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Long Island Village Receives $200,000 a Year for Placing Antennas Near Schools

Letter from Councilman Peter Vallone re. Bayville Antennas: Download letter

 

Bayville Water TowerBayville, LI residents are mad. Their children have to go to school across the street from a water tower covered with cell phone antennas. Parents are distraught. It is believed that as much as 30% of the teachers, staff and employees have some type of illness, cancer, leukemia etc. Homeowners are filing a federal civil rights law suit on Monday in the U.S. District Court in Central Islip asking the court to force removal of 50 antennas attached to the water tower across the street from the elementary school.

 

Fortunately for this village, they may succeed. The property on which the water tower sits was donated to the town with a deed that limits use of the property: the property can not be used for any commercial enterprise or in any manner which would be “obnoxious, dangerous or offensive” to homeowners situated within one mile of the property. Homeowners are requesting a judge declare that Sec 704 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which limits state and local governments rights to restrict antennas on health or environmental grounds, does not preempt enforcement of their private property rights. While most other cases of residents opposing antennas are hard to win because of Sec. 704, Bayville may have a chance because of the terms of the deed accompanying the donated land.

 

The village of Bayville, a part of the greater Locust Valley area that sits on beautiful Long Island Sound,receives $200,000 per year in revenues for allowing the antennas to be placed next to the school where students and teachers are getting sick. Tremendous conflicts of interest exist when schools are offered money for this purposes. But in many cases, the schools just don’t know there is a danger.

 

 

All eyes on Bayville. Read full story below.

 

BAYVILLE, N.Y. (WPIX) – A lawsuit is set to be filed Monday alleging that the cancer afflicting students and teachers of a Bayville school is caused by the dozens of cell phoneantennas attached to a nearby water tower.

 

Three young students of Bayville Primary School have already died of leukemia and many more are sick.

 

“We believe as much as 30 percent of the teachers, administrative staff and employees have been diagnosed with some type of illness, cancer, leukemia and things of that nature,” said Attorney Andrew Campanelli.

 

A brief email to WPIX from the school district denies Campanelli’s statement.

 

However, the cell phone antennas are a painful reminder for Beverly Pacifico, whose son Mitchell, a student at Bayville, recently won a painful two-year battle with leukemia.

 

“My son went through 102 weeks of chemotherapy,” Pacifico said. His leukemia has been in remission for the past two years.

 

Bayville is a public school, and those parents in the district without the financial means to enroll their child in a private school face a terrible decision.

 

Madeleine Parrin, whose requests to transfer her children to neighboring public schools were denied, said, “It kills me every day when I drop them off or send them on the bus to go to that school.”

 

The lawsuit seeks to have the antennas removed, citing a village law that states that public property near a school or within a mile of residences cannot be used for profit. The cell phone antennas bring $200 thousand annually to the village coffers.

 

So far, the mayor of Bayville has not returned phone calls from WPIX.

 

Download Press Release

 

Article by Bayville Resident Dr. Joseph Digennaro, retired Professor of Health Education at
Hofstra, CW Post and City University of New York (Download PDF)

 

Sign Petition from B.R.A.C.T.- Bayville Residents Against Cell Towers
http://www.smalltownblog.com/bayvilleblog/bract.pdf