YOUTUBE VIDEO: The Trashy Side to Lakeside

The housing market in Atlanta has taken a hit, like most areas of the country, but the pricey homes near Lakeside High School have managed to maintain their value and, in some cases, even increase. Ever wonder how?

Real estate agents might tell you that it is due to their well-known high school, Lakeside.
But, as this video suggests, perhaps the inflated home values are the result of "McMansions" being built on lots far too small for them.

It's a builders way of preserving a declining home market in a bad economy. The high priced homes infused into reasonable priced neighborhoods makes every home value in the area go up, whether the actual buildings next to the McMansions are actually worth it or not.

The home buyers are told the school is the reason. But when construction plans fell short due to abuse of taxpayer funds, the boosters devised a plan to "finish the dream." It involves claiming to want a cell tower while knowing they would never get one. Then sticking 8 other nearby schools with them, thus lowering the appeal of those neighborhoods while you rake in all the money through an agreement you've made with your school board member and the cell tower company.

It appears there is one thing that is available on a more "equal opportunity" basis in Atlanta than education - is the corruption.  Thankfully, the trials of Crawford Lewis, Pat Pope Reid and Tony Pope are expected to begin this September.  Perhaps the outcome could signal the end of an era, and the beginning of something better.




Before anyone provides feedback, please understand that this video is not intended to offend anyone who lives near Lakeside or attends school there.  We love the area.  We have friends who live nearby.  We think they should feel the same way we do. 

In fact, even the folks at the Yahoo news group must have similar questions.  Check out this story, titled "The American Dream is a Myth."

We don't want to harm anyone's neighborhood.  And, we don't think the ordinary citzens who live near Lakeside would want that, either. 

Instead of allowing corruption to ruin our schools, which harms everyone's property values, we need to vote the most responsible school board members into office and weed out the ones who are pitting us against each other.

Let's take matters into our own hands.  We can apply for the SPLOST oversight committee!  We can encourage responsible people to run for the school board (in two years) and we can vote for the best choices availabe on July 31.  We can vote NO on the cell tower question.

We can speak up at board meetings, but not just for our own schools.  Let's start speaking out for the sake of ALL our schools and ALL our neighborhoods. 

We can encourage others to vote.  Talk about the important issues.  Make a difference.  Do the right thing instead of trying to help those who are digging themselves in deeper, we should take a step back and look at our own behavior.  Let's be role models for our children and show them the way things SHOULD work. 

Let's leave a legacy that will make them proud of us!

[ ] YES             “Should the local or independent school system of DeKalb County or a charter   
                          school in DeKalb County place or operate a telecommunications tower on any
[ ] NO                elementary, middle, or high school property?"

VOTE NO!  VOTE NO!  VOTE NO!  VOTE NO!

Congress Asked to Investigate Marketing of Mobile Phones to Children

Children's Advocates Ask Congress to

Investigate the Marketing of

Mobile Phones to Kids

In 2005, privacy, consumer and childrens advocates sent letters today to key Members of Congress, asking them to investigate the marketing and sale of mobile phones to children, and their effects on children’s privacy, education, safety and health.

The letters were written and organized by Commercial Alert, and sent to all members of the commerce committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The letter follows.

It is important to note that after this letter and other forms of protest were heard across the country, Sprint and Walt Disney backed away from its children's line of phones.  But, today the industry may begin pushing the envelope again as the proliferation of cell phone towers at schools makes the children who are inside those schools tempting targets for marketing efforts as they already have a technology-ready facility and simply need someone to place the products in their tiny hands. 

We, as parents, teachers, guardians and responsible adults need to stand firm in our efforts to protect the children and not allow ourselves to fall victim to the persuasive messages that are everywhere in our own environment.  We need to remain alert to the messages the children are seeing and help them understand the difference between perception and reality.

July 16, 2005

Dear Members of Congress:

On July 6th, the Walt Disney Internet Group and Sprint announced their intention to offer wireless telephone service to children 8-12 years of age.

This was just the latest in what is emerging as an industry trend. Earlier this year, Firefly Mobile enlisted 100,000 children for their mobile phone service. Enfora has announced plans to offer mobile phone service targeting children as young as six years of age. This fall, Wherify is planning to offer a “Wherifone” for children with built-in Global Positioning System (GPS) location tracking. In August, Mattel is expected to market Barbie-branded mobile phones. Hasbro is preparing its own mobile phone for children, too, called “Chat Now.”

