Public nuisances like cell phone towers and medical marijuana cooperatives seem to pop up everywhere around us on a daily basis.
In both cases, the problem is caused by the failure to do its basic job of providing rational standards for regulation and control. In both cases, you can actually do something about the problems in coming days.
Monday is the deadline for signing the petition to support the repeal or modification of the Telecommunication Act of 1996 that gives the right to put up cell phone towers just about anywhere, stripping communities of just about all their rights in this as in many other regards.
Barbara Kohn, president of the Pacific Palisades Residents Association, is urging leaders of Neighborhood Councils, homeowner groups and other concerned citizens to sign the petitions to get the law change. You can go to Cloutnow.org to sign the petition to support giving local control to local communities.
“I have been working with representatives from Glendale,
Pasadena, Hancock Park, Windsor Hills re the proliferation of cell
towers in residential neighborhoods and have requested our elected
representatives to join in by submitting comments to the FCC on this
effort to repeal/modify the Telecommunication Act of 1996 — to include
health and environmental impacts when considering placement and
construction of the equipment and to authorize local governments
permitting power,” she writes in an email to me.
LA County Supervisors, the LAUSD board, Councilman Bill Rosendahl and state Sen. Fran Pavley are among those who have supported this effort to allow local control of cell towers.
California voters led the nation in deciding to defy federal law and allow for medical marijuana cooperatives and in most places both DEA and local authorities have looked the other way to the quasi-legalization of pot.
Progressive cities like San Francisco set down clear standards about their operations and have kept them under control with less than half a dozen cooperatives in a city with a pothead reputation.
LA, in contrast, now has 600 with drug dealers and profiteers moving in on the turf of the several dozen legitimate cooperatives so that marijuana is all but legal in the city if you’ve got a hundred bucks for a prescription for your anxiety — which may be the best argument for fully legalizing and heavily taxing pot.
Several hundred pot shops have opened in the six months since the issue actually came before the City Council as many neighborhoods are seeing marijuana cooperatives opening up all around them.
That has sparked an outcry in many neighborhoods and forced the heads of our city government to actually schedule a council committee hearing on Tuesday before Ed Reyes’ Planning and Land Use Committee where it was stalled back in January.
Mayoral pals Jose Huizar and law-and-order Jack Weiss are also members of the committee.
There are classic examples of situations where government has just not done the job it’s supposed to do of protecting the health and welfare of our communities.
Fourteen marijuana dispensaries on Van Nuys Blvd. from Vanowen to Oxnard. Four in one block. Something is wrong with this picture!
The issue of cell towers goes to the Neighborhood Councils on a regualr basis. No one to my knowledge has given the Neighborhood Councils any guidelines for approval that have to do with health risks. These towers are considered based upon the perceived need and the aesthetics. We consider the impacts of their location – would a new cell site be appropriate on top of a hospital, etc?
If there is a health risk from these cell towers, please identify that source of information to me please. This potential health risk should be going out to the City through the City Council and City Planning via email blasts to the community or by blasts to the Neighborhood Councils.
Thanks again Ron for what you do.
Hasn’t councilmember huizar been proactive with the marijuana issue? Saw him on SoCal Connected talking about it, compared to the rest of the council, he’s been taking this on almost single handidly.
Chris – go to the website quoted in the article for information regarding recent actions on cell towers. http://www.cloutnow.org
Aren’t they proliferating because there is so much money being spent on pot, even in bad times?
But if it is illegal, how can they proliferate in broad daylight without being shut down. If it were legalized and taxed, wouldn’t those who might be tempted suddenly think that there is no longer a thrill because of doing something others feel is wrong? When noone is interested any more, the sales will go down and the pot problem will too. Or is that too logical?
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