Cell tower heights being reduced?

A recent trend that I find disturbing is municipalities and national parks caving (no pun intended) to public pressure and either requesting or demanding that cell tower lessees reduce the height of an already permitted and approved cell tower. A recent news article run by the Associated Press “Yellowstone officials want cell tower shortened” contains a story of Yellowstone officials who are requesting the Western Wireless reduce the height of an tower built a year or two ago. Apparently, the parks department did not possess the foresight to regulate the type of tower when they originally approved it.

So when a bunch of angry citizen’s started organizing the park felt that there was only one way to solve the problem- request a reduction of height. Because of the park’s cell tower lease /license agreement, I assume that the request was more of a demand.

Another article that I read recently has a group of citizen’s threatening to boycott Nextel because Nextel built a cell tower on a school district parcel, meeting all the requirements of the ordinance. After the tower went up, the citizens who failed to address the site previously, rallied with an uninformed state representative and a mayor to protest the tower by organizing a boycott of Nextel. Apparently, using the legal system was not an issue- BECAUSE NEXTEL DID NOTHING WRONG. So instead of changing the ordinances that allow this type of thing, these two politicians decide that a boycott is there strategic move. Allegedly because they are scared for their children, presumably because they were forced to do something to prove to the angry mob that they were capable of action.

The NIMBY’s are becoming NTWIMBYs- Not That Way In My Back Yard.