Dial 'U' for uproar
Cell phone tower proposal draws strong rebuke
BY CHRIS GAETANO Staff Writer

EDISON - A proposed cell phone tower that would be located 200 feet from Martin Luther King Elementary School on Tingley Lane has parents and teachers enraged. Concerned that the children would be unsafe so close to the tower, they berated the Board of Education for not informing them of this plan sooner.

During a PTA meeting on Oct. 30, parents, teachers, township officials and school board members communicated their feelings about the proposed tower. PTA members were steadfastly against the idea, saying that they were concerned about possible health risks as a result of radio frequency (RF) waves coming from the structure.

"We don't even let [my grandchildren] sit close to the television because of the radiation," said resident Joe Both, a former Board of Education member.

Parents brought up a variety of reasons to be suspicious of a cell phone tower. Most of the concerns had to do with fears that regular exposure to RF rays might induce health problems in the people who would need to be near it every day, namely students and teachers. It was said that all the studies on a tower's potentially hazardous effects have looked only at adults, not children. Further, it was pointed out that children still have developing brains, the growth of which might be disrupted by close proximity to an RF wave transmitter.

Resident Sue Milcsik noted that effects might be particularly harsh on the school's special education students. Resident Michael Petercsak said that the person who originally donated the land that the school sits upon wanted only school buildings built there.

Also pointed out was that, despite the Federal Communication Commission's assurance that radiation risks from cell phone towers are so low as to be negligible, the government lying about a product's health risks is not without precedent, with some saying that it took a long time before people would own up to the fact that smoking is a serious health risk.

At the beginning of the meeting, Allyson McCarthy, the school's PTA president, asked, through a show of hands, who had decent cell phone service where they were. Almost everyone's hands shot up.

"I think we can all agree that there's no need for a cell tower at this location," said McCarthy.

During the course of the meeting, many parents got up to sign a certified petition, signaling their opposition to the very idea of cell towers on school property.

According to board President David Dickinson, the district put the 120-foottall tower out to bid in September, but ultimately rejected the initial offering from telecommunications firm Omnipoint because the structure did not meet specifications. Had the bid been accepted, it would have yielded about $35,000 per year for the district.

The tower proposal did not start with the Board of Education. According to Councilman Robert Karabinchak, Omnipoint had first approached the township Zoning Board in 2005. Karabinchak, who was sitting on Zoning Board at the time, said that he had fought the application tooth and nail, but that the courts eventually forced the township to accept the project. He noted that this was the pattern with every cell phone tower the board denied.

"This is what happens on every application. … As a Zoning Board, how are you going to fight this?" asked Karabinchak,

who had signed the petition.

A problem is that, according to federal telecommunications law, mostly the Telecommunications Act of 1996 signed by then-President Bill Clinton, land use boards are not allowed to factor health risks into their decision over whether to allow a cell phone tower to be placed. All critiques must be based entirely upon land use. Those that try to bring up things such as exposure to RF rays tend to get punished by the courts.

"Our hands are tied. … We can't do anything. The Zoning Board did as much as it could, only to be turned over by the courts," said Karabinchak.

This was a source of anger for many parents.

"No court will be able to say, yes, the tower will or will not do that," shouted Milcsik.

Karabinchak went on to say that, with the tower denial overturned by the courts, it was his idea as a Zoning Board member to examine the possibility of using it to generate income for the town. The firm, when looking around public land for a good site, thus came to eye MLK School, due to a gap in service that could be rectified by placing a tower there. Karabinchak said that he felt this was not an advisable course of action.

"It was my idea to look at cell towers. … It wasn't my idea to put them [200] feet from a school," said Karabinchak.

Showing his moral support was Edison Mayor Jun Choi.

"I, personally, oppose all cell tower locations on school grounds with schools as a uniform policy for the township of Edison," said Choi, who also pointed out that it is the board that has jurisdiction in that area. He urged PTA members present to be sensitive to the fact that the schools were trying to get extra revenue to decrease the tax burden on residents, which he said was a positive thing.

Choi, who also signed the petition, took the opportunity to say that there should be a uniform cell phone tower placement principle in the township that could be worked into a master plan of some sort, saying that it had been "haphazard." Such a policy would prevent situations such as the one happening that night.

"It just doesn't make sense regardless of what people may say about RF waves being minimal from cell towers. … We don't want to even take the risk of finding out 15 years from now … that prolonged exposure presents some sort of health hazard," said Choi.

Another point of contention was that many parents felt they had not been sufficiently informed of this proposal. Dickinson, the board president, said that this proposal had been on the agenda for a long time and that parents should attend the board meeting and make their thoughts known. Some parents objected, saying that the least that could have been done was to send a flier home with their children or post an announcement on a Web site.

"If you want to plant poppy seeds next year, just because it will be a revenue generator, I want to know," said resident Kunal Madhukar.

The board is expected to make a final decision on the cell tower at its Nov. 19 meeting. Parents are urged to attend in order to make their opinions known.