Controversy at County Planning Commission on September 24th

Coco County Planning Commission will continue its hearing of the proposed hotly debated AT&T data streaming arrays application.  The meeting starts at 7 PM September 24th at 30 Muir Road, Martinez, CA  94553.  Currently on the agenda are three of the cell apparatus sites in Kensington - on Sunset, Windsor  and Grizzly (right next to horseshoe pocket park and entrance to the dirt trail into Tilden).
THE PREVIOUS MEETING
I was at the planning commission meeting on 9/10/13 which considered six AT&T cell tower applications for Kensington.  A very polished lawyer for AT&T, Paul Britton Esq., spoke for the proposed towers for about 45 minutes.  The proposal is to lengthen in most cases existing poles and add apparatus to them and near them to make wireless intensive data streaming coverage.  I had the impression he was outlining the grounds for a lawsuit should the county not comply with AT&T's plans.

The county planning department, which CoCo County calls the Conservation and Development Department, seemed to cave in and 
smooth the way for AT&T with a bland report favoring the data stream towers with pictures making Kensington look flat.  

The report ignored the citizens of Kensington's protests at two well attended KMAC (Kensington Municipal Advisory Council) meetings, citizen protest letters, and lowest of all, ignored KMAC recommendations and hard work.  In response to KMAC member queries, the Coco staff point person for the report, Francisco Avila, said he knew best because he knew the most 
because the department has been granting AT&T's wishes in other parts of the county.

 In its report, the planning department made a significant statement that interpreted California's Environmental Quality Act to exclude these data stream towers as a 'utility'.

About 25 to 30 Kensington citizens drove all the way over to Martinez in rush hour traffic without in many cases dinner, and then wait for an hour and a half to register their objections to AT&T's plans and the Coco County's planning department recommendations.  We were ably led with a very articulate speech by Linda Lipscomb, KPP&KCSD board member, 
who pointed out important errors in Britton's speech.  Lipscomb, one of the few, perhaps only anti-tower trained attorney present,she was only allowed three minutes to speak.  Similarly, KMAC board members ably spoke, albeit for a short time. 

The Kensington speakers that I heard (I had to leave at 9:30 PM) were either in favor of no towers or a few towers and gave a range of arguments against, correcting additional errors, omissions, or deceptions on the part of AT&T, and speaking of the negative impacts in their lives if the towers are implemented.  There was strong objections to the towers on the grounds of the blight of views, unaesthetic cluttering of the environment, noise from the fans, lowering of property values (which must be disclosed in order to sell), and poor process.Additional arguments were that the vast preponderance of Kensingtonians don't want these towers, we already have adequate internet services from cable, dish, and according to AT&T, 4000 lines into people's homes already owned by AT&T.  So who is all this data streaming for?  Drivers who are bored looking at the road? AT&T has been vague about the purpose of these towers and equipment.  If the AT&T's design problem is cell PHONE coverage, why can't AT&T do the same thing that successful unobtrusive companies like Verizon and Sprint do? 
Britton said that by federal law, one can't refuse cell towers for health reasons as long as they don't go above a certain frequency.  Some people continue to worry about health risks of cell phones and towers, especially the risks of cancer.  The evidence is not absolutely clear one way or another.  The World Health Organization put it this way, "to date, no 
adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use."   There is some evidence that electromagnetic radiation from cell equipment can cause brain fog, confusion, and slowed response time.  The health risks of cell tower radiation is more controversial with some countries (for example France and Italy) ruling at times in favor 
of people's health and safety over companies' profits.  Wikipedia reports, "In May 2011, the World Health Organisation's International Agency for Research on Cancer announced it was classifying electromagnetic fields from mobile phones and other sources as 'possibly carcinogenic to humans' and advised the public to adopt safety measures to reduce exposure, like use of hands-free devices or texting."

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