Day 68 -- PTSA meeting at the high school

"The wisest mind has something yet to learn."
---George Santayana

Tonight I attended the high school PTSA meeting. These meetings are always information-filled and interesting, but usually nothing too controversial. Well tonight was an exception to that.

Some representatives from T-Mobile came to propose putting a cell tower on top of a lamp post at the baseball field at Whitman. They claimed health risks are minimal if there are any at all, and that the tower would be unobtrusive while making phone service better.

Several audience members strongly disagreed with each of these assertions, especially the one about the minimal to none health risks. My good friend Chris was super-articulate in making the case that the jury is still out on possible health risks such as cancer and that a while back people were saying there's no such thing as a risk from second-hand smoke when today it's a well known cause of various illnesses.

Many people there disagreed, but when she tried to find out how to channel this disagreement and make it know to the people who decide, that was a little less clear. It was also unclear who actually makes the final decision. Another good case was made by someone who said that on the website promoting it's cell phones, T-Mobile makes it look like there are no gaps in coverage in our area, yet here at the meeting they were claiming there are gaps (and thus the tower is needed).

I wanted to chime in that anyone with T-Mobile who has gaps in coverage might want to switch to Verizon, as I almost never have any trouble with service anywhere near the high school.

Anyway, it was an interesting discussion, and while I agreed very much with the position that we don't need this tower, I did feel a little bad for the company representatives, as I'm not sure if they knew the opposition they'd get (and I've been on the receiving end of unexpected opposition back when I tried to get a local school re-opened. It wasn't fun).

I'm so glad to live in a community where people really care about these and so many other issues. It's a well-informed group of people who ultimately increase quality of life for all of us.