The signal from Walden residents is loud and clear: they do not want the Bible Broadcasting Network-owned radio tower on Olsen Avenue to continue to function. But that is not the issue at stake, even though the company’s engineer admittedly has safety concerns about the existing tower.
Due to “unknown” structural soundness, company representative Michael Raley came before the Board of Mayor and Aldermen to request a permit to upgrade the tower. Whether or not the permit is granted will not determine the existence of the tower, only its longevity in its current state.
“I’ve seen a lot of zoning things go on and it’s a very uphill battle to try to make somebody remove a tower that has an existing [Federal Communications Commission] license and is a broadcast facility,” said Chad Stiles, a Walden resident who owns a company that builds and maintains towers. “Practically, more than likely something is going to be sitting there. It’s either going to be something old or something new are sort of the options I see. At least if you put a new tower up you know what you have.”
Raley said just performing structural tests on the existing tower would cost as much as constructing a new one, so he prefers the latter. With $2.5 million invested in the tower, tearing it down is not an option, he said.
“With radio broadcasting, it’s not a matter of where you put a tower, it’s a matter of the frequency you have to protect,” he explained. “If we move the tower there’s a possibility it would interrupt another station and the FCC won’t grant me another license, so I could build the tower anywhere else but I might not be able to broadcast from there.”
He pointed out that the tower has been in its current location for several decades, and that most of the surrounding residents bought their homes after it had been constructed.
Many citizens in attendance at the meeting said while they may have known about the tower, they did not know they would constantly be subjected to the interference it creates within their homes.
“When you move in and buy a home, you don’t know until you’re living in that home that, hey, when I turn on my baby monitor I get religious programming. When I try listen to the stereo in my own living room I can’t hear half the local stations,” said Lisa Deiter, who lives one street over from Olsen.
Many suggested the tower be moved to a less populated area.
“I don’t know what was going on 50 or 60 years ago when they built this tower, but it’s not the same community,” said Deiter. “It’s a residential area now. There’s probably 10 times more people living there now.”
Raley said building a new tower, which would be required to meet the most current safety and operational standards, could help clear up frequency issues. It would also mean a blinking light be placed on top of the tower which most already consider an eyesore. Raley said this is a new requirement from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The proposed new tower would also be larger in diameter, adding to its safety but also to the irritation of the nearby residents who were in attendance at the meeting.
“Off the top of my head it’s maybe five or six feet wider,” said Stiles. “It’s going to be really nominal in terms of visual perception. Maybe we can reduce the footprint of the other tower and bring it closer to the size of the existing tower.”
Mayor Peter Hetzler noted that more visual aesthetics like fencing and plantings could be required if the town grants the upgrade permit.
“Nobody wants a tower, but nobody wants an airport,” he acknowledged. “In reality we can’t take the tower down; we can condemn it but they’ll fix it. If they did put a new tower up we can make them do a lot of things.”
He, Vice Mayor Elizabeth Akins and Alderman David Epperson unanimously voted to table the issue until the regularly scheduled October meeting.