Whenever you see small-town officials signing off on these kind of deals, suspect bribery. From Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. at childrenshealthdefense.org:
Schools looking for money are allowing telecommunications companies to put cell towers on school property, despite the health risks of long-term wireless radiation exposure. School boards often don’t tell parents until after the deal is signed.
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series on how the wireless industry is targeting schools for wireless infrastructure installation. Part 1 covers the recent surge and why parents are fighting back.
Telecommunications companies are targeting school properties as prime locations for installing cell towers, antennas and other wireless infrastructure — and many schools are taking the bait, said attorney Robert Berg.
Berg represents parents in multiple lawsuits challenging proposals for cell towers or wireless antenna placements at their kids’ schools.
He told The Defender that “literally hundreds” of U.S. school boards have signed long-term leases with telecom companies.
“The school board members think it’s easy money,” Berg said. The school leaders rent out bits of school property to the wireless companies — such as a small site next to an athletic field or space on the school roof — for a monthly fee.
Many times school leaders have “no idea what they’re doing.”
“They lock themselves into bad contracts that can last for decades, at below market rate terms,” Berg said. “Meanwhile, the cell towers are irradiating all the kids, the staff and the teachers the entire school day, along with the surrounding neighbors 24/7.”
Parents frequently don’t learn of the deal until after it’s been signed — and then it’s too late, he said.
One of Berg’s cases involves what he called “a nightmare scenario” in Wyandotte, Michigan, where the school board, after literally 48 seconds of discussion, approved a contract with T-Mobile to pay the district $1,000 a month to operate a “massive array” of wireless antennas on the chimney atop Washington Elementary School.
Parents didn’t find out until the antennas were being installed. They protested, but the school board and superintendent insisted the contract would not be broken.
