Eric Mack On-Line

I remember hearing last year that there were plans to build a large radio communications tower in Pine Mountain Club. I don't remember where I heard this number, or if it was even true, but I thought the proposed tower was to be 80' tall. In any case, the antenna tower fell off my radar until I opened this week's Mountain Enterprise to see, on  the front page, that I missed the PMC forum set up to discuss this proposed new tower. According to the newspaper article, the proposed tower is to be 150' tall, plus, I assume, whatever antennas they may place on top. Apparently (and I do not have facts to quote) the proposed tower will be situated at a location next to or at the transfer station.

I wonder what a 150' antenna tower will look like in our beautiful village?  150' seems like a very tall tower for the intended site. Pine Mountain Club has been unable to hide the RVs in the RV lot and I think they are each probably less than 10 feet tall. I wonder what a tower as tall as 10 or 12 RV's would look like? It might be kind of hard to hide this size of a tower in such a prominent location. I think it would be amusing if they decide to erect a huge palm or pine tree in the forest. I might even cheer for that. According to the article in the paper, however, a stealth tower is not in the proposal. The newspaper says it will be your typical grey metal "lattice" tower.

I have mixed feelings about the proposed tower. For one, I stand to benefit greatly from the potential services that might be offered via this new tower, and it certainly would be helpful to have cellular phone coverage in our community. At the same time, I wonder, as I did last year: how will cell phones affect our community? I suppose only time will tell. Still, I wonder what the tower will look like. Will I have to look at a flashing beacon each night? Is there anther location that would be equally suitable but less of an eye sore? I don't know.

I drove down to the clubhouse, this evening, to see if they had any information; I was told that all of the information packets had been given out at the meeting. That's what I get for coming late to the game. I think, tomorrow, I'll take some pictures from my house and try to extrapolate to determine what such a tall metal lattice tower might look like, with or without a stack of white cellular radio panels attached.

No sense speculating, I'm going to attempt to get some facts, and, if you have any questions, I hope that you will do the same. The newspaper provided only one contact person for this proposed antenna tower project:

Anjanette M. Simon, Planner 1 (661)862-8621
Kern County Planning Department
2700 "M" Street, Suite 100
Bakersfield, CA 93301

Reference CUP (Conditional use permit) #14, MAP #239; ZV #24, MAP#239

I plan to get in touch with them to see if they have an information package about this project. I'll also go out on the web and see if I can locate a web site for Com-Plus, the company that is listed in the paper. I'd like to talk to someone with facts before I come to any conclusions.

I wonder if the people proposing to erect the new tower would be willing, as a part of their agreement with our community, to plant cypress trees around the entire RV lot to shield us from the unsightly RV's? Then, the addition of a new tower would in fact enhance the beauty of our forest community, rather than add to the blight provided by the transfer station.  Just an idea.

Tomorrow, time permitting, I'll contact Kern county and the tower company to see what I can learn. I think I'll also take some photos of the proposes site, from my deck, just in case I want to remember what the view looked like before.