Urbana school board wants questions answered before decision on cell tower
URBANA -- The Urbana school board postponed Tuesday any decision on whether to allow a cell tower to locate on the athletic complex at the high school. Several board members said there are still unanswered questions, and they need more information before they can make a decision.
One of those questions is exactly where the tower would be located on the athletic campus.
School board President John Dimit said U.S. Cellular is looking at locations farther from Race Street as possible sites for the tower.
Board member Peggy Patten said she’s heard from many residents, nearly all of whom are opposed to the tower. Even so, she would agree to move ahead with the project if the district would receive significant revenue from it.
But, she said, “The revenue to the district is very small … and the number of residents who oppose it is very large. … The costs for this project far outweigh the benefits.”
One of the problems Patten has with the tower is its diameter -- eight feet at the bottom. She said it would look like a “wall of pole.”
Dimit said he is concerned about the placement of the tower as well as aesthetics. He wants to hear suggestions for screening the tower to make it look better.
Board member Paul Poulosky said he doesn’t favor putting the tower at the proposed location along Race Street.
The city’s plan commission has not yet ruled on the request for a special use permit.
Patten said because the board wants to hear about alternative locations for the tower at the athletic complex doesn’t mean it has made a decision in favor of the tower.
She said the possibility of siting a cell tower on school property is “precedent-setting,” and if the board decides in favor of it, it needs to be able to justify why it is doing so.
Ok, is any amount of money going to the school district a bad thing? Who cares if it has an 8' foot base, its going to be on the athletic fields, and it will generate some income. Welcome to the unholy union of goverment and corporations - as if you've been asleep for the past 50-60 years.
I was a graduate of UHS MANY years ago and I am still annoyed by the residents in that neighborhood who complain about all of the undesirable things that accompany living near a large school (noise, lights, unsightly renovations, traffic, etc.). It’s a free market. People buy homes with the neighborhood around them in mind. The school predates many of the homes to the North and South and I find it hard to believe that anyone on the West side of Race has lived there since 1914 when it was built. You bought houses by the school - get over it.
Let me ask how is a a cell tower any different visually than the football field lights? They are tall stick out and are unattractive yet no ones says that they are a problem. I think the hippies that live around the school need to find something else to complain about and start thinking of the financial benefit that this could be for the school district. Urbana schools need the money to continue to fund programs that really benefit the students. Another alternative would be to place the cell phone transmitters and receivers on the existing football field light fixtures and then there would be no added towers but I'm not a cell phone tower technician so I don't know if that would work. This proposed tower would only cost the district a very small amount of land. Everyone else needs to get over it.
So nice that the school board is so concerned over the neighborhood residents' welfare regarding a cell phone tower.
It would be nice if they were as concerned with the welfare of the cleaning crew they contracted to clean their schools.
No one expects to get rich cleaning for a living, but a living wage would be nice. At the maximum amount one gets paid to work in the schools in Urbana to clean, one would still be making mere pennies over the minimum wage after taxes. There are single people with children to support trying to get by on these wages.
To add insult to injury, or should I say injury to insult, a whole slew of other duties are expected from the crew in addition to their cleaning chores.
On certain shifts, they are expected to act as a crossing guard, putting out and bringing in traffic signs, they are expected to act as security guards, patrolling the halls during events, they are expected to set up and break down any event that occurs at the school, including very, very large events, they are expected to deliver books from one location to another, as well as other items, and, during the summer, they are expected to move heavy furniture, large, old desks, overloaded filing cabinets, tall bookcases, etc, from one side of the school to the other. Not to clean, although that is done in the process, but simply because the teacher changes location.
This is often dangerous, as I worked there a few summers ago briefly, and saw a fellow employee almost have a filing cabinet come down on them as it started to slip from the dolly.
Air conditioning during all this is turned off, as it is night and they want to save money as they consider the school "unoccupied". No matter that some doing this work are approaching old age.
Since leaving, I heard a rumor that they would offer one of the crew an extra quarter an hour to take on the additional duties of assistant supervisor. An extra quarter.
And, as I said, for all this they pay, at most, pennies over minimum. You can say if you don't like it don't apply there, but in this economy one often doesn't have a choice, and shouldn't any job at least treat people halfway decently? Shouldn't that be required? As well as enough to survive on? There are no cost of living increases, no extra pay for the life shortening graveyard shift.....and, when I applied, I was never told all the extra things that would be required for the wage I was getting.
I learned that the school board approved this contract again and again. I guess as long as they get a bargain they're happy, never mind the actual human beings who have to work under these conditions.
I thank God I'm out of there, but what about those who aren't? Don't they deserve at least as much consideration as the area residents with their cell phone tower.?
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