National 5G “Smart” City Grid Roll-Out Meets Resistance from Residents
Press Release
Contact press@momsacrossamerica
Trump’s recent funding of Secure 5G and Beyond Act funded a massive nationwide roll-out of 5G. Across the nation, residents are reporting 4/5G cell towers being erected on school property and in their neighborhoods. On Monday July 13, 2020, residents of Mission Viejo, CA, including Moms Across America director Zen Honeycutt, described the proceedings of the Planning Commissioner hearing portion of 4/5G discussion as “shocking” and “outrageous”.
After spending 4 hours on a housing development application, the Commissioners rushed through a public comment in 15 minutes to approve two applications for 4/5G cell towers. These cell towers will eventually be upgraded to 5G and begin a process of creating a “Smart” City Grid in Mission Viejo, which will likely include thousands of additional cell towers. Studies show that cancer, infertility, and serious health implications occur near cell towers. Residents attempted to ask for a Cease and Desist Resolution as Easton, CT has done, and for pollution insurance, to protect the city residents and the city coffers from potential lawsuits due to harm from the radiation. The Commissioner Chair, Robert D. Breton, however, who claimed they cannot consider health implications, asked the City Attorney if it was within his legal right to determine that the public comments addressing health or radiation emissions should be disregarded. The City Attorney, Bill Curley, wholeheartedly agreed.
Any future “small” cell towers could, according to the current ordinance, be as close as 33 feet from homes and every 500 feet on sidewalks, exposing residents to constant radiation and data collection. “What was clear tonight to residents was that the City Commissioners, especially the City Attorney, found any comments about the health or constant radiation emissions from the cell towers to be ‘superfluous’ and excessive,’” stated resident Zen Honeycutt, mother of 3 children with autoimmune conditions. “My husband and I were shocked to see them dismiss and rush through the resident’s public comments, with the City Staff member only partially reading 4 out of 10 of them, and completely ignoring a call for public comment.”
Caller Mark Graham, who wished to address points of incompletions of the application such as City of Mission Viejo Municipal Code section 9.30.025. stated, “I was on hold for 24 minutes, hung up and called back twice, and no one picked up. I was not heard. The City Commissioners did NOT follow the Ralph M. Brown Act on receiving public comments during tonight's meeting.”
Twenty-three-year resident Lorrie Rudolph was able to call in and point out that California law AB-57, passed in 2015 exempted firefighter facilities and fire stations from cell antennas. “If they don’t want it, why should we?” she asked. To this day, the International Fire Fighters Association maintains opposition to the installation of cell towers on their premises due to highly documented health implications.
Rudolph also asserted that the city has a responsibility to maintain a safe learning environment, keeping cell towers, (which has also been shown to weaken the immune system in studies by Beiger 1990, Dmoch 1998, Moszczynski 1999, Yuan 200) away from schools. In 2019 in Ripon, CA four students and three teachers came down with cancer after a cell tower was installed on their school property. The towers were later taken down after parents protested.
City Attorney Bill Curley took “great offense” to Mrs. Honeycutt’s comments when she called in, calling her “that woman” and “nutty”. Mrs. Honeycutt stated after the meeting, “For a servant of the City to use borderline misogynistic language and to name-call a resident in a public hearing is highly offensive, unprofessional, and not deserving of a position representing the city of Mission Viejo. It would behoove the city to remove this attorney from his position.” “To see the City Attorney tell the City Commissioners that they ‘have a higher obligation to fulfill the rights of the applicant over the rights of the residents’ (for health and safety) is basically saying that people, we have a corporatocracy here, AT&T gets to tell Mission Viejo Commissioners what to do, and if children and residents get cancer, males go sterile, well, it doesn’t matter because the city has zero exposure to liability.”
City Attorney Curley said, “We should do the right thing,” (for ATT) referring to issuing the application. He did, however, agree that the city ordinance could be changed, which was what Honeycutt and other residents have been asking for six months. Honeycutt clarified, “We are simply asking for the city to do the right thing for the residents. Pass a cease and desist until the technology is proven safe, protecting the residents over the preferences of the corporations. We don’t want faster download speeds and data collection to come at the cost of serious health conditions, sterility, and cancer.”
Moms Across America is a 501c3 non-profit whose mission is to educate and empower mothers and others with actions and solutions to create healthy communities. Visit www.momsacrossamerica.org.
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In the comment below, yes they are rolling out satellites, but the small cell sites are the triggers. With out those , the satellites s do not have a point to connect too. When we do not stop this now, they are already proposing MMw (millimeter wave) antennas on residential roofs without any due process. This means they can trespass and put an antenna on your roof that is many times 5G. Other than moving, EMFRocks.com Grounding Bags are the only real solution to repel it and help you sleep.
Just so you know, when you sleep your brainwave state is at 1-4Hz or waves per second. 5G is 60-90 Billion waves/sec. MMw is about 200 Billion waves/sec. You will not ever sleep if this is anywhere near your property. Then there is the cumulative effect of nuclear power plants, small cell sites, SMART Meters, Wifi, all your in-home wireless devices. The cumulative effect of all these is 50X 5G. The satellite grid is already equivalent to 6G as the wattage uses has to be massive. Then we need to talk about the excess electricity and environmental impact, privacy issues from facial recognition and more.
Simple question and a good question but long and complicated answer. The answer involves the operations of local government, which is affected by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and also state law. The first step would be to find out if your city has amended its municipal code or made a master license agreement with any of the telecommunications companies to provide for the permitting of cell antennas, or both. And whether they have issued any permits. The less of this that they have done the better your chances of getting involved and getting other residents involved and influencing what the City does. It sounds like there has been a code amendment or MLA or both and permits. Once the permit is issued it is much harder to fight these. Cities really do have broad regulatory power over the public right of way but many city attorneys and council members are clueless and choose to remain clueless because they are told they can’t do anything and that the telecoms can sue them. There is a grain of truth in that, but only a grain.
Feel free to contact me about this. I know this issue like the back of my hand from fighting it since February, 2017. I am not an attorney, just a resident advocate and activist.
Mark Graham
http://www.keepcellantennasawayfromourelkgrovehomes.org/
[email protected]
They were in such a hurry to rush through the public comments so that they could vote to approve these cell antennas. They did not even read the written public comments that people had sent them. One staff member read a few lines here and there, quickly, and then said, “He talks about health effects” as a way of dismissing the rest of the letter or all of it. With the housing development the Chair announced that interested people could call in and gave the phone number for the Planning and Transportation Commission. He never did that with the cell antenna items (items 5 and 6).
The Chair asked the hired engineer, Bill Hammett, if he had heard anything during public comments that would make him change his mind about the electromagnetic radiation and health effects from these cell antennas. Hammett said no. But the Chair and city attorney had prevented people from making any comments on that subject. They had refused to read the public comments that people had sent in on that subject. So obviously Hammett did not hear anything on that subject. The meeting ended at about 11:57 p.m. I wrote to all of the Commissioners and city manager telling them I had been on hold waiting to give my public comments and nobody ever picked up the phone, and that the Commission had done a terrible job with public comments. None of them replied to my email. It was outrageous behavior.
Mark Graham
Keep Cell Antennas Away From Our Elk Grove Homes