Declare Emergency Moratorium on All New Wireless Infrastructure and Infrastructure Permits Until the Covid-19 Emergency is Over

Dear Mayor, City Council Members and Elected Officials:

As a resident of your city and/or district, I ask that you impose a temporary Emergency Moratorium on the permitting and deploying of any new “small cell” and/or other wireless telecommunication facilities (WTF), including infrastructure and site development, until our city has fully recovered from the current State of Emergency.

Please follow the precedent of numerous cities, namely the City of Simi Valley, and Ventura, CA and Keene, NH that have put a hold on accepting WTF applications. These cities are in compliance with our National State of Emergency and have judged all non-essential activity to be discontinued until further notice. This notice is to urge you too to become compliant and cease and desist with any new “small cell” and WTF infrastructure.

In the event of a crisis, the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) wireless permit rules state that emergency moratoria may be imposed to protect the public safety.¹ The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) guidelines indicate that the maintenance of existing communications capability is the priority, not new construction.²

This pandemic underlines the need to prioritize our health and safety. Indeed, thousands of peer reviewed scientific studies confirm Radiation Frequency (RF) is directly linked to biological damage, cancer and disruption of the immune system. Therefore, it is critical that we suspend and freeze the applications of all new or pending “small cell” WTFs or modification of WTFs, including the construction of any new site development infrastructure for the placement of WTFs that emit RF, until our community can fully participate in the process. For these reasons, I want to be included in the planning of any and all new and upgraded WTF sites. I respectively request your response in writing.

I support the use of proven safe technologies, including the ratepayer funded national fiber-optic cable infrastructure in commercial and residential areas. I oppose the deployment of unsafe technologies, including wireless 5G radiation.

In closing, I thank you for your oath of office, and for exercising prudent government oversight to protect our community.

Sincerely,

Your Name
Address
Phone

Footnotes

1. In the Matter of Accelerating Wireline Broadband Deployment by Removing Barriers, FCC 18-111, 33 FCC Rcd 7705, 7784-7785, ¶157 (2018) (“We recognize that there may be limited situations in the case of a natural disaster or other comparable emergency where an express or de facto moratoria that violates section 253(a) may nonetheless be ‘necessary’ to ‘protect the public safety and welfare’ or to ‘ensure the continued quality of telecommunications services.’”)
   
   
2. See Homeland Security Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, Identifying Critical Infrastructure During COVID-19, https://www.cisa.gov/identifying-critical-infrastructure-during-covid-19.