Several people attended the Baldwin City Council work session Tuesday night for a public hearing on a proposed T-Mobile cell tower. Five people spoke in opposition to the tower that would be located near downtown Baldwin, in close proximity to Baldwin Elementary School and the Habersham County Airport.
Vertical Bridge wants to build the tower to improve cell service for residents in the area. Company attorney Mattaniah Jahn outlined the project for the city council and about a dozen residents who turned out for the hearing. Jahn told them Vertical Bridge looked at different locations around Baldwin. According to a study they conducted, she said the location at Traditions Drive would provide the best coverage.
Following Jahn’s presentation, Baldwin Mayor Stephanie Almagno opened the floor to anyone wanting to speak in favor of the proposed project. No one came forward. However, several filed to the podium when she opened the floor to those opposed to the cell tower.
Family concerned about health effects
Baldwin resident Mike Tope voiced his opposition to the cell tower. His property is next to the site where the tower would be located.
“We are adjacent to this property. We live right next to it. The cell tower that is proposed is roughly 298 feet from our house, not property, house. This will have a direct impact on me and my family especially,” Tope stated.
Tope worries about the potential negative health effects the radio frequency waves would have on his family. He referenced studies that conclude a recommended safe distance from a cell tower is 500 meters (1,640 feet).
“If this cell tower is approved, really, there is no doubt we would have to sell our house, and that would be devastating for us. This is our home. This is where we want to be,” Tope told the city council.
County concerned about airport safety
Ralph Taylor from the Taylor and Hunt Law Group, which represents Habersham County, spoke in opposition to the tower as it relates to airport safety for approaching and departing aircraft.
“I am here to voice the county’s concerns and objections to this variance application before you. We believe this tower is going to present a clear and present danger to the operations of the airport,” Taylor stated.
He explained to the council that the tower would be a 300-foot obstruction within one mile of the airport, with planes taking off and landing.
Taylor added that the city’s ordinance contained an airport overlay district. In that ordinance, it provides language that the airport should receive notice of this type of application to elicit comments on how this tower may affect the airport.
“For those reasons, we would ask the council to consider denying the application,” said Taylor.
Airport Commission ‘strongly against’ cell tower
Baldwin resident and former Habersham County Commissioner Andrea Harper added her voice to the chorus of opponents. She assisted with Baldwin’s comprehensive plan and said she was honored to have done so. However, “This is actually against your comp plan. It says that you will respect and maintain your neighborhood residential areas.”
“So not only are you tempting fate with your comp plan, but you’re also going against your actual overlay district ordinance,” said Harper. “I am asking that you vote against the tower at any height and against the variance.”
Habersham County Airport Commission Vice-Chairman D. Higgins also addressed the council.
“I just want to get on the record that the Habersham County Airport Commission is against the tower being placed there,” he said.
Higgins added, “We are strongly against the tower. It may not be a hazard per se for navigation, but if you’re flying and you lose an engine and you have to turn quickly to get back to the runway, you don’t want a 250-foot obstacle in your way.”
Baldwin Councilmember Maarten Venter pointed out that the airport has helicopters landing and taking off from the airport that don’t utilize the runway flight path. They are able to enter and depart from the airport in all directions.
Councilmember appears skeptical
Local attorney Doug McDonald expressed his concern over the letter issued by the FAA stating that they determined that there was no hazard to air navigation. He explained the FAA could not compel the council to approve the application.
“The FAA letter cannot tell you what to do. They can’t make you give a permit. They do not govern the city of Baldwin,” he told city leaders.
McDonald also stated that to have a civilized society, we must have rules. “T-Mobile is asking you to change your rules,” he said.
Jahn agreed with McDonald, stating that the FAA can’t tell the council what to do, but she added that the FAA can tell Vertical Bridge not to build the tower.
Councilman Venter stated that he understood the need for cell service in the area.
“We have to keep in mind that this is more than just technology. I understand. I work with cell signals every day. I understand the difficulties.”
However, Venter appeared skeptical about the tower’s proposed location.
“You’ve got these two towers on either side of Baldwin, and they’re outside the city limits, and now you want to plant this giant tower in the middle of Baldwin,” he said. Venter continued, “It seems to me that there’s plenty of other options available. I’m sure there’s something else that can be done other than slapping that tower in the middle of Baldwin.”