The targeting of young children as the next growth market for the telecom industry is one of the worst ideas to appear in the American economy in a long time. Does anyone really believe that kids today lack sufficient distractions from their school work, that there are insufficient disruptions in the home, and that child predators and advertisers lack sufficient means of access to kids?

If the Disney Corporation and the others just wanted to give children a way to contact parents in emergencies, that would be one thing. The telecommunications companies—to parents at least—are playing up this angle. Telecommunications lobbyists in Washington will harp on it as well.
But despite the industrys rhetoric, Disney and the telecommunications companies really want to use children as conduits to their parents’ wallets. And marketers want another way to bypass parents and speak directly to the nations children.

Already, marketers are leaping to send advertisements via mobile phones. For example, Advertising Age reported on July 11th that many corporations, including McDonalds, Coca-Cola and Timex, are moving “from small [mobile phone advertising] tests to all-out campaign[s].” Children already are bombarded with too much advertising. They don’t need more advertising through their mobile phones, whether it is telemarketing, text message marketing, adver-games, or any other type of commercial messages.

Before the telecommunications industry declares “open season” upon the children of this country, we urge you to investigate and make absolutely certain that the industry has answers to the following questions.

Child Predators. Will adults other than parents be able to contact children through these phones, without the permission of parents? What about sexual predators, convicted criminals, etc.?

Disclosure of Children’s Whereabouts. For mobile phones to work, telecommunications companies must know where their customersҒ phones are. Will anyone other than the childs parents, law enforcement officials and telecommunications companies be able to track the physical location of the child’s mobile phone?

Interruptions in School and Church. Will the mobile phones cause disruptions and distractions in church and school, or will they be designed not to function in such locations? The potential for disruption here affects not just the individual child, but every child in the group in question.

Runaway Billing. Will parents have absolute control over billing and charges, so that no charges can be incurred without the parents specific prior consent? This includes charges for regular and special services, 888 numbers, and the rest.

Children’s Health. Children are vulnerable in ways that adults are not, physically as well as emotionally. In January, the British National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) issued a report, titled “Mobile Phones and Health,” which warned about the possibility that mobile phones could cause benign tumors of the ear and brain. The NRPB recommended that parents not give mobile phones to children under eight years of age, that older children should limit their use of mobile phones, and that “the mobile phone industry should refrain from promoting the use of mobile phones by children.”

Upon release of the report, NRPB Chairman Sir William Stewart said, “I don’t think we can put our hands on our hearts and say mobile phones are safe.”

He also said that “If there are risks, and we think there may be risks, then the people who are going to be most affected are children, and the younger the child, the greater the danger.”

How has the U.S. mobile phone industry factored this warning into its service plans? Can it guarantee that children will suffer no adverse health effects from the use of mobile phones? If not, then why is it offering mobile phones to children? Is the industry willing to take full responsibility for the effects of its phones upon childrens' health?

The move to put mobile phones into the hands of children as young as six years old is not a decision to take lightly. It opens up a plethora of problems, not just for the children with the phones but for schools, churches, families and classmates as well.

Now is the time to pause, investigate and consider. Once the phones are in classrooms, playrooms, and in children’s bedrooms, it will be too late. Already we read with grim regularity of children molested by predators who contacted them over the Internet. We read of children who cannot focus their own attention even for short times. We hope we will not now read about children abducted by adults who seduced them through mobile phones, and of school rooms that cannot function because of mobile phones that ring constantly, just because Congress did not stand up and act.

