T-Mobile delays cell tower construction

Responding to neighbors angry about a proposed cell-phone tower next to Harbour View Elementary School, T-Mobile USA Inc. has suspended construction of it until after an emergency City Council meeting Monday.

Indignant parents, school officials and students grilled Mayor Keith Bohr, Councilman Joe Carchio and T-Mobile representatives during a nearly two-hour meeting at Harbour View Thursday night. One of the main sources of irritation is that neighbors don’t think city officials did enough to alert the community about the cell tower.

Fourth-grader Seth Salazar-Larrea drew up a petition to stop the tower and got 159 people to sign it Thursday night.

“How did you not have a vote on this?” he asked the mayor. “I don’t know if we can do this, but if I get cancer, I want T-mobile to pay for the bill.”

“The location of the tower is 500 feet from our house, and how is it that you did not require to send us notification?” parent Gracey Vandermark asked the mayor.

“It bothers me that there will be so much radiation in this area,” she went on to say. “There is no long-term study to show what effects it has on developing kids. We live so close that it is going to affect us all 24 hours.”

Marcia Torney, parent of a second-grader in Harbor View and a practicing nurse, is concerned radio waves from the tower could interfere with pacemakers and defibrillators.

“My dad has a pacemaker and he comes to the park all the time,” she said.

The neighbors also warned city officials to not sell out to “corporate money” as many believe the city let T-Mobile construct the tower because it is receiving a $2,500 monthly fee in the deal.

But Bohr insisted that the money had nothing to do with the city’s decision and that the entire issue had just “fallen through the cracks” in the city’s policy.

Neighbors pleaded with the mayor to terminate the contract.

As to whether the mayor will try to do that Monday, Bohr said, “I cannot commit to anything since I do not have the authority to do so, but I am sympathetic to the peoples’ cause. Its pretty loud and clear as to what they want, which makes it easier for us to make our decision.”

T-Mobile spokesman Joe Thompson also said he was sympathetic to the complaints. “Neither the mayor nor I had to come here today, but we both did because we care about the community,” Thompson said.

The City Council meeting will take place at 6 p.m. Monday.

Reporter CANDICE BAKER can be reached at (714) 966-4631 or at candice.baker@latimes.com.