Saugus cell tower walk-through draws concerned crowd

SAUGUS – More than 20 residents and four representatives from T-Mobile met at the Hurd Avenue Little League Field Monday night for a site walk-through of the proposed cell phone tower location.T-Mobile Zoning Manager Jackie Slaga spoke for about 30 minutes before she was peppered with questions for nearly an hour from residents taking issue with certain aspects of the project.T-Mobile, which won the bid last year, is proposing a 95-foot tall “stealth” tower to replace the existing 60-foot light post that sits along the third base line. The tower would house all the antennas inside and would look similar to the current light posts except it would be 42 inches in diameter at its base and 30 inches at the top, with the lights installed on the tower at their current height.There would also be a 1,400 square foot equipment compound located around 10 feet from the pole near the snack stand and would be surrounded by an 8-foot chain link fence with all connections buried. Slaga said any noise given off would amount to the hum of a refrigerator if you were to stand next to the compound and would not be audible from the street.Engineers floated a red balloon where the tower would sit to give residents an idea of how high the new tower would stand, but steady winds kept the balloon at an angle for most of the walk-through.Slaga said the town originally offered a 2,800 square foot site for the compound, but T-Mobile did not need a space that big.”We’re trying to be sensitive to the Little League and not interfere with them,” said Slaga. “We don’t want to do more to the site than we have to. We had discussions with the Little League to come up with a design.”The original plan also called for a gravel access road to the site from the left field, but concerns over wetlands and the removal of trees saw T-Mobile abandon that plan and maintenance trucks will now use the existing paved area that goes from the parking lot and around home plate.The proposed tower would have room in it for an additional two providers should T-Mobile lease out the space, with the town earning a percentage of that money annually in addition to the $36,000 lease to T-Mobile.This was a major concern for Steve Fish, who lives directly across from the field and said that when the current lights at the field were first installed, the lights in his house would go dark whenever they were turned on.But Slaga said T-Moble would be running its own utilities to the site, which would amount to 200 amps per carrier.”We think the public process has come up with some good things,” said Slaga. “This will be a much better product at the end of the day.”Donna Vella lives behind the field and said she’s scared of any potential radiation from the tower since her husband is a four-time cancer survivor.But Slaga said the amount of energy given off would be less than 5 percent of what is allowable by the Telecommunications Act of 1996.Appeals Board Chair Catherine Galenius also said the health effects are minimal.”When we first started the process of cell towers years ago, these were the things that we read and re-read, the reports and studies and that’s why I’m convinced it’s not as big of a health concern as was once thought,” said Galenius.T-Mobile will go before the Appeals Board once again on Thursday, July 28 and will have a health expert on hand to answer questions.