Glendale City Council approves installation of two new cellphone towers
A pair of Verizon cellphone towers will be installed at two local parks following City Council approval on Tuesday.
A monopole will be set up at Fremont Park, while a monoshrub will be placed at Scholl Canyon Ballfield after council members voted 4-0. In return, Verizon would pay an annual lease of $36,000 for each site that will go toward maintaining the parks.
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There are already eight cellphone towers at local open spaces including the Glendale Sports Complex and Verdugo Park.
Both facilities are expected to boost cellphone service in areas surrounding them, but Councilmen Zareh Sinanyan and Vartan Gharpetian were previously reluctant to vote on them because there were unanswered health questions about how much radio-frequency waves they emitted.
City staff came back with a series of reports from the World Health Organization and the American Cancer Society that concluded such facilities don’t have a negative effect on a person’s well-being.
“I don’t see any evidence that these cell towers are dangerous. That’s based on the information that I’ve read over the last week,” Sinanyan said.
An American Cancer Society study found that there are higher exposure levels from cellphones, and the radio waves emitted from cell towers are “1,000 times less than the limits for safe exposure set by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and other regulatory authorities.”
The commission sets the guidelines for cell towers and preempts local governments from prohibiting the facilities based on health concerns. The only power the council has is to say where a cell tower can be located.
The monopole at Fremont Park will be installed in a storage area toward the back of the park, away from the playground. The monoshrub at Scholl Canyon Ballfield will be located just outside the southeast section of the property.
“It’s a better alternative than putting it right on a city block when you’re literally 10 feet away from someone’s house,” said Councilwoman Laura Friedman. “There are houses nearby, but they’re across the wash, and that’s pretty wide.”
Gharpetian abstained from voting, saying if cellphone towers are not harmful, then at least one wireless provider should physically measure radio wave levels and show that they are below the federal threshold.
“I think we owe it to the residents to measure them, one cell tower, and see what the radiation is,” he said.
Resident Nonna Stepanian said since there are already cellphone towers on nearby San Fernando Road, the proposed one should be added to them.
“Why can’t they just co-locate the tower? We have no problems with coverage at all,” she said. “There’s absolutely no place for a cell tower in a residential park, including Fremont Park.”
City Manager Scott Ochoa has said at a past council meeting that no one has complained about the existing cell tower sites.
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Arin Mikailian, arin.mikailian@latimes.com
Twitter: @ArinMikailian
