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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005/07/26 - ADMIN - Minutes - Community Technology Advisory Commission - RegularOFFICIAL MINUTES ST. LOUIS PARK TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION SPECIAL MEETING OF JULY 26, 2005 ST. LOUIS PARK COUNCIL CHAMBERS MEMBERS PRESENT: Bruce Browning, Rick Dworsky, Dale Hartman, Ken Huiras and Mary Jean Overend MEMBERS ABSENT: Bob Jacobson and Rolf Peterson STAFF PRESENT: Clint Pires, Director of Technology and Support Services; Reg Dunlap, Civic TV Coordinator; John McHugh, Community TV Coordinator OTHERS PRESENT: Tom Asp, Virchow Krause Call to Order Chair Dworsky called the meeting to order at 7:03 PM. Background on why St. Louis Park is studying providing wireless Internet access Clint Pires stated that some residents and businesses have expressed interest in wireless. Other cities have been studying this around the country and 200 cities nationwide are planning for or deploying wireless. Some people around the country have seen high speed Internet as basic utility. Another reason other cities are studying this is affordability. Chaska, Buffalo and Moorhead are the latest cities that have deployed a wireless project in Minnesota. Minneapolis and Philadelphia are also under study or in deployment. Availability of high-speed Internet access is a concern, not every part of St. Louis Park is equally served by the current Internet providers. There is a lack of competition for high-speed Internet service, which was another reason some cities have been looking at this. A reason a number of cities have looked at wireless is because it provides mobile access to the Internet at a high-speed. In February the City Council gave direction for the study. Between March and April they conducted informal community interest surveys. The City Council created a partnership with the School District. In May, Virchow Krause was selected as the consultant. During the months of June, July and August their job was to conduct a technical market and financial feasibility study for wireless to gather stakeholder input. They and City staff have been meeting with the Twin West Chamber of Commerce, had received several Emails and phone calls and were recording all input. This meeting is part of the public process. In August the consultants report is due with recommendations. In September the City Council and School Board will begin to review the analysis of the study to determine the next steps. A number of issues have been raised to the City Council and staff, which will be included in the review of the study, including the proper role of government and health concerns. When any City looks at doing something new, there are always risks involved and there are always opportunities. St. Louis Park is in a competitive situation. What makes St. Louis Park different and sets us apart, a better place to live, work and play? Looking at things like wireless service falls into the area that perhaps makes it a city that stands apart and more attractive. The City Council and School Board have committed to complete a study, not implement a system at this time. This is a data gathering and analysis process. The City Council and School Board will analyze the report by Virchow Krause and then determine where to go. Tom Asp, Virchow Krause, presented the report including what is currently available for Internet and wireless services. He presented the results of the recently conducted informal and random wireless surveys and options that appeared feasible in St. Louis Park at this point in the study. To receive a copy, call Clint Pires, 952-924-2517 or Email, cpires@stlouispark.org. Public Q&A and comments Bonnie Wexler indicated she suffers from Electrical Sensitivity Syndrome. It is difficult to diagnose and many people suffer from it. When she heard that Wi Fi was a possibility in St. Louis Park, she started to do research. Her concerns were health concerns. No studies she found said that Wi Fi was safe for humans or animals. There are studies saying that there are a lot of harmful effects on humans. When cell phones became popular in 1993, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioned Dr. George Carlo to do a study, which took seven years. He was asked to look at cell phones to see if there were any problems. He didn’t go into it looking for problems, but he did find problems that primarily affected children. Children’s brains are primarily developing until the age of 20. Cell phones can penetrate a child’s brain until the age of 20, because the brain is soft, and it can change their DNA. There is scientific evidence that the radiation that is produced (wireless is a form of radiation) can penetrate a child’s brain much deeper. Tumors and a lot of cancer has come from cell phone use. In England, they are proposing banning cell phones from children. The study cost $35 million and was suddenly cancelled when the FCC found that they would have problems. In Europe the government conducted the same studies, so they had more control over what would happen with the Telecommunications industry. They confirmed the same findings that Dr. Carlo found. Security is another concerns. There are several lawsuits because of security issues. People don’t take time to turn on their security and use