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By JAMIE PILARCZYK

jpilarczyk@tampatrib.com

Published: January 7, 2009

TAMPA - Signs in neighbors' yards, a petition, weeks of telephone calls and angst will culminate with a community meeting to discuss a proposed cell phone tower at Coleman Middle School.

Set for 6 p.m. today in the school's cafeteria, 1724 South Manhattan Ave., parents, teachers, school administrators and neighborhood residents are invited to hear about the tower and voice their opinions. Speakers are limited to three minutes; those interested in participating must sign up between 5:30 and 6 p.m.

On our Web site, southtampa.tbo.com, readers have expressed thoughts in an online poll. Here is a sampling and excerpts of what they are saying:

"I think the use of school property to enhance community infrastructure makes sense. Time and time again good communications has been proven essential during times of crisis. During the multiple hurricanes of 2004, when local phone service was out, mobile phones remained in service.

"On the health issue; most of the arguments I have seen focus on the handset use. I would be more concerned about having my child holding the handset against their head or trying to drive or ride a bicycle while using it than a cell tower located on the school property...

"As I understand it; this program is directly contracted with the Hillsborough County School Board, and revenues go directly to them and not the State of Florida. This to me makes more sense than to allow state-level bureaucrats determine who gets the funds."

Posted by af3222oak

"Here is a poem that my six-year-old daughter, who attends Dale Mabry Elementary, wrote about her opposition to the proposed cell tower which would be adjacent to her school and three blocks from our home...

'No cell phone tower, with its masses and masses of power.

'It looks so tall, that it might even fall.

'Ugly and ugly, take it down out of the town.'

"Even a six-year-old intuitively realizes that this is NOT an appropriate place for a cell phone tower. This little spit of land is where my daughter eats her ice cream cones on Friday afternoons and the area where she then climbs sabal palm trees. We walk our bikes across this area when we go to Interbay Pool on steamy, summer mornings for swimming lessons...

"It's where our Culbreath Heights neighborhood association hosts an annual fundraiser, donated barbecue and outdoor speakers playing rock music while our kids throw water balloons at each other and run to the pool. Our neighborhood association has given thousands of dollars to help maintain the track and field from this one and only event on the very land that they want to put the tower on! We have also raised money for a new iron gate for the newly renovated and landscaped pool; how ridiculous this will look next to a massive chain-link fenced in metal cage with a 100 foot tower emitting microwave pollution, a suspected carcinogen, spewing forth 24 hours a day, seven days a week. ..."

Posted by CShell

"I do not think the cell tower should be allowed at Coleman Middle School for a variety of reasons.... Also there are alternative commercial sites that could be used along Dale Mabry or Henderson which are very close... I understand there may be some reported financial gain to the school however, as we have seen with the Florida Lottery funds, State funding for a school may be removed if it generates some other form of income. They could be simply shifting their source of funding without any net benefit to the school."

Posted by mabryparent

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