OAK PARK : City Eyes Cellular Tower to Aid Library

Cellular telephone towers have prompted protests and pickets in Los Angeles and Orange County, but in the tiny community of Oak Park, the idea is winning praise as a way to make money to buy books.

Members of the Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council are considering renting space on top of the town’s new library to AirTouch Cellular. The council would provide a temporary site for the tower until the new library next to Oak Park High School is built.

Council Administrator Ron Stark said the $1,000-a-month rent would buy books for the library, which is threatened with closure by county budget cuts.

Stark said he does not expect the protests of dangerous electromagnetic waves or property value losses that such structures have received in other parts of the Southland.

“When people hear the word tower, they think of the antennae you see on the freeway,” he said. “You won’t even know this one is a tower.”

AirTouch has been testing in the area this week to find the perfect spot and height for the tower. Council members were pleased with the aesthetics of the antennas--which will be encased in a bell or clock tower--but not the height.

“The pictures I saw weren’t so bad,” said council member Douglas Hewitson. “The clock or bell tower was actually quite attractive, until they said it might be 75 feet tall. That’s not a tower, that’s a monument.”

The council members have expressed little concern over the electromagnetic waves emitted from the towers. Although studies of the effects of such waves are inconclusive, the towers have sparked protests and lawsuits by residents from Laguna Beach to Northridge.

Residents living near Oak Park High School have yet to be officially notified of the plans by the council. But the council plans public hearings if AirTouch tests find that the area is a good site for the tower. The council’s recommendations will be forwarded to the county’s Planning Commission.

Council members continue to seek autonomy from the county’s ailing library system. They voted last week to draw up plans for a new library despite warnings from county officials that there would be no money for operations.

On Thursday, Oak Park officials will again meet with Thousand Oaks officials in the hopes of forming an alliance with the wealthy city-run library system.