needed help solving the cellular connection problems at the school and the booster club's desire for money to "finish the dream." 

It was well known that Lakeside is the school that wanted the cell towers, but it is not clear why this would be a larger, countywide school problem. And, even more disturbing is the fact that Lakeside, to date, does not have a signed contract for a cell tower.  But, now there are 6 elementary schools, 1 comprehensive school and 1 high school all on the construction list thanks to the demands of Lakeside.  And there are 3 more schools that almost received cell towers.  For what?  Better coverage at Lakeside? 

Or, does this have more to do with property values near Lakeside?  The Lakeside area is known for bringing in a pretty large amount for its homes due to the perceived quality of the school system.  We say "perceived" because that has been called into question recently when a national standard was established for calculating graduation rates.  When looking at the number of Freshmen who enter the school compared to the number of graduating seniors, the school slipped to just below a 60% graduation rate, putting it more on par with the rest of the schools in the district.  Previously, Lakeside compared graduation numbers to the number of students who started their senior year at the school. 

Since the home market has trailed off and many people still have investment property in this area, it stands to reason that another motivation for placing cell towers all around, but not actually within the sight, of the school  might actually improve the communications as well as drive some folks away from buying in other areas and justify the steep prices seen here.

Briarlake Elementary School:  This is the school that launched an all-out war (of the PR variety) when it came to their school and the thought of cell towers on campus.  They were nice enough to work with in person, but as soon as you would look away, they would be stealing the limelight form other schools.  They often "forgot" to mention the other schools when they were interviewed on TV about the subject matter.  And, when participating in a countywide phone campaign to reach the decison makers, they got a state lawmaker on the line, requested a letter of concern to be mailed to the Superintendent but "forgot" to mention the names of the other schools.

They did a great job of helping bring greater awareness to the issue, but they also did not come clean with the public about their PTA's invovlement from the beginning.  To date, we are unsure the status of their tower application.  And, despite the warnings by GTCO-ATL that the school board decision was made and could not be overturned, they continued to encourage others to launch their protest with the board.  Instead, we urged the school communities to seek answers from the county commissioners, Director of Planning and the CEO Burrell Ellis regarding the zoning and building permits that are the necessary next step in the process.

The DeKalb County Comissioners have all pubically stated that the zoning codes of DeKalb do not allow cell towers in residential neighborhoods.  If the tower permits come to them for approval, they will be denied.  However, we've been told that the permits will go to the CEO Burrell Ellis for final okay behind closed doors without public input.

The PTA was in fact aware of the T-mobile meetings that took place in May and the vote approved the towers in July.  They did decide to oppose the tower until GTCO-ATL parents visited the area and started spreading the word that the board had put them on the list.  To avoid the backlast of the community, they helped set up a formal protest group, No Briarlake Tower.

Even though we initially worked together with this group, we had to scale back our involvement out of concerns that they were reporting too much information back to the board.  We expressed our concerns and they told us that they were only advocating on behalf of their own school.  That was disappointing, to say the least, because the whole concept behind what GTCO-ATL was based on was neighbor helping neighbor and stopping the towers from going up at any school in the county. 

As the protests continued, many Brairlake parents stayed in touch with GTCO-ATL and are still in contact regarding their legal options today.  We worked together with several groups, including many of the Brairlake parents, to hold a march against the towers and then to support legislation being introduced by Rep. Karla Drenner (D- Avondale Estates).  While the bill gained a lot of support, it did not make it out of committee and onto the floor of the House or Senate for a vote.

As a feeder school to Lakeside High School and in line for a brand new middle school with SPLOST IV funds, the parents and residents near Brairlake did not completely give up on striking some last minute, back room deal with their neighbor and board member Paul Womack.  If they also end up, like Lakeside, without a tower, the relationship between these players will be even more interesting to try to figure out.  It has been noted by many that these are the only two majority Caucasion schools in the cell tower list.  It would not be a good decision for Mr. Womack or the other board members to back away from cell towers at some of the schools at not others since they have heard from the communities at every school on the llist.

Brairlake Elementary also set up a Booster Club, similar to the Vahalla Group and has mysteriously rasied funds so far that match the money that was mentioned in the cell tower contract but not accounted for.  The most concerning part of the Booster Club is that it was established in late 2010, the same time the cell tower issue was brought up, and was set up by a paralegal for a very large, national law firm that normally represents big businesses like telecomms.

Brockett Elementary:  This is the Tucker elementary school that spawned the Get the Cell Out - Atlanta Chapter.  Since they did not receive a cell tower contract, we won't spend a lot of time disucssing the history.  However, the important things to note is that there was nothing unusual about Brockett that led to their being taken off the list before the July 11 vote other than a couple of concerned parents who made the decision to take their child out of the school as  a result of the cell tower announcement. 

They went on to follow the chain of command to try to stop the tower slated for their school.  They continued to be concerned for the neighbors who lived near the other schools and later reached out to them as well.  They set up this website and a Facebook page to keep the greater community informed about what they learn about cell towers so that the information can be shared with all those whom might be affected. 

They spoke out against SPLOST IV and continue to be involved in the process of getting DeKalb's schools back on track even though their own child attends a private school now.  They joined forces early in the protest with the Unhappy Taxpayer and Voter group and have, together, spread the word in the county about the school board's plans to put towers at local schools. 

Their work on the state bill to ban the towers did not become law, but it did result in a non-binding ballot question to be asked of voters July 31.  We urge everyone we know to show up and vote no, unless you want to fight a cell tower company when they set up shop at your school or in your community.

There are three canidates running for the school board against the incumbant Womack:  Jim McMahon, Jim Kinney and James T. (Tom) Gilbert, Jr.  Mr. Kinney was an early contributor to the comments left on GTCO-ATL Patch blogs and appeared to be on the side of the cell towers.  He has since taken a soft stance against the towers, but will not speak about any dangers associated with them  He appears to make light of the subject even though we have so many tower schools in this district, which is why we are not supportive of him as a good school board canidate.  However, Paul Womack is definitely the one we do not want to see re-elected.

We are undecided on Jim McMahon and Tom Gilbert and will give you more details about these canidates when we learn more about them.  We are leaning toward Gilbert as McMahon is a Lakeside parent and we know they are the ones who were in favor of the towers in the first place.

Jolly Elementary  - more to come.  please check back.

See New Blog Entry to be dated 7/8/12

Smoke Rise Elementary - more to come - please check back.
See New Blog Entry to be dated 7/8/12

#6 Histories and Endorsements to come...

Please check back soon!
See New Blog Entry to be dated 7/8/12