Company Drops Plans for Radio Tower on Playground

MONTROSE — Parents protesting construction of a 70-foot radio tower on their children’s school playground won their fight Wednesday as a cellular phone company dropped its development plans.

The retreat by Nextel Communications came as a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled that a permit issued earlier this year for the tower was invalid because parents at Holy Redeemer School were not notified in time to argue against it at a county hearing in January.

The resulting dispute caused a rift among parishioners at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church that eventually embroiled Cardinal Roger Mahony.

Parents sued after the church balked at canceling a contract with Nextel, with Mahony suggesting they should be “thrilled and grateful” to have the tower’s $1,200 monthly rent.

Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne ruled that a county hearing notice issued in December was wrongly posted on Montrose Avenue near the front of the church when it should have been posted on Del Mar Road in front of the school.

Parents said they learned of the project only after the school’s principal glanced out the window in February and noticed construction workers driving stakes into the 50-year-old school’s small playground.

Parents contended the tower, surrounded by a block wall topped by barbed wire, would take up valuable playground space and possibly expose children to harmful radiation.

Officials suspended the construction permit in April when parents complained to county Supervisor Mike Antonovich. He appealed directly to Mahony to terminate the agreement between Nextel and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Mahony replied that about 30 parishes in the archdiocese already have similar cellular towers and “parishioners are thrilled and grateful to have them located on their grounds.”

Mahony was reported Wednesday to be in Rome. A spokesman for the archdiocese had no comment. A Nextel spokesman said the company is pursuing an alternate tower site north of the campus.

“We’re trying to keep everyone happy,” said Don Girskis, vice president of engineering for Nextel.

Parents’ lawyer David Smythe, whose own children attend the school, said the company has promised to notify Holy Redeemer parents when a new site is selected.

The plaintiff in the lawsuit was Joanna Pringle, a Glendale mother of two pupils at the school. She said the families of about 80 of the school’s 250 students had indicated they would not return their children to the school next fall if the tower was built.

But she said the mood on campus Wednesday, the last day of the school year, was jubilant.

“People are ecstatic. There was a chaos of delight at the news,” Pringle said.