Sincerely,

Joan Almon, Coordinator, Alliance for Childhood
Michael Brody, MD, Chair, Television and Media Committee, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Brita Butler-Wall, PhD. Executive Director, Citizens’ Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools
Angela Campbell, Professor, Georgetown University Law Center
Raffi Cavoukian, D.Mus., D.Litt., founder of Child Honoring, singer, author, ecology advocate
Nathan Dungan, author, Prodigal Sons and Material Girls: How Not to Be Your Child’s ATM
Leon Eisenberg, MD, Professor of Social Medicine Emeritus, Harvard Medical School
Henry A. Giroux, PhD, Waterbury Chair Professor in Secondary Education, College of Education, Pennsylvania State University; author, Stealing Innocence: Corporate Culture’s War on Children
Susan Grant, Vice President, Public Policy, National Consumers League
Nicholas Johnson, Former Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission
Carden Johnston, MD, FAAP, FRCP, Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics, University of Alabama School of Medicine
Tim Kasser, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychology. Knox College; author, The High Price of Materialism
Jean Kilbourne, author, Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel
Diane Levin, PhD, Professor of Education, Wheelock College; author, Remote Control Childhood?: Combating the Hazards of Media Culture
Susan Linn, EdD, Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Co-founder, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood; author, Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood
Robert W. McChesney, PhD, Research Professor, Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Founder and President, Free Press; author, The Problem of the Media
Bob McCannon, Founder and Executive Director, New Mexico Media Literacy Project; Vice President & Co-founder, Action Coalition for Media Education
Ken McEldowney, Executive Director, Consumer Action
Jim Metrock, President, Obligation, Inc.
Ed Mierzwinski, Consumer Program Director, U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG)
Mark Crispin Miller, PhD, Professor of Media Ecology, New York University
Diane M. Morrison, PhD, Professor & Associate Dean for Research, University of Washington School of Social Work
Peggy O’Mara, Editor and Publisher, Mothering Magazine
Alvin F. Poussaint, MD, Professor of Psychiatry and Faculty Associate Dean for Student Affairs, Harvard Medical School
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
Hugh Rank, University Professor Emeritus, Governors State University; author, Persuasion Analysis and The Pitch
Gary Ruskin, Executive Director, Commercial Alert
Phyllis Schlafly, President, Eagle Forum
Juliet Schor, PhD, Professor of Sociology, Boston College; author, Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture
Remar Sutton, Founder, The Privacy Rights Now Coalition
Victor Strasburger, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Chief, Division of Adolescent Medicine, University of New Mexico School of Medicine; co-author, Children, Adolescents, & the Media

< ------------letter ends here----------------->


For more information about the marketing of mobile phones, see our web page on mobile phones.
Commercial Alert is a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon. Our mission is to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy. For more information, see our website at: http://www.commercialalert.org.

Lakeside or Briarlake: Where do They Draw the Line?

A big issue plauging the NoBriarlake Tower campaign is that they were orginally named by the school board as being in favor of the towers.  In fact, their own PTA President admits that she was given a flyer and information to distribute to the members of the PTA back in May 2011.  Stephanie Byre, the self-appointed leader and spokesperson of NoBriarlake Tower has encountered questions about her husband Mark's role in the protest as he has not stepped forward to support his wife's efforts,  speak to the media or answer questions about his reported attendence at the T-mobile meeting in May.

Making the waters as murky as Echo Lake, the actual lake that gives Lakeside High School its name, is that the families at Lakeside High School have been reportedly in favor of the cell towers and are the ones who initiated the request for cell towers in the first place, not just this time, but also a few years ago.

So, if these two schools don't see eye to eye,  with one of them in favor and one of them opposed, who do you believe?  And, wouldn't there be some families who actually have children at BOTH schools?  Which side are they on?  And, how can Paul Womack claim he accurately represented this community which, on the surface would appear to be in the middle of heated debate against one another as to what is right for the community?

And, has anyone wondered why T-mobile would need two towers this close together anyway?  And,  how will MORE towers help a small little area where DeKalb's upper 1% hides out with their complaints of dropped calls.  Experts have pointed to the fact that TOO MANY towers may be the real problem here.

So, what is it with this group? Are they for or against?  Do they need more or less?  Is it for the coverage or the money?  Do they believe in RF radiation dangers?  If so, why are they raising money for IPads instead of for attorneys to protect their children's rights?

And if they did not speak up between May - July, 2011, when they had a legitmate chance to make a plea to the Board of Education, why are they speaking up now?  And why do they continue to show up for events outside their own area when they have publically stated that any efforts they engage in are strictly for the purpose of helping their school and their school alone? 

Shame on  you, Briarlake.  Shame on you, Lakeside.  It's not just YOUR future on the line here.  Your ties to ATT are evident and there are a lot of people upset that you would claim otherwise.  At the very least, if you do not care about the other 99% of the county, the least you can do is keep your protest confined to your area. 

