Planning Commission OKs Point Dume Cell Antenna, Rejects One Downtown – Activists Rebuffed

Malibu’s Planning Commission has rejected complaints about 5-G cellphone towers … raised by a small and very vocal group of activists.

The commission Monday night unanimously approved installation of a new Verizon antenna … on top of a power pole on Point Dume.

Verizon’s new tower is not 5-G … but it will be some day.

And the commission members in essence said they are not buying the argument … that cellphone and WiFI signals are making  people sick.

The vast body of science indicates that is not true … but an organized group points to outlying medical studies that they say proves wireless is dangerous.

Commissioners said public safety is paramount.

Jeff Jennings said he remembers being stuck on Zuma beach with his neighbors .. during the Woolsey Fire disaster.

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“They trauma that everyone was experiencing was bad enough.

“But it was only multiplied by the fact that no one he could contact anybody … that nobody could reach their husband or their wife or whomever they might be…

“And that made things just orders of magnitude worse.

“And so to me this whole thing is a matter of public safety.”

Commission chair John Mazza said the issue for him was … in essence … ‘can you hear me now?’

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“For years I’ve been called by people out on Point Dume: ‘which service should I use?’

“Because they all suck on the point.

“There is no good coverage on Point Dume by anybody.”

There were two cell poles on the agenda last night.

One new Verizon cell tower … 32 feet high on a city street on Point Dume Dume … was approved.

The other proposed Verizon pole was at the corner of P C H at Cross Creek Road.

And there … Verizon was rejected.

Or at least … told to come back when they’ve done their homework.

Commissioners said they were disappointed that Verizon wanted a pole and a bunch of equipment boxes on the side of Cross Creek Road.

Steve Uhring asked … why don’t they put the antennas and boxes on the shopping center ???

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“Why haven’t you looked about putting it on top of that building?

“Or have you and why aren’t you doing it?

“It would get it out of the street … it would get that cage or whatever the heck you’re talking about away from peoples view.

“It would be much more pleasing aesthetic situation.”

The engineer from Verizon so the wireless company had simply told her to find a power pole … didn’t mention anything about nearby buildings.

Of course not.

Cell phone companies get to put their antennae on the power poles for virtually no cost.

Putting them on a building means paying rent to a landlord.

But the one place where the city of Malibu can regulate wireless towers is on the issue of aesthetics.

Federal law … and a duplicate California state law … clearly prohibit any city from trying to regulate wireless towers over supposed dangers from electromagnetic radiation.

There is a clutch of Malibu residents who have convinced the city council to consider spending tax money to challenge the federal laws.

They have brought in so-called experts from elsewhere in the country … experts who make money going from town to town lecturing about the supposed dangers of 5G.

Or selling books.

They are in the vast minority of scientific consensus.

Like with vaccines … they have staked out an outlier position.

The vast majority of the experts say wireless towers are safe.

Of course … many of them work for wireless companies.

The difference is … they have the laws of physics on their side.

Plus the fact that people around the world have been using pocket phones for 30 years now … with no measurable impact on the public health.

The new cell phone towers being put in Malibu are using the same frequencies that cell phone companies have been using for years … and before that …. they were used for high-power TV broadcasts at millions of watts of power … again without measurable impact on the public health.

And the laws of physics show that the cell towers proposed for poles are simply too far away from people to affect them.

The lucrative industry of cell phone alarmists … and their well intentioned acolytes … have the ear of the city council … but not the ear of the planning commission.