A wireless telephone company has approached local school officials about placing a new cell phone tower at J.C. Sawyer Elementary School, and one of the possible sites could be the school’s flagpole.
Shelby Lusk, a site acquisitions consultant working on behalf of AT&T Wireless, was on hand at Monday’s Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Board of Education meeting. He said the tower would be what’s called a “slipstick,” and would be attached directly to the flagpole. Power lines running to the tower would be trenched, or buried under the ground.
Lusk said his firm, SAI Communications in Glen Allen, Va., looked at several sites in the city, but the area at J.C. Sawyer seemed to be the most ideal, with either the flagpole in front of the school or an area behind it as the construction site.
“The school was the highest on our list,” he said.
Lusk said he plans to meet with school Principal Thomas Hill and settle on the best site.
“We would lease a 50 (foot) by 50 (foot) space from the school,” Lusk said.
Lusk said AT&T would lease the space for 25 years, and other Wireless phone carriers such as Alltel and Verizon would also likely use the pole.
Board member Bill Sterritt said a monthly lease payment of $850 previously had been discussed with AT&T, but Lusk said that would still have to be discussed.
“We would have to negotiate, but it would be a month-to-month fee,” he said. “We want to make sure we meet all the zoning requirements. We would try to place the tower in an unused area and blend the site into the existing tree line.”
Lusk told The Daily Advance on Tuesday that he wasn’t sure exactly how tall the tower would be.
“It depends on the zoning requirements for the city and where the tower is going to go,” he said.
So far, there are 22 cell towers in use in Elizabeth City, according to the Federal Communications Commission Web site, and two more that have been granted construction permits. One has been dismantled and two were canceled, according to the site.
Lusk said AT&T’s priority would be to make the tower as unobtrusive as possible.
“We try to stealth our site by using flush-mount antennae to minimize appearance and paint the pole brown to mimic bark, or we can attach it to a flagpole or a light pole,” he said.
Since the school is in the middle of a residential area, Sterritt also voiced concerns about the effect the tower would have on homeowners.
“You have private houses back there with septic tanks and private utilities,” he said.
Lusk said the first thing SAI would do is survey the school site and locate the underground utilities in the surrounding area.
Board member Randy Foreman said County Manager Randy Keaton advised him the county had entered into previous agreements similar to the one proposed by AT&T and each had been beneficial to the community.
“But he would like to see an agreement, first,” Foreman said.
Foreman said the agreement would have to be reviewed by the Pasquotank Board of Commissioners before any lease could be signed.
Board Chairman Mark Small also said school officials will need to determine whether the agreement suits J.C. Sawyer’s needs.
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AT&T eyes cell tower at school
Source: The Daily Advance
Date: 02/19/2009
