Luschas: Petition circulating for public vote on rezoning land for potential cell phone tower

I would like to thank Mr. Savage and the Brandon Valley Journal for their coverage of the City Council meetings dealing with the potential construction of a new cell phone tower within Brandon city limits.

I was aware that the construction of the tower was discussed during the May 19, 2025 City Council meeting. But I rested in the belief that the issue had been resolved with the City Council voting down the proposal. I was taken by surprise to learn that the cell tower construction proposal at the exact same location was resurrected during the Oct. 20, 2025 City Council meeting.

While Mr. Savage’s reporting on the Oct. 20, 2025 and the Nov. 3, 2025 City Council meetings were very informative I think a couple of very important points, which I would like to lay out here, were missed.

During the Oct. 20, 2025 meeting the City Council was supposed to discuss the rezoning of a parcel across the street from Robert Bennis Elementary school (RBE) from NRC (Natural Resources Conservation) to GB (General Business), which had been recommended by the Planning & Zoning Commission. The representatives of the cell tower company spoke at lengths about and answered questions from City Council members on their search for a construction site and their plans for the project, for a total of about 53 minutes. A couple of citizens voiced their concerns about the construction of the cell tower and the choice of the project site. I think there were only two members of the community present because, like me, most citizens were probably unaware that this issue had resurfaced.

The key moment during the Oct. 25, 2025 meeting, in my opinion, was when the cell tower company’s executive openly threatened a lawsuit against the City of Brandon if the rezoning application was rejected. The grounds for this lawsuit according to the executive would be a federal law called the “Telecommunications Act” of 1996, which prohibits any local government from taking any health effects of RF emissions from telecommunication equipment on its community members into consideration.

I was stunned to learn about this detail of the Telecommunications Act. But I looked it up and it is true. The federal government decided that from that point in time on no local government could decide against the proliferation of digital communication technology on the bases of environmental or health concerns. And consequently, what happened: No meaningful further studies of health effects of RF emissions from wireless telecommunication were undertaken. Since 1996, digital communication technology has evolved tremendously (from 2G, 3G, 4G, now 5G, soon 6G) but the rules for approval have been mostly stuck in the 1990s. A couple of rhetorical questions: Why, do you think, the federal government felt compelled to give the telecommunication industry quasi immunity at a time when this technology was not even on many people’s radar? Why did the telecommunication industry install most of their 5G infrastructure while a majority of the country was under lock down in 2020?

Forward now to the Nov. 3, 2025, City Council meeting, where the second reading of the rezoning application was to take place. The mayor specifically said that public comments should be held until the agenda item is up for discussion. This time there were at least five families present to voice their concerns. The City Council briefly heard from a member of the Planning & Zoning commission when all of a sudden there was a motion to pass, it was seconded, and voted on. There was no time for members of the community to step up to the podium to have their voices heard or any chance for any questions about the matter. It all happened so quickly that it took the citizens in the audience a few minutes to realize that they had just been sidelined by their city representatives. The City Council moved on with their business as if nothing had happened when a couple of citizens made their way to the podium and asked to give input about the rezoning agenda item.

Reluctantly, the mayor let one citizen speak for about three minutes before cutting her off. He pointed out that her comments about a cell phone tower were not matching any agenda item. Let that sink in for a moment, then consider these two points: No. 1, the concerned citizen was not allowed her five minutes to speak and no City Council member spoke up to hear her out. No. 2, during the previous meeting on Oct. 25, 2025 the cell tower company representatives were given more than 50 minutes to elaborate on their project. There was a lively discussion between them and City Council members. But this time with the same item on the agenda, the City Council did not want to hear anything about a cell tower. The double standard exhibited by our local elected leaders is astonishing. This was not open, democratic discourse, this was a theater production.

My take on the situation is that some members of the City Council feel a lot of pressure to get the rezoning passed, probably because they are afraid of a lawsuit, possibly because of other reasons. 

The good news is that the citizens of Brandon have another option to have their voices heard. There is a petition circulating to put the rezoning decision on the ballot for all Brandon residents to vote on. If you are concerned about a cell phone tower right across from two schools where more than 1,200 kids spent 7 hours of their day, please go to Laundry Evolved, 1302 E. Rushmore Dr. in Brandon (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Wednesday 8 a.m.-2 p.m. to sign the petition or send an email to manuelluschas@gmail.com to coordinate getting your signature on the petition. We need 400 signatures of registered Brandon residents by Dec. 3, 2025.