You have the money, the power, the connections ... exactly the reason why your school also wanted the towers in the beginning.  You want our other schools to take the hit while your schools rake in the funds.  We hope the NAACP, the media and the voters can see through this chaurade. 

Like a poorly constructed school that relies on SPLOST funds, your walls will come crumbling down.

GTCO-ATL March on T-Mobile

(click headline for full text) 

The community members of Margaret Harris Comprehensive School for the disabled children of DeKalb County led a march today that started in their community, ran up LaVista Road and ended at the T-mobile sales location at the corner of Northlake Highway. 

This area of DeKalb County was first featured in our GTCO-ATL You-Tube video back in August 2011.  When we fought to have Brockett Elementary removed from the school board list, there were 86 cell towers in a 4-mile radius of our school. 

After the July 11 vote, we decided to stay involved with this issue and help other families who were likely not informed about the decision to place a tower near their home or school.   We released a YouTube video that we had originally expected we would need to continue our Brockett protest in front of the DeKalb County Office of Planning and Sustainability.

In May 2011 the Millers (pictured above as they went door to door
to gain petition signatures) were very much alone
on their road to uncovering the truth surrounding the
controversial decision by the DeKalb County School Board
to place cell phone towers on school grounds.

But, we were fortunate and several board members responded to our email and petition and voted yes on an ammendement that removed us from the list.  They also removed Medlock and Meadowview Elementary Schools.  The Medlock community had already been approached by T-mobile several months before the other schools and they were enticed with all kinds of promises like turning the tower into a monumnet with their mascot at the top  or making the tower look similar to a large pine tree.  Medlock's neighborhood association members were not interested and that likely led to the next approach T-mobile took  in this process.

At the end of the 2011 school term, when parents and kids are very busy, there are lots of papers coming home everyday, activities to attend at school and vacation plans in the works, the DCSS threw a monkey wrench into things for a lot of people.  A flyer came home in the backpacks of the kids that announced meetings about cell tower coverage that would be held at several school locations. 

"It was not until after the meeting that we learned the true intent was to place a tower at our school," says Cheryl Miller, GTCO-ATL co-founder.  "And every day since I learned that fact I have been involved in some way in this whole cell tower nightmare."

Today, they were joined by hundreds of protesters from all over the county who marched from their schools to
congregate outside a T-mobile location near Northlake Mall in Atlanta.

A big concern for Miller and her husband Paul was that the meetings were obviously intended to garner low attendence.  The Millers say that threw up red flags for both of them, so they set out to figure out what the school board thought they would have objected to, if they had actually attended the meeting.

"If one single person would have approached us to say this is why you should not be concerned about the cell tower and here is a list of the good things it will do for your school, I think we would have both been relieved and said 'Thanks.'  And that would be the end of it," said Paul Miller.

Instead the Millers have reported a plethora of conflicting stories and explanations that they received to their questions that range from officers of their PTA on up to the county commissioners and the DeKalb Office of Planning and Sustainability and CEO's office, which should normally be overseeing the zoning regulations on issues like these.

"With every step we took to try to figure out what was going on, we just found out more and more bad news," said Cheryl Miller.  "Bad for the parents, bad for the children and bad for the taxpayers of our county.  It has to end somewhere."

Local communities have printed signs to mark their
communities as being clearly against the cell tower
decision which has helped bring even  more awareness to
others in the county who may not have heard about the
issue or how the residents feel about being left out
of the decision-making process.

In the meantime, Miller stated, they will continue to follow the issue until the end, whatever that may be.  So, today's march was more of a step in the process than it was a victory for the Millers.

"We've wanted to hold a march to draw attention to T-mobile's poor citizenship and greed almost from the very beginning.  So, we were very happy to finally see that part of our mission realized today with the help of the awesome communities who are fighting on behalf of their schools."

Paul Miller says it is unfortunate that the towers may start going up as early at Jan. 12, the due diligence deadline assumed if there were inital contracts signed under Ramona Tyson back  in July as was indicated would be the case at the time.  He said it has been the most difficult to reach some of the South DeKalb schools who may not have as much ready access to computers and have unfortunately been overlooked by the more organized groups like the PTA-driven Briarlake and neighborhood association-driven Margaret Harris. 

