Glendale City Council backs cell towers for two local parks

Two Glendale parks could end up with new cellphone towers following support for their installation from the Glendale City Council on Tuesday.

A first read of plans to build a monopole at Fremont Park and install a monoshrub at Scholl Canyon Ballfield won favor from council members and will be brought back for a final vote at a future meeting.

AT&T wants to install the equipment at both sites and sign a lease with the city to be able to do so, said Koko Panossian, parks services administrator.

The proposed site for the Fremont Park monopole, which would stand at the height of nearby pine trees and made to resemble one, would be located at the northeast end of the park on a storage site and away from the playground, he said.

“The concept of the design was to make it blend with nature … We guide [wireless providers] to the location that would be in the best interest of the site,” Panossian said. “It’s out of the way and won’t impact our operations.”

At Scholl Canyon Ballfield, cellphone-antennae equipment would be made to resemble a shrub and be situated in the southeastern side of the location in an open-space area outside the park, according to a staff report.

Both lease contracts would each generate $36,000 a year for the city to go toward park maintenance, Panossian said.

The city currently has eight cell-tower sites at local parks including AT&T equipment at the Glendale Sports Complex and a T-Mobile tower at Scholl Canyon Ballfield.

Councilman Vartan Gharpetian asked whether there had been any complaints from residents regarding the facilities, and Panossian said there haven’t been any major ones in the past decade.

“I received a few emails, a couple concerns about having cellphone towers in parks … I just want to make sure we had no complaints or issues, and the ones we’re installing meet all the regulations as far as health hazards in residential neighborhoods,” Gharpetian said. “I want to make sure we follow every rule there is.”

Concerns in the past over cell towers have ranged from visual blight if they’re installed in residential neighborhoods to health concerns over the radio-wave frequencies being emitted.

Resident Tony Passarella spoke of those health worries, saying there’s already one at Scholl Canyon Ballfield — despite that one being from a different wireless provider.

“Why do we need a second cell tower? There’s already a huge one up there,” he said. “There’s no gap in coverage.”

However, City Manager Scott Ochoa said a service carrier wouldn’t approach a city if it didn’t have a gap to patch in coverage to its customers.

“[AT&T] wouldn’t be paying us $36,000 a year if they didn’t need to,” he said.

Panossian said the way cellphone towers operate is governed by the Federal Communications Commission, and the standards need to be followed.

Councilwoman Laura Friedman said the only real power the city has over such technologies is deciding where they can be placed. The practice, so far, has been exercising local control to try to get cellphone towers placed where they will be the least intrusive.

“The federal government does preempt us,” Friedman said. “We can’t say, ‘no cell tower.’ We can only direct where it’s going to be.”