By JOSEPH KELLARD
The meeting followed a hearing before the Town of Hempstead Zoning Board of Appeals on Feb. 6 regarding Nextel Communication's filing for permission to install a dozen cell phone antennas in the community. Nextell also wants to build an equipment shelter atop a building at the corner of Long Beach Road and West Windsor Parkway, which houses Ocean Chemist pharmacy and two stories of apartment buildings.
At the Feb. 6 meeting, the opposition successfully lobbied the Zoning Board to postpone the installation so that they could present their own experts to counter Nextel.
The meeting at Boardman was attended mostly by people against Nextel's proposal and Nassau County Legislators Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside), Joseph Scannell (D-Baldwin) and Michael Zapson (D-Long Beach). Also speaking on the issue were Vicki Rosenberg and Christine Marzigliano, civic activists who will act as the oppositions' experts at the next Town hearing in April.
"Cell phone technology is something that his here to stay," Rosenberg said in her opening comments. "So our goal must be to get cell towers and antennas away from places like schools, hospitals and residents."
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 does not permit arguments regarding health problems allegedly caused by cell phone technologies before government bodies--such as zoning boards--since no proof exists that they cause such harm, Rosenberg said. Instead, they can be opposed on the grounds of depreciation to the aesthetics and property values of the neighborhoods where cell towers and antennas are mounted, she told the audience.
During their slide presentation, Rosenberg and Marzigliano showed various kinds of towers and antennas, the different buildings or areas where they are mounted, and how they can be concealed by posing as flag poles. Rosenberg and Marzigliano proposed that the towers and antennas be mounted on commercial and industrial properties or along highways, instead of near or on residential, hospital and especially schools properties.
These activists drove around Oceanside to survey the town and determined that the areas least populated by residential property and schools were along Atlantic Avenue and at the Triangle on Long Beach Road and Davison and Lincoln Avenues.
Some residents pointed out that a day care center and some apartments are in the vicinity of the Oceanside Triangle, and that there is a school at St. Anthony's Church a block from where Nextel proposes to mount its antennas.
Toback suggested to Nextel that they consider mounting their equipment on the Columbia Fire House on Smith Street, which he believes is geographically ideal and would not interfere with the beepers and other technologies at the firehouse.
Some business owners were as concerned about having the antennas in commercial areas as in residential.
"I'm concerned about these antennas being put up above my store when one of my employees had leukemia," said Jorge Winter, owner of Ocean Chemist.
Robert Abes, who lives nearby Winter's store, told the audience that he believes there was little or nothing to be concerned about.
"Everybody is talking about how to fight this 'great fight,' which I don't see as anything of that great importance," he told the Herald. "Aesthetically, the area is fairly commercial and is not anything of great beauty, so I don't think a few antennas, most of which will be hidden behind a wall, are going to destroy the character of the area. I think that the energy levels of the antennas are extremely low. So I don't see any big health issue here. And since the health concerns are tied to property value concerns, I don't see any reason why the property values should be effected."
Toback said that he would like to form similar community meetings before the next Town hearing on April 16.