Even Lakeside High School, which reportedly initiated the request with the school system to provide them with better cell phone reception, has a community action group assembled to protest the towers.  The issues surrounding the Get the Cell Out mission have been documented and discussed in a popular blog that has muliple contribors and invites discussion and feedback.  It is located at www.GETtheCELLoutATL.org.  From there, you can acess the countywide petition: www.thepetitionsite.com/1/GTCO-ATL,  to protest the cell towers slated for these public schools, along with Martin Luther King, Jr. High, Narvie J. Harris, Princeton, Jolly, Smoke Rise and Flat Rock.

The cell tower battle in DeKalb County has remained in
front of the public for months on end as the protest
continues to gain more momentum and the D.A. is reportedly
investigating the School Board for criminal activity.

The Millers have also worked with several groups in an effort to spread the word in South and Central DeKalb such as Unhappy Tazpayer and Voter, Concerned Citizens of South DeKalb and CHASE (Citizens for a Healthy and Safe Environment).
"We believe the key to stopping these towers is to unite the county in protest and show solidarity for the cause regardless of how any of the schools may feel about each other or how they think about various other issues," he says.  "We have studied how these deals go down in other parts of the country and the basic tactic that wins every time is 'divide and conquer.'"

He says they have tried to stay a step ahead of T-mobile, but that effort will not be successful if the DeKalb Planning Department or CEO does not get more involved.  The immediate concern is the claims being made that the school board can exempt T-mobile from our local zoning laws.  The next conccern is that the permit they plan to issue is one that does not require public input. So, the neighborhoods that were already overlooked by the school boad will again be ignored by the county.

"It kind of makes you wonder what you pay taxes for, or why we are fighting in a war to protect our rights if we are willing to give them up so easily, doesn't it?" says Miller. 

Miller states that through their group Get the Cell Out - Atlanta Chapter, they have been able to notify and reach out to all the affected communities and have assisted many of them with the process of sharing information with each other.  The result has uncovered a lot of information and conflicting stories that may even catch the attention of the District Attorney or Special Grand Jury in light of their recent announcement that they are looking at the DeKalb School Board very closely.

Children at elementary schools across DeKalb County, who are likely too young to really know what a cell tower is, are getting an early education on the right to peaceful protest.  Parents say they are saddened that they have to teach their kids this lesson with an issue that involves their own school.  These children at Briarlake Elementary School in Decatur will likely lose their playground or their outdoor classroom as a result of the school board's actions.

While the Millers say they applaud the efforts of the schools who participated in the demonstration today, they want to remind every school to be vigilant in keeping an eye out for any activity on the proposed sites and continue to hound the zoning office until they get some answers about the permit process.

The next step?  The Millers say they can't reveal all of their game plan, mainly because it can change from day to day depending on what is learned or what T-mobile does next.  But, they have suggested that the fight will continue and is actually gaining credibility. 

There might be legal battles ahead for some communities while the Millers are hoping to make positive contributions to the future. 

"We hope to work together with our state legislators to enact some type of law or referendum either locally or statewide to stop this process from repeating itself," says Cheryl Miller.  "We're seeing more progressive states like Californina and admired the progress they are making in order to protect their children and that's what we hope to be able to do here."

For more, see this story at CBS Atlanta:  http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/16469365/dekalb-co-parents-protest-against-cell-towers-on-campuses

FOX5 VIDEO: GTCO-ATL "Person of Interest"

Updated: Monday, 11 Jul 2011, 10:42 PM EDT  Published : Monday, 11 Jul 2011, 6:47 PM EDT
Reporter:  Chris Shaw

Stephanie Byrne spoke with reporter Chris Shaw
prior to the July 11 DCSS meeting that
resulted in cell tower leases for 9 schools,
including Briarlake Elementary in Decatur and
nearby schools Margaret Harris Comprehensive
and Lakeside High School, both in Atlanta.

Here is the newscast from FOX that ran July 11, 2011, the day of the school board's vote. Interviewed is Stephanie Byrne, now head of the non-profit organization, Nobriarlaketower, LLC.   It is curious that the reporter would have reached out to her for an interview since, at the time, she had opted not to formally oppose the tower construction that would be taking place behind her home. 

