Andover mayor joins opponents of cell phone tower

City leader Mike Gamache had a change of heart on T-Mobile's plan to install a tower in Prairie Knoll Park, but the council moved a modified proposal ahead.

By MARIA ELENA BACA, Star Tribune

Last update: October 13, 2009 - 4:55 PM

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A new cell phone tower has moved closer to landing a home in an Andover park, but not before one anticipated supporter had a change of heart.

At last Tuesday's City Council meeting, about 25 residents turned out to argue against the city's proposal to put the tower in Prairie Knoll Park. Andover Mayor Mike Gamache went into the meeting assuming he'd vote for a tower there, but by night's end, he was swayed to vote with the residents, but perhaps for a different reason.

The rest of the council, meanwhile, voted to have city staff members finalize plans for a location within the park, although different from the one initially proposed. The contract, which could bring about $15,000 from T-Mobile into park coffers, will come back for a vote Oct. 20.

Andover has an ordinance meant to keep cell phone towers out of small, neighborhood parks. Right now, most of the city's seven towers are on private property. Two that are adjacent to park areas are high atop water towers.

Originally, T-Mobile and city staff proposed placing the antenna atop a light post on the northwest corner of the Prairie Knoll Park football field, about 380 feet from neighbors' homes. The Parks Commission and City Council agreed it would be better to put the equipment as close as possible to the park's northeast corner, about 600 feet from the nearest house and near an existing industrial area on Prairie Road. City staff members are working with T-Mobile to pinpoint a location before the next meeting.

But Gamache already knows how he'll vote.

He wasn't convinced by the soliloquies of those who had ferreted out information about a possible link between radio waves and cancer.

What got him thinking hard was the resident who asked how he'd feel if he lived across the street from a park with an unsightly tower and accompanying utility building thrown up on it.

"I spent a lot of years with the Andover Athletic Association, working on parks," Gamache said. "Like Sunshine Park. We raised money, did the work, laid sod. I'd be a little upset if we were doing that at Sunshine Park." And one thought led to another.

Gamache said that from this point forward he's going to work against putting up cell phone towers in any park.

"I thought, maybe we shouldn't be just doing this for financial reasons," he went on. "We have to find other ways to fund our parks, and I don't think this is the best way to do it."

Maria Elena Baca • 612-673-4409

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