STANTON : Council Rejects Plan for Large Antenna

After hearing months of protests from trailer park tenants, the City Council unanimously rejected the Pacific Telesis Co.’s application to raise a cellular phone antenna near a residential area.

Pacific Telesis sought to build an antenna 40 feet from the Katella Estates Mobile Home Park on Central Avenue. The Planning Commission deadlocked on the issue, and the company appealed to the council.

Paul Munsterman, a renter at the trailer park, said the antenna would be “an eyesore and a health hazard.” Other tenants said they fear that the 63-foot antenna might topple during an earthquake, crushing nearby trailers.

Council members also cited concerns about the proximity of the antenna to the trailer park.

“I think this doesn’t have a place near a residential tract,” said David John Shawver, a City Council member. Mayor Paul G. Verellen also supported the residents, who presented the council with a petition.

“I don’t see that this antenna adds anything to the city,” he told the council.

Company officials said they will try to find another site.

“We’ll have to redesign the system,” said David Evans, a lawyer representing Pacific Telesis. “We haven’t started figuring the cost yet, but we’re having problems with the area already.”

He said that the cellular phone coverage area including Stanton has been adversely affected by a surge in customers since 1988 and that more cell sites are long overdue.