Citizens about 5G state bills: Town OK sought
Despite five Farragut citizen’s e-mailed pleas to the Town’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen to support two current state legislative bills targeting 5G implementation, Town administrator David Smoak said BOMA support is directed elsewhere.
Residents Laura Squires, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gleason, Jerry Guthrie and Cathy Sharp all submitted Citizens Comments for the Thursday, March 11, BOMA meeting asking the Board to not only support Senate Bill 0857 and House Bill 1397, but also to draft a resolution supporting them.
An overview of the bills on the Tennessee General Assembly website states, “Telecommunications — As introduced, makes various changes to the Competitive Wireless Broadband Investment, Deployment and Safety Act of 2018,” and further shows both bills currently are in subcommittee consideration.
“These bills — if passed — seem to offer modifications to the law passed in May 2018 and part of Tennessee Public Chapter 819 — that Farragut Town officials have multiple times over the past 13 months stated is why Farragut has little to no control over radiation-emitting cellular towers/poles/antenna being placed in Farragut’s residential areas, often within feet of homes,” Squires wrote.
Sharp wrote, “Please consider passing a resolution to support the bills HB 1397 and SB 0857 that will give our Town some control over the right-of-ways and offer distance protections from 5G cell towers and associated equipment from residences and schools, and provide for much-needed equipment monitoring to prove compliance with safety guidelines.”
“The wireless companies want to install 5G small cell antenna, which transmit millimeter wave radiation in right-of-ways of our Town, near schools and neighborhoods,” Guthrie stated. “We need to protect our homes and families from being exposed to unknown health effects from deploying these 5G antenna. The electromagnetic frequency radiation can harm families, birds, animals, insects, bees, and plants.
“Long-term exposure to 5G Electromagnetic Frequency Radiation needs to be independently studied to show that the public health will not be adversely impacted by deployment of 5G,” he added.
“Any 5G antenna equipment, which is installed in the Town of Farragut, should be required to have safety monitoring to ensure the equipment is operating within FCC safety standards.”
Responding to the statements, Smoak said, “I think obviously, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen know that we have been working closely with Sen. (Dr. Richard) Briggs (District 7) and Rep. [Jason] Zachary (District 14) over the last several months; even last legislative session on trying to get language in a bill that would help give cities more authority over where (cell towers) are placed in the rights of way.
“We have also been working with the Tennessee Municipal League on crafting a bill, which can be filed — HB 170 and SB 149, with Briggs and Zachary both as sponsors,” he added. “Right now it’s a caption bill … but hopefully in the next week or two they will be filing, or amending that, to make the bill.
The attempt “is to get FCC language consistent with Tennessee state law,” Smoak said. “Tennessee state law right now gives a lot more parameters to cell tower companies in the rights-of-way than the FCC law allows, so we want to get that law consistent.
“Those other bills mentioned tonight have a lot of inconsistencies — what is in those bills, versus what is actually allowed,” he added. “ … Because of that, they could be legally suspect, so we are focused on the other bills (our representatives) are working on.
“TML is behind it and cities across the state are behind it as they certainly would give cities more control over the rights-of-way.”
