Hillsborough School Board: We will continue to build cell towers

TAMPA -- The Hillsborough School Board will not comply with the County Commission's request to halt plans to raise any more cell towers at schools.

Commission Chairman Ken Hagan, in a letter to the district on Tuesday, requested "the School Board immediately stay the authorization or placement of cell towers on school property until such time as the issue of community involvement in the decision making process can be addressed."

Parents, particularly ones at Pride Elementary in New Tampa, didn't know their school had a cell tower until it was already built. A community meeting wasn't held until October -- nearly two months after the tower had been installed.

Despite anecdotes like those and the commission's objections, School Board chairwoman Carol Kurdell said the district will continue to build them.

"We’ve complied and will continue to comply with all of the requirements in the County Land Development Code," she said in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times. "We always have."

See also the School Board's response.

Rodney Thrash, Times staff writer

A weekend interview with ...

... Bill Cook, a leader with Parents Against Cell Towers at Schools  (PACTS). Cook, a South Tampa parent and activist, spoke with reporter Jeff Solochek about the group's motivations and future plans.

Where did this group come from?

It's the joining of two organizations. One was the group of parents who mobilized to oppose the tower at Coleman, who were then contacted and grouped together with the parents at Pride Elementary who already had a tower put on their campus without their knowledge and without their consent and without their input. And we sort of merged our organizations together, and we are now bringing in parents from more schools as well. ... So it's really a countywide organization now of parents who are concerned about towers on school property.

Is it mostly Hillsborough? Or are you expanding beyond Hillsborough also?

Right now we're in pretty much only Hillsborough, though we've had parents reaching out to us from Pasco County and Pinellas County.

What is your big concern about cell phone towers?

Cell towers at schools: scourge or income source?

Depends on whom you ask.

Schools face an ongoing battle to keep their budgets balanced without killing programs. Some officials have turned to cell tower leases as an easy way to raise money while providing better phone service.

Over in Palm Beach, the school district is weighing an end to its decade-long cell tower ban -- specifically to deal with its multimillion-dollar shortfall, the Sun-Sentinel reports.

In Hillsborough, the issue has turned into a battle with parents. They have fought two towers and this week focused on a County Commission rule allowing schools to permit the towers without public hearings. (The commission agreed to revisit that rule, under pressure.)

The storm might be brewing in Pasco, too.

Supporters say there's no evidence that cell towers pose any health risk. Opponents say there's no proof that they aren't dangerous, either.

So we're asking you. Cell phone towers on school grounds, scourge or income source? Weigh in below, and then look for our interview with Bill Cook, an organizer of Hillsborough's Parents Against Cell Towers at Schools, on Saturday.

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Cell tower debate on its way to Pasco?

Parents outraged at the appearance -- not to mention the mere mention -- of cell phone towers on their children's school campuses have made the news lately in South Tampa and New Tampa.

They now are sniffing around Pasco County, where plans call for a new tower (disguised as a flagpole) to rise behind John Long Middle in Wesley Chapel.

Lisa Vignera, who has been involved in the fight at Pride Elementary in New Tampa, blitzed the Pasco district with e-mails and calls late last week and this morning to check their intentions at Long Middle. She's moving north come summer, and her daughters will be zoned for Long, so she wants to learn more.

She also has been seeking advice from the Hillsborough group Expel Cell Towers on how to proceed.