Who gave them her name as  a person to contact if no one except the school board members and two "unknown persons" who attended the T-mobile meeting  knew anything about the proposal?  And, does the PTA claim they did not attend the meeeting because every other school on the list has admitted that the PTA  was contacted, some as early as Oct. 2010 when tallks with T-mobile began, and they had at least one person in attendence. 

If the PTA has been promised $25,000 if the towers go up,  then isn't that a huge conflict of interest that would make one wonder how motivated they are to really achieve the goal of stopping the tower?

In this interview, Byrne is far from a hard-core advocate for safe siting of cell towers.  In facct, she actually states,  "Sure it would be great, if ..."  and that "afraid is too strong of a word" when speaking with the reporter.  So, her reasons for opposing the tower?  She expresses concern over the financial aspect of the deal, stating she should be compensated for any "perceived inconvenience" a tower would bring. 

As a PTA board member, she is in charge of the grounds and outdoor classroom for the Briarlake Elementary School. Yet, she claims to be caught totally offguard about the signs of site testing taking place practically in the wooded area between  her home and the school, right on top of the outdoor classroom.  As one of only two people associated with the new Briarlake Foundation, which started in October 2011, the same time the T-mobile talks started, she is part of a group that hopes to give an Ipad to every student.  Ipads actually use the very technology that the tower will be providing, so isn't the goal of one group going to create a need for the very thing that the other group is supposed to be opposing?

Previously, the PTA had been told by Paul Womack in a public meeting that they would have a say in the location of the tower.  Once it was announced to us by Byrne that the Briarlake PTA had decided to oppose the tower formally and their first step in that process was to begin talking about their playground, it made us immediately consider the second location as a more real possiblity for the tower.  We kept and eye on that location and had to announe on  this blog the fact that the land was being disturbed and an entire area was marked off for where the trees would soon be cut down.

T-mobile denyed that they would give the PTA any choice on the location and informed Brairlake that the company would only be dealing directly with the school board on the issue.  Who is the contact at T-mobile that is answering questions for Briarlake and why did the press report that Steve Donahue gave them a letter that included the research studies the school board had relyed upon?  Is the school board giving special treatment to Briarlake?  If so, why does it not appear to be having any effect on the efforts of T-mobile to move forward?  And why is ATT the ones doing all the work in the neighborhood right now, appearing to be laying the infrastructure needed for the eavesments that will be needed to access the property and run the high voltage transmission lines needed to power a\ 150' tower for the next 30 years.

If this type of construction, not at all related to education, residential use, or even public enjoyment, were going to be starting up right next to your home or even right at the end of your street or around the corner, wouldn't you expect someone to at least notify you that is was about to begin?  Wouldn't you be upset if the only group being relied upon by both the school board, T-mobile, ATT AND the county zoning department was the privately-held non-profit parent-teacher association.  And, even at that, the only notification they have admitted to receiving at your school was a generic flyer that did not indicate the school was a location.

Double Identity?

Yes, this is the same person.  In one interview prior to the July school board vote, Byrne seems very unconcerned and mostly wanting to get some financial reward for the "perceived inconvenience" of a cell tower in her backyard. 

July 2011

She told GTCO-ATL in August that she had attended the T-mobile meeting in May and followed the issue through June when it was postponed thanks to the petition we delivered in person to the full board that evening.  Byrne said she then lost track of the status until we met with members of her community in September to let them know what was coming down the line for their neighborhood and how they might be able to speak out against it when the county allows public comment on the permitting phase.  Shortly thereafter, Byrne consulted with the Briarlake PTA and stepped up to head up their own efforts, inserting herself in between us and the group we had orginally met with upon request. 

After being reassured that Byrne's group would hand out flyers and focus on the community that did not have any notice from the school because they do not have children at Briarlake, Byrne instead insisted on remaining friendly and focused upon the school board.  She never spoke out publically and has never stated her own reasons for opposing the tower, except in the July FOX interview.  She failed to mention that her backyad was identified as the actual site for the cell tower and, instead, spent considerable time preaching about her disgust at the thought of the kids losing their playground.

Nov. 2011

When we realized her group, nobriarlaketower.org, LLC had not informed Margaret Harris as they told us they would and had not included any of the other schools during their conversations with state legislators, we again got involved and informed the Margaret Harris community (after also doing our best to alert all other schools on the list). 

