BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
ON JUNE 19, THE PEACE AND DIGNITY INDIGENOUS RUNNERS STOPPED BY THE LONGHOUSE AT LANE COMMUNITY COLLEGE ON THEIR JOURNEY TO
PANAMA CITY, PANAMA. THEY WERE GREETED BY LOCAL NATIVE AMERICAN COMMUNITY MEMBERS AND A POTLUCK DINNER. THE RUN IS PART OF
THE ‘PROPHESY OF THE EAGLE AND THE CONDOR’ THAT CALLS TO REUNITE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE IN A ‘SPIRITUAL
WAY IN ORDER TO HEAL OUR NATIONS SO WE CAN BEGIN TO WORK TOWARDS A BETTER FUTURE FOR OUR CHILDREN AND GENERATIONS TO COME.’
NEWS
BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
CHURCHES ARE THE
NEW HOMES FOR CELL TOWERS
W
PHOTO: ATHENA DELENE
hen Kate Sullivan got the postcard last
month notifying her of a proposal to place a
cell phone tower at the church near her Jef-
ferson Westside Neighborhood home, she
was concerned.
“It’s going to be in our backyard,” she remembers think-
ing.
Sullivan says she almost missed seeing that card notify-
ing her of the proposal to place a Verizon cell phone tower
on the Bethel Temple on W. 18th Avenue near Chambers
Street, explaining that she either never saw it or never got
the first postcard that was sent out in April about the cell
tower proposal. She and other neighbors swung into action
and filed an appeal with the city, squeaking it in before the 5
pm June 6 deadline.
Verizon swiftly withdrew its proposal, but Sullivan says
she is concerned that this is the harbinger of future cell tower
proposals at churches in her neighborhood and in residential
areas around the city.
“If you see declining enrollment at a church in your
neighborhood,” Sullivan warns, neighbors should watch
out. Such towers may soon blanket the city as cell compa-
nies compete to provide users with streaming coverage, she
says.
Sullivan and other members of The Westside Neighbors
for Responsible Cell Tower Placement want to see upcom-
ing changes in city code with regard to cell phone tower
placement reflect the health, safety and livability concerns
of Eugene residents.
Alissa Hansen, principal planner with the city of Eugene,
affirms that when it comes to land use applications, “the last
several towers we’ve seen were on churches.” Churches of-
ten have large properties, which meet setback requirements,
she says.
There is a plethora of internet sites devoted to helping
churches with cell tower deals, their regulations and tax issues.
And the leases can be lucrative. In 2015, Crossfire Minis-
tries asked for $750,000 to drop a long-term lease with AT&T
for a cell tower in south Eugene, saying that was half the value
of the lease. After a community outcry, AT&T withdrew its
proposal.
Hansen says the city is indeed revising its regulations but
cautions that city code has to comply with federal regulations
and “can’t say, ‘No cell towers in all areas.’” The city can,
however, “look at other standards and tighten requirements.”
Cell companies will fight towns that seek tighter regula-
tions. In May, Verizon filed a lawsuit against the small city of
Capitola near Monterey Bay, California, over the city’s cell
phone tower regulations, arguing in its complaint that “the or-
dinance is so restrictive that it effectively bars new wireless
facilities in most of the city, even if they have no significant
visual or other impacts.”
In its appeal against the proposed Bethel Temple cell tow-
er, the Westside Neighbors group’s arguments included that
the city failed to provide information that allowed for public
participation, that the original April 28 notice was “incorrect,
incomplete, misleading and inadequate” and that the April no-
tice and the May 23 notice were possibly not in compliance
with city code.
Hansen says that back in November 2015, the city of
Eugene initiated changes to “land use code to provide more
protection in residential areas but still comply with federal
regulations. She says when the City Council gave its direc-
tion, it “was very specific,” but at the time the collocation of
towers with existing structures, such as church steeples, were
not an issue. She says that through the public process, issues
such as collocation should be brought up as the code changes
are discussed.
According to a February city Planning Commission meet-
ing discussing the proposed changes, the specific changes
were as follows: to prohibit cell towers in residential zones
except through a process, such as a variance, as required to
comply with federal law; tighten application requirements
and approval criteria to better address a significant gap in
service; include a requirement that all applications for new
cell towers include an alternative configuration analysis; and
adjust height limits to clearly prohibit heights greater than
necessary to fill the identified service gap.
The most telling of the Westside Neighbors’ arguments
focused on the issue of collocation and granting a variance
for the proposed cell tower. Verizon wanted to put its tower
on the church’s steeple. But such a steeple, the group argued,
didn’t actually yet exist.
Sullivan says that city code allows for setbacks, third par-
ty evaluations and other restrictions for new towers, but for
collocated towers granted a variance, “all that goes away.”
In the Bethel Temple proposal, Sullivan says she was con-
cerned about possible noise from the fans associated with the
proposed cell tower as well as possible health effects, which
she says are not addressed in the 30-year-old science used in
the 1996 federal Telecommunications Act.
According to the American Cancer Society, “Very few
human studies have focused specifically on cellular phone
towers and cancer risk.” And the group says that results of
a study on rats by the U.S. National Toxicology Program
“found increased (although still low) risks of brain and heart
tumors in male rats exposed to RF [radiofrequency] radia-
tion.”
Sullivan likens the possible health effects of cell phone
and tower exposure to the era in which the cancer-causing
effects of smoking were not known.
Hansen says of the proposed changes to city code on cell
towers: “We’re hopeful that we will be able to start the pro-
cess in the next couple of months” and make the proposed
regulations “widely available to interested parties and service
providers” and get as much public input as possible.
A letter to the city from the Westside Neighbors on the cell tower issue can be
found at the group’s Facebook page at facebook.com/WestsideNeighborsforRe-
sponsibleCellTowerPlacement.
eugeneweekly.com • June 23, 2016
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