Dear Editor,
The City of Long Beach’s Decision in favor of the AT&T Cell Tower Installation 25’ from Moira Hahn and Mark Hotchkiss’ house Violates the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
- The City failed to establish that this installation fits the requirements of a categorical exemption within the intent of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
- The City failed to consider cumulative impacts of the one thousand pending cell tower installations, as CEQA law section 15300.2 requires cumulative impacts to be taken into consideration.
- The City failed to consider the particular circumstances of a cell tower at this location.
The City has falsely asserted that a Cell Tower is the same thing as a Streetlight, thereby avoiding an Environmental Review as required by CEQA.
CEQA allows for a categorical exemption when infrastructure is replaced with like infrastructure. To quote from the city (CE-19-013 ) as it quotes from the state’s CEQA guidelines:
exemptions “consist of replacement or reconstruction of existing structures and facilities where the new structure will be located on the same site as the structure replaced and will have substantially the same purpose and capacity as the structure replaced … “
Replacing a streetlight with a cell tower no longer has the same purpose and capacity as had the original streetlight, and it certainly creates new environmental impacts. We contend that that exemption would not apply to the project, as the purpose of the cell tower is substantially different from the existing street light. CEQA therefore requires an environmental review be performed for any installation of a new cell tower.
The City Failed to Address the Project’s Cumulative Impacts
The City failed to consider cumulative impacts when it issued a Notice of Exemption (“NOE”) approving wide scale, unlimited installation of 5G cell towers, numbering (according to the City, at Hahn’s hearing) at least a thousand towers through out the entire City. There will be cumulative impacts through all of the cabling and excavation required for the new cell towers, as well as through the increase in residents’ close range exposure to electromagnetic radiation., which has been scientifically proven to be potentially carcinogenic and to cause many other negative impacts.
Specific Circumstances Preclude the Application of an Exemption
Even if the City had established that an exemption applies, specific circumstances and a significant impact associated with the installation at this specific location create an exception to the exemption. Hahn has a specific medical issue which most people do not have, as documented by her physician. Therefore, the physical impact of the proposed installation at this specific location will create a significant impact that creates an exception to the categorical exemption relied upon by the City.
We have an opportunity to present our arguments again, this time before the Long Beach City Council, as required by CEQA. A date has not been provided yet. We will keep 2UrbanGirls informed.
Sincerely,
Mark Hotchkiss and Moira Hahn
19 Comments
Mark and Moira, I’m so sorry you are going through this. This is every homeowners nightmare. Who would think in America in 2022 that we have no rights against an insidious intrusion to our privacy as property owners and an invasion to your physical being in such an atrocious way. How can this be legal? Only by corporate greed and corruption of our legal system. An absolute sin. You have all my sympathy and prayers.
Thank you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0tkLVJHpu8
Hi Moira, this is Vicky, not sure why I came up anonymous 🤷♀️
Thanks, Vicky! We appreciate your support. We are still fighting this unjust decision, not just on behalf of ourselves, but for all. We were shocked to realize the overreach of the telecommunications industry, which has inserted its employees (Long Beach Vice Mayor Rex Richardson, and potentially Mark Guillen, a Manager of Public Affairs at Crown Castle, who may represent District 3, if he wins the election next week) into local government and now control decision making, to the erasure of all citizens’ legal rights. It’s corrupt, immoral and must be reversed.
This happened all too frequently, people living in their homes are forced to move or suffer because big business wins over ordinary citizens who are the true component of their neighborhood, the consumers but if in the way they are discarded, they are just two people and the tower must be placed there because according to the company plans, that is the best place for it. Let them move and find another place, no thought into the work, the money, the time they put into making this place their home. This is their home and a tower is nothing to conpair to their home. So cruel …..big money crushes again two citizens…
Thanks, Diane. The front running two candidates for Mayor (election is in 6 days), both of whom currently serve on the City Council, voted for the telecommunications chapter of the city code that allows that industry to decide how many cell towers are installed, and where they will be located. Our elected government has abdicated its responsibility to protect its citizens. It makes voting seem like a waste of time, because big money owns and controls the city, not the individuals that we taxpayers vote into office, with the illusion that they will follow the laws and govern morally and ethically for their constituents’ physical and financial well being.
Please reconsider the installation of these towers in urban areas. I’ll bet you don’t want one in front of your own house. It is your job to ensure public safety, not ensure business. Without public, there is no business.
