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Neighbors tell city to get rid of 'monstrosity'

Judith Scherr
Monday April 03, 2000

Daily Planet Staff 

 

When Josh Maddox hit the pillow on a Friday night, a couple of weeks ago, things seemed right with the world. 

When he woke up Saturday morning, the public safety building worksite not far from his home was abuzz with activity. By evening a 170-foot high, 20-foot wide – at the base – tower had been sunk into concrete, 25 feet into the ground. 

Along with Councilmember Dona Spring, Maddox and about 25 other neighbors, members of the McKinley Addison Grant Neighborhood Association, met with city officials to tell them what they thought of the “monstrosity” that landed without warning in their back or front yards. 

“My property value has gone down overnight,” Maddox said. “I don’t see the moon. I don’t see the sunrise. I’ve just taken a loss.” 

It looks like “something from a prison catalogue,” one of the neighbors said. Another remarked that the tower gives the residential area an industrial feel. A few dropped the word “lawsuit” – Spring said Friday that the group is talking to an attorney – and without exception, every speaker said it had to go. 

The police chief, director of capital projects, deputy director of public works and other top city brass were not unsympathetic. Still, they told the group, they have to bear the weight of responsibility of the city’s public safety needs. 

“In an earthquake or major fire, we will have the coverage we need,” Police Chief Dash Butler said. “This tower will improve police and fire response.” 

He said he understood the neighbors’ apprehensions. 

“How do we marry your concerns with ours? How do we put all that together?” he asked. 

Officials answered each of the questions. They can’t put the antenna atop the new civic center building, because when an earthquake rocks the building, the tower could topple, interrupting emergency services. That’s the advantage of setting it in concrete in the ground, they said. 

The height cannot be reduced, because the radio waves need to be able to get to the other side of the Berkeley hills, to areas like Wildcat Canyon. 

If the tower were moved, for example, to Berkeley’s industrial area, the new placement would cause radio wave interference with emergency channels in other jurisdictions. 

The explanations didn’t change the nearby residents’ minds. The sudden appearance of the tower, with no neighborhood input, infuriated them. They explained they felt the city had deceived them, especially given their close work with planners on a number of aspects of the project in its early stages. They said the city had listened to their ideas on fencing, landscaping and even the color of the building. 

But the tower, they said, had been sneaked in with no citizen review. They had believed the city when officials told that the plans were geared toward improving civic center, they said. 

But Capital Projects Manager John Rosenbrock told the group that the tower, even if it had been called an antenna, should not have come as a surprise. The plans “were noted on the (Environmental Impact Report) and shown in the drawings,” he said. “It always existed in its present state.” 

“It’s hard to believe you would want it near your house,” nearby neighbor Nancy Holland told the officials. “We have a sense of betrayal.”