When Byrne realized Margaret Harris would be speaking out in November, she finally decided to do the same, taking a later position in the speaking lineup and the claiming that all the people assembled were part of a Briarlake opposition.  And, when learning of Margaret Harris's Open Records Request (at our urging) she managed to do the same for Briarlake and broke the "news" of her victory one day before their's.  Again, no mention of the other schools or if anyone tried to get copies of their leases for them.

There is still more to be unravelled in this saga, but we'll save it for our next announcement.  Just remember that corruption runs deep in this school system.  It is important to make sure you undersand the motivations of every person you deal with before you trust them with any information that is valuable to you or a cause you believe in.  I wish we knew that back when we met with Brairlake for the fist time.  We would have done background checks first instead of just assuming that all parents would want to protect their children from harm.

Cell Phone Towers Coming to 9 DeKalb Schools: MyFoxATLANTA.com
dekalb-county-schools-cell-phone-towers-20110711-es

CLICK VIDEO AT LEFT TO PLAY JULY 2011 REPORT FROM FOX5 NEWS
This FOX News story is interesting as it shows Brockett Elementary at the beginning, but did not mention our protest in the content.  It mentions that the Medlock community is against the tower, but interviews someone who is pro-cell tower.  The reporter appears to be implying that Briarlake's community is pro-cell tower, but the interview is with someone (Byrne) who is against it, mainly for the lack of financial disclosure, according to her statements.

The financial information has been the primary hot button for the Briarlake PTA as well.  One board member called the $25,000 offer the school board made to them "insulting" as they are capable of raising much  more on their own. 

So, this begs the question:  if these protest leaders get the financial payoff they have been hoping for, what willl become of the interests of the 200 reported followers Byrne mentioned at the December board meeting that she represents?

BREAKING NEWS: Briarlake Elementary - A Community Led Astray?

Signs of the times.  Trees outside Briarlake Elementary School are tagged and ready for chopping.  The outside classroom  bleachers and stage sadly sit in the background.  It, too, will likely be a memory soon as it appers to be in the way of progress, according to the plans drawn up by T-mobile.  Briarlake Elementary and Lakeside High School were the only two schools that reportedly were in favor of cell towers at the time of the July 2011 school board vote.  But, after news spread about the plans, the community stepped up to tell a different story.  It may be too little, too late.  And, there may even be more towers on the way!

One of the most vocal opposition groups to the DeKalb County School Board's decision to place cell towers at 9 schools has come from the Briarlake community. GTCO-ATL was the first group to reach out to them and provide information in an effort to be good neighbors and good citizens helping to spread the word, as several school board members have admitted they did not do a very good job at themselves.

Shortly after our initial meeting, however, the PTA stepped in and decided to plot their own course. Stephanie Byrne is a parent who admits she knew about the proposal back in May, but didn't think it was anything serious enough to warrant telling her neighbors. She was even interviewed by CBS Atlanta way back then since her property backs up to one of the proposed cell tower sites and T-mobile will likely have to buy a portion of her property in order to comply with the county's setback requirements.  She said she followed the story until June when it was postponed and she didn't hear any more about it until after the July vote.

An ominous scene on Nov. 11, 2011.  Cell tower near Briarlake Elementary School and the address for the newly formed Briarlake Foundation which will be accepting money for iPads, despite RF radiation concerns growing worldwide.

While other neighbbors are in a panic to sell, from the looks of all the signs around the school, the Byrne household is only interested in setting out exensive signs opposing the towers and handing out buttons. Maybe that is because Stephanie and Mark Byrne have also been lucky to learn that their property values have somehow been swapped around just in 2011 where the property is valued far higher than the building. That should work in their favor when T-mobile comes knocking. Hopefully they will knock loud since they don't respond well to visual cues like the ones in orange and green all over the landscape that will soon be chopped and shreaded.

Byrne has led the movement to gain publicity and hound the school board even though it has been stated publically multiple times that the contrats are signed and it is a done deal. The school board began talks of cell towers back in the Fall of 2010, according to Paul Womack, school board representative and nearby neigbhor to Byrne. 