Jahn explained after the meeting the need for the cell tower in the area.
“I presented the case before the council. There’s a lack of coverage in the area, and it’s needed.”
Next steps
Before Vertical Bridge can build the cell tower, it must first get the council to approve a special use permit and variance.
The permit would allow the company to build the cell tower on property zoned R-1, residential, which is not currently allowed. The variance would allow Vertical Bridge to build the tower nearly 100 feet higher than the current 165-foot limit.
City council members will discuss both matters again at their meeting on Feb. 12. They’ll hear the first reading of the proposed ordinance that would allow construction to proceed. The council is due to make its final decision on Feb. 26.
Vertical Bridge has encouraged the Baldwin City Council to approve the first reading as a matter of procedure. The company says it can have a representative available on Feb. 26 to answer any FAA questions ahead of the council’s final vote.
The Baldwin City Council next meets at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 12 in the Baldwin Municipal Courtroom at 155 Willingham Avenue.
Bookman: As Georgia hands out big tax breaks, state leaders flunk Medicaid expansion math
There is no cogent economic, political, practical or moral justification for the state of Georgia to continue to reject expansion of Medicaid.
There are no more lame excuses, no more what-ifs or just-supposes. There is only cruel obstinance.
Forty states have implemented the program, bringing health care to hundreds of thousands of their citizens and billions of federal dollars to their communities; only 10, including Georgia, continue to balk.
We’ve been told for a decade or more that Georgia couldn’t afford it, yet much poorer states such as Arkansas and West Virginia have managed to swing the expense, and our state’s coffers are now brimming with a $6 billion surplus. We can afford it.
Last year alone, we could afford to give tax subsidies to the film industry worth $1.3 billion, which, according to a state audit, generates less than 20 cents on the dollar in additional state revenue. We could afford to give Rivian $1.5 billion in state and local tax subsidies for its electric-vehicle plant. But we supposedly cannot afford $350 million to cover the state’s share of Medicaid expansion, even though it will bring back literally ten times that much in federal money and provide health insurance for almost half a million Georgians who today have no coverage.
That’s $3.6 billion in federal money left on the table by Georgia each and every year, money that, among other things, would help save struggling rural hospitals that are the economic and medical lifelines of their communities. Think of the lives that could have been saved and improved, the pain and illness eased over that time, but were not.
Over the years, we’ve also been warned that Obamacare would turn out to be a disaster, that it would be repealed and leave the state holding the bag. Well, that didn’t happen and isn’t going to happen. Some 40 million Americans now use Obamacare to provide health insurance, and for the most part, they’re happy with it. In a poll last year for the Kaiser Family Foundation, 59% of American adults reported having a favorable opinion of Obamacare. These days, getting 59% of Americans to agree in support of anything is a minor miracle. And when Donald Trump recently issued a call for repeal of Obamacare should he win election, the response from his usually cult-like fellow Republicans was silence. They wanted no part of that argument.
In other words, like Medicare and Social Security, Obamacare is here to stay.
We also know that none of the 40 states that have expanded Medicaid has become the boiling cesspool of socialism predicted by Obamacare’s opponents. There are no “death panels,” no “death spiral” of costs, and most participating states have cut their uninsured population by at least half.
And what about Georgia and the other nine states that still refuse to participate?
Eight of those 10 states, including Georgia, have life expectancies below the national average.
Nine of the 10 have maternal mortality rates well above the national average, which is tragic because experts say 80% of such deaths are preventable. (Georgia has the nation’s seventh-highest rate of maternal death.)
Nine of the 10 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid, including Georgia, have higher-than-average rates of premature death, meaning people who die before reaching age 75.
Most states that have rejected expansion, including Georgia, have higher-than-average rates of infant mortality. (According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Georgia was one of just five states in which infant mortality rose significantly from 2021 to 2022.)
Of the 10 states with the highest rates of uninsured, eight have rejected Medicaid expansion. (Georgia has the nation’s third-highest rate of uninsured.)
Confronted with such overwhelming evidence, Georgia Republicans offer no real explanation or justification for their stubborn refusal to help their own constituents.
They offer none because none exists. As in most other states that have refused expansion, they are captives to an archaic mindset that still sees working people not as human beings with human needs but as units of production that must be kept lean and uncertain to guarantee maximum economic efficiency.