In a little bit of a surprise, a non budget item that was included in the Wisconsin 2013-2105 budget is ticking off a few people in Brookfield and River Hills. It seems that without any debate whatsoever, the REPUBLICANS took another swipe a local control by preventing local municipalities from enacting laws restricting cell towers. Go figure!
With the new regulations, signed into law as part of the state budget, local governments can no longer deny wireless tower permits solely for aesthetic reasons, limit the height of towers to under 200 feet, or require that antennas and structures such as water towers be placed on public property.
No public hearings were held on the cell tower provisions included in the budget.
And River Hills isn’t going to take this lying down:
The Village of River Hills, one of the wealthiest suburbs in Milwaukee County, may challenge the new rules in court, said Village President Robert Brunner.
“We have a long-standing ordinance that says cellular towers can only be erected on village-owned property. We want to prevent towers and antennas from being put on schools, churches and other locations,” Brunner said, adding that the village receives more than $200,000 a year in lease fees from wireless providers.
And who do you think thought this was a good idea?
Unless a wireless company wants to put a tower in the middle of the street, there’s not much a municipality can do about it, said Barry Orton, a telecommunications professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“This was a bill that was written by AT&T and the other cellular providers. As a result, we are going to see a lot more cell towers in places we wouldn’t have seen them otherwise. It’s going to be visual pollution that we have to live with,” Orton said.
And just like residency requirement nullification, this issue isn’t restricted to Milwaukee or the Milwaukee area (although Milwaukee gets the brunt of the press):
The League of Wisconsin Municipalities objected to the changes that took effect July 1, saying they were an example of state government meddling in local affairs, and the League asked Gov. Scott Walker to veto them in the budget.
It’s kinda interesting when a place like Brookfield, a hardcore Governor Walker area, gets caught up in the Governor’s broken promise to leave pork and non-fiscal items out of HIS budget bills…
They never complain unless one of Walker’s atrocities are in their own backyards. Maybe they now know how the people up north feel about the obliteration of the Penokee Ridge and the two watersheds it will contaminate for decades. Then again, maybe now, since they can’t see it from their houses.
It is amazing that these folks don’t see the plutocracys influence on the current administration. It seems that the residents of River Hills ,Brookfield, Elm Brook,etc only complain when their ox is being gored….I doubt they will see that the big corporate donors are the ones who really run this state….Just wait until their well water is tainted by the sulphuric acid in the Lake Superior watershed which supplies ALL of the water,whether municipal or private well water down the center of the state….
Just wait until the high capacity wells come to town and they find out that the governor and his henchmen have taken away the ability of local governments to have any say in whether or not these high capacity wells will be allowed in their town. Local control is one of the Republican’s signature issues but then again so was balancing the budget and the Walker administration also exempted themselves from that too in the last budget bill. Where is the outrage? Are they paying attention or are they just trusting that the Walker administration will do the right thhing?
Wisconsin has a big lift here if we are to surive, quite literally, our water is going to be extracted and sold to the highest bidder. This will leave us thirsty and hungry. Normal election won’t do we need the people to rise up and throw these bums out of office. Just yesterday there was a report about the governor making a deal with Israel to sell them our water.
Apathy and evil. The two work hand in hand. They are the same, really…. Evil wills it. Apathy allows it. Evil hates the innocent and the defenseless most of all. Apathy doesn’t care as long as it’s not personally inconvenienced. -JAKE THOENE, Shaiton’s Fire