Dist. 211 makes $1.5 million phone deal
Not everything was about the turf Thursday night for Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211. It's also about the light poles.
Cell phone provider Cricket will pay District 211 more than $1.5 million to lease three light poles for 20 years. The sites are northeast light poles at Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg high schools and a center west light pole at Conant High School in Hoffman Estates. The board approved the pact Monday night in 4-to-1 vote, with members George Brandt and Anna Klimkowicz absent.
District 211 has made similar agreements with other cell phone carriers, including Verizon and Sprint, which already have access to stadium poles. Access to high-altitude points are in demand, as they offer better cell phone reception for customers.
Cricket, new to the area, plans to offer cell phone services starting on Dec. 9 for the Chicago-area market and the Minneapolis and Milwaukee areas, Cricket attorney Dennis Schermerhorn said.
Board member Bill Lloyd cast the only vote against the agreement. After reminding the board that he was not a medical doctor, he said he was concerned about possible health risks from exposing students to the towers. He also wondered if the district was getting enough money from the deal.
"Personally I don't know if it's good or bad," he said.
Ground-level exposure from radio-frequency radiation emitted by cell phone towers is typically "thousands of times less" than dangerous levels of radiation, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Schermerhorn said the poles in District 211 schools are about 70 feet tall, and Cricket doesn't plan on adding any height. The San Diego, Calif.-based company boasts 2.7 million customers across 23 states, making it the nation's eighth-largest cellular carrier, according to the Cricket Web site. Cricket is part of the Leap Wireless umbrella of companies.
Schermerhorn said Cricket plans on installing only about six cell phone towers throughout the Chicago area, instead placing signal receivers on existing structures like the stadium poles. About 850 receivers are planned in all for the Chicago area, he added. Schermerhorn said he's been to other meetings, needing to secure approvals from other municipalities including Elgin and Hanover Park.
New cell phone towers can sometimes be controversial. A proposal to build a 190-foot-tall tower in Barrington Hills angered some residents who complained the tower would obstruct sightlines and ruin the character of the neighborhood. Those plans were scrapped last year as the Barrington Hills Park District withdrew the proposal from consideration.