Thanks Masako, the City’s own Hearing Officer found: ” the evidence sufficiently established to this hearing officer that RF emissions may and can injured animals and humans and may very well cause further injury to Appellant Hahn if the WCF is installed. These articles [referring to published science submitted to the record as well as the judgement of the EHT et al. v FCC case] call into question the scientific and medical legitimacy of the legally controlling Federal Communications Commission regulations cited and relied upon jointly by the city and AT&T here as to what is safe and acceptable RF emission exposure levels to which the public in general and Appellant Hahn in particular can and should be allowed to be exposed , especially where, as here, a WCF is projected to be erected a few yards from Appellants home.”
Thanks, Mary Ann, Here’s what Mr. Larry Minsky, the Hearing Officer that the city hired to hear our appeal. had to say about the safety of the soon to be installed cell tower: “by way of said scientific/medical evidence, Appellants have shown that the FCC’s determination as to what are safe and acceptable RF emission exposure levels are antiquated and not based on current scientific evidence and that the FCC regulations are instead industry-sponsored, outdated, and just plain wrong, causing the public to be exposed to unnecessary and harmful radiation.”
It is such an atrocious act to invade a persons home with a cell tower that has harmful impact on the health of individuals and the neighborhood, And the city hasn’t even followed the proper protocols! Everyone should be up in arms, or this can happen to you too! Not to mention the loss of value to their home!
Thanks for your support, Michele.We are surprised that as geriatric homeowners who have never so much as made a late mortgage payment, even after I retired early due to uncontrolled, debilitating migraines (that I now know the probable cause of), we have been kicked to the curb by AT&T and the City of Long Beach. There are federal, state and local laws that should have protected us, but the city has chosen not to recognize them. What are we paying high property taxes for, if a corporation and city can throw us out of our homes, suddenly, into the worst real estate market ever, while gutting the value of the home we’re being forced out of?
AT&T is wrong to put a 5G cell tower in Moira Hahn’s front yard. These towers have serious negative health effects on everyone. Moriah has been diagnosed with a Magnetic Sensitivity Condition and it will destroy her health. Listen to her and her husband Mark. There is no reason to place the tower in front of their house.
Thanks Gary, While electromagnetic radiation affects everyone, it is estimated that 3-11% of the world’s population experience physical symptoms from close-range exposure to electromagnetic radiation. Many people suffer from heart palpitations, anxiety, insomnia, brain fog, chronic migraines, unexplained skin rashes and depression, without knowing there is an identifiable, specific reason. One does not need to have a previous medical diagnosis, as I have, for an illness that will be exacerbated by a nearby cell tower’s electromagnetic radiation, to be logically apprehensive of a nearby cell tower’s installation. Last year the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled (EHT et al. v. the FCC) that the December 2019 decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to retain its 1996 safety limits for human exposure to wireless radiation was “arbitrary and capricious.The court held that the FCC failed to respond to “record evidence that exposure to RF radiation at levels below the Commission’s current limits may cause negative health effects”. The court noted that the FCC failed to respond to approximately over 11,000 pages of peer-reviewed, scientific testimony, and 200 comments on the record by people who experienced illness or injury from electromagnetic radiation sickness.The court ordered the commission to “(i) provide a reasoned explanation for its decision to retain its testing procedures for determining whether cell phones and other portable electronic devices comply with its guidelines, (ii) address the impacts of RF radiation on children, the health implications of long-term exposure to RF radiation, the ubiquity of wireless devices, and other technological developments that have occurred since the Commission last updated its guidelines, and (iii) address the impacts of RF radiation on the environment.” This means that the federal government currently has NO credible health and safety standards for this environmental pollutant, yet they are being installed next to people’s homes, every 500′-1,000′, throughout the United States.
This issue is so much more important that people realize. Verizon came and put up one of these cell towers inches behind my yard. It caused terrible medical and dental effects to me. It harmed the nature in our yard. I was able to get the cell tower removed, but the health effects still linger, very badly, too. These cell towers have NOT been investigated to assure their safety. Any safety statistics are referring to cell towers high in the sky and very far away from homes. These small cell towers are literally right outside peoples’ windows. Moira and Mark are speaking up to protect themselves and also to protect all of you. LISTEN TO THEM.
Thanks, Susan, I’m sorry you had to experience this firsthand. Everyone should hear your story.
This is absolutely chilling. Who would want to move to Long Beach , knowing how they put corporate interests over the well-being of residents. How hard is it to move the planned site to a safe distance.
This is so upsetting. Mark and Moira are the nicest two people you’ll ever meet. My guess is that the City of Long Beach isn’t structurally capable of doing the right thing in this case or any case when it has to confront a company like AT&T. It takes a chain of moral people to get things done in a bureaucracy and I just don’t see it with LBC. And a chain like that at AT&T well, just forget it.
Thanks, Adam
Thanks, Mary Ann.