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| Summit Hall ES and fields |
The City of Gaithersburg will be putting a cell tower on the ball fields next to Summit Hall Elementary School.
As you might be able to guess, Summit Hall Elementary School is a Red Zone school in MCPS. Red Zone refers to schools with a high poverty rate as measured by the number of students that qualify for free and reduced meals.
We know that MCPS places cell towers at predominantly high-poverty schools. Watch the ABC7 report here.
Summit Hall Elementary School fits the pattern with a Free and Reduced Meals rate of 82%. 82% of the students at Summit Hall Elementary qualify for free or reduced price meals. So add Summit Hall Elementary School to the list of MCPS schools where children will play next to a HAZMAT cell tower compound.
The high number of children living in poverty in the Summit Hall Elementary neighborhood makes the community a target for a cell tower on the playground. Below is a picture of what the kids in this neighborhood will get.
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| This will be the start of the cell tower base. |
Green zone children? Here's how the Wootton High School community reacted to a cell tower proposal for their field.
High tech population control; compliments of our most esteemed elected officials.
ReplyDeleteTower is actually very far from the school. It's proposed on the right field light stand on the far baseball field. Significantly downhill and probably 500 yards from the school itself. And, it's not visible from the aerial, but the tower appears to be placed to provide coverage for I-370 and I-270 North, which are just below the trees visible in your aerial.
ReplyDeleteYou sound like you are opposed to cell towers per se. Do you have mobile phone service yourself? Are you aware that there are over 350 million wireless devices in the US today (more than one per person) and that 40% of households are wireless only? Antennae have to go somewhere to provide coverage. They tend to go where the population density is.
Thanks so much for the anonymous comment from the industry spokesperson. How nice of you to disregard the safety of other people's children. This cell tower is proposed to go on a play area, next to a school. The area is open and easily accessible to children 24 hours a day.
DeleteA cell tower is an attractive nuisance, as you know. Teens can and do climb cell towers.
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Suburban-Teen-Rescued-From-Cell-Tower-265033731.html
Cell towers are also HAZMAT facilities and must be registered with the County's Homeland Security department. Now, most parents are not keen on putting a HAZMAT facility on their child's playground. In fact, over the last few decades great strides have been made to make playgrounds and sports activities for children safer. Putting a climbable HAZMAT tower in the middle of a play area is a major step backward in our efforts to keep children safe while at play and sports.
You care a lot about "visibility" but, apparently nothing about children. The neighbors to this site care about their children and have contacted the Parents' Coalition because they do not want a cell tower going up next to their neighborhood school.
The kids we must empower
DeleteBy erecting the cell tower
To make their brains virile
And to ensure they're sterile.