GTCO-ATL has recently learned that the timing of initial cell tower talks (Fall 2010 according to a statement by Womack) coincides with the application submitted by a big name construction law firm to file the paperwork for tax-exempt status and set up the Briarlake Elementary School Foundation, which can receive gift donations. Byrne and a fellow Briarlake parent, Michelle Decker, a parent council represenative, are the only ones with their names tied to any of the information that can be found online about this foundation, except the pricey paralegal who filed the paperwork.  With only 22 "likes" on their empty Facebook page, it is difficult to determine how a school of only 400 students has raised more than $4,000 with very little publicity for their efforts. Even more baffling is why they would state that their annual goal is $100K, which rivals that of Lakeside High School's similar foundation, The Valhalla Group, which is in a higher income bracket neighborhood and has more than 1,500 students.

Where Did They Go Wrong?
The questions are many and the answers are few. GTCO-ATL encourages anyone in the Briarlake community sincere about wanting to stop the cell tower to take their own actions rather than waiting for Superman, or anyone else, to do it for them. This is a long-term deal, spanning 30 years, that will be much more difficult to undo once the tower is up than it will be to stop it from going up in the first place.

Wonder if these folks know that the person who voted yes

at the School Board Meeting in July lives directly across

the street.  It would have been easier to walk over and talk

to Paul Womack about the decision than use an expensive

yard sign to send a message, don't you think?  Then again,

maybe they are already acquainted and that's the reason

for the metal fencing around the property, too.

We are not attorneys, but would like to recommend, as we have all along, that the time for speaking up in front of the school board and hoping to be heard has long past. The board has rendered its decision and stated that the contracts are signed. They have been asked to reconsider the vote and have stated many times that a reconsideration will not happen. The issue is now with the county's office of Planning & Sustainability and the Director of Planning's office under CEO Burrell Ellis.

DeKalb County commissioners have stated that T-mobile claims it is exempt from following our county's regulations for proper zoning procedures, but that issue is debatable and has not been decided in a court of law. They have also stated that their power is limited by the FCC ruling of 1996, but we suggest that there is language indicating that local govenment still has some control over the placement and location of towers, especially in residential areas.

Can a school board that is only elected for 4 years and is headed by an Interim Superintendent, sign a contract with little or no community input, for 30-years that will lease public school property that is actively being used for the primary purpose of educating children? And, if so, should they disclose the terms of the ageeement to the public?

Can they agree to allow some or all of the money to be directed toward individual PTAs or private foundations being led by PTA board members who also state they are against the cell tower and that they formed a resolution to official declare thier opposition?

And, most importantly, does the exemption to zoning regulations that is provided to the school system automatically apply to a commercial entity (and not even an American-based company at that), not at all related to education or providing any educational value, so that it may also enjoy the tax exempt status and the lax building approval process that the county gives its own school system?


Too Little, Too Late
At GTCO-ATL, we know what we would do. And, we are quite surprised to see how easily a community can be led astray without questioning the intentions of the people stepping in to help, the funding by which they are doing so, and the steps they are advocating in order to bring about a change.

Thowing out the Trash, alongside the SPLOST.  Briarlake's PTA also advocated

for SPLOST despite their "outrage" over the school board's recent decisions.

Henderson Middle and Lakeside High School are their feeder schools.  Henderson

is slated for SPLOST IV dollars while Lakeside is under construction with

SPLOST III.  What the SPLOST couldn't pay for, they hope cell towers will.

The Briarlake Elementary School Foundation has a new website www.briarlakefoundation.org/ that states "iPad technology" is one of the reasons it is rasing funds. Someone needs to tell Byrne and Decker to do a little more reseach about the real reasons true opposition groups have formed against the cell towers - RF Radiation has been upgraded by the World Health Organization to class 2b, possible human carcinigin. And, children are the most vulnerable population to this form of microwave radiation. If the iPads will be connecting wirelessly to the Internet, then they will add even more radiation to the classrooms that will already be seated under a massive 4G cell tower in a neighborhood that some can say is already drowning in a sea of radiation.

The community website Nobriarlaketower.org is now listed as an LLC. And, the organizers are not returning our calls. The site is updated on a regular basis, but has no mention of the activity at the cell tower site and only suggests the community do more of the same - which has so far resulted in nothing more than a lot of attention that could have been spent alerting the other 8 schools rather than just listening to the outcry from one.

And, we continue to wonder if the entire education system is so badly broken here in DeKalb that no one remembers to think about the most important thing at the bottom of all this mess - the children.  If anyone bothered to ask them, what do you think they would say?