it. There are child pornography lawsuits where people have used another person’s Wi Fi connection to send child pornography, and other confidential information can easily be stolen with Wi Fi. The cities of Edina and Minnetonka also considered Wi Fi. Edina voted no because there are lawsuits and because of the health concerns. Dr. Carlo offered to come to St. Louis Park at no charge (only the cost of airfare and hotel), to educate them on the hazards of the wireless industry and the radiation. Ms. Wexler provided copies of research she had found. Chair Dworsky asked if they should mention the places in St. Louis Park with Wi Fi? Mr. Asp replied there were many restaurants, cafes and hotels, which were the primary hot spot locations. Bill Webber, 3824 Huntington Av, stated that he had two desktop computers and college aged children with laptops that were Wi Fi compatible. They pay about $25/month for dial-up service, which was very slow and they were unhappy with. They would be glad to pay that much or more for Wi Fi service and thought it was a great idea. Commissioner Huiras asked if the study had addressed the health issues that had been mentioned? Mr. Asp replied that would be part of the upcoming study. They would also be talking about some of the major security differences. There was a real difference between someone having a cable modem service and making that wireless versus the City offering a Wi Fi service. The security levels were completely different and couldn’t be compared. That would be addressed in the study as well. Mr. Pires added that he and Ms. Wexler have had several conversations and she had provided him with the studies she cited. He has been contacting other cities going through the same studies with the FCC and other sources to try to get more information on the health concerns she had raised. Dr. Sonny Ray stated in 1994 she began studying the frequency effects on the body. She has a son who lives in St. Louis Park who has electrical sensitivity syndrome. She had strong concerns about this for the effects it would have on her son. Forcing wireless on people who have health concerns 24 hrs/day, 7 days a week was not fair to them. Edina chose to give people who didn’t want it the opportunity to say no. In her home, she has a device to test where wireless is coming from. She found out one of her neighbors had it and it was affecting people coming to her home. She asked them to turn it off whenever they weren’t using it. They were unaware of the health concerns and happy to turn it off. If people knew what it could do to them, they would turn it off whenever they weren’t using it. Her concern was that little children in parks would have these things affecting them without them even being aware of it. If people want to use it, there were plenty of landlines. Electricity can hurt us. These frequencies are not safe. In the study done in Europe (iegmp.org/uk) the final comments were they should never use frequencies that have not been tested on animals and humans. There is not one long-range study done to prove that this is safe. They will inflict this on little children whose brains are not developed yet. The study shows the most current controlled studies. This is a risk. They were looking at banning smoking in cities because of the secondary effects and now they were looking at putting electricity everywhere and possibly hurting kids? The most complicated studies are on children younger than ten. If the public schools knew, they would not be putting wireless in schools. She encouraged everyone to move to Edina, everyone she knew to move out of Chaska or Buffalo. She didn’t want to put her business in a place where there is wireless and wouldn’t want to see someone else do it either because it could hurt them. She encouraged them not to put wireless here. She has many clients and patients here and she requested they not do this to them. Mary Ponton stated she had a small business and ten computers. She has all of the latest and greatest, but doesn’t have wireless and there is a reason. She doesn’t trust wireless. It was staggering to her for the City to go into business when the liabilities were yet unknown. Who was going to take the responsibility if the health concerns are correct or if they don’t go to an expert and find out what the actual issues are? It scared her to think that money was more important than people. Not one time has the question been entertained about people. She is in market research and would volunteer to help them with the questions. They didn’t ask a person whether or not they wanted to reduce the cost and put their children at risk. They don’t know the risk. It wasn’t about money, it was about doing things right. It was about their responsibility to this community. Julius Edlovich, a pediatrician living in St. Louis Park, believed there is a problem with a monopoly in St. Louis Park. He can only get a cable modem service in his neighborhood, and DSL is not available. He didn’t think monopolies were good for competition. Even if they didn’t do the wireless, Internet was very important to the community for business, people who live in houses and for educating children. Having a monopoly and extremely expensive Internet was not good. Secondly, it was important for business. He started his own pediatric clinic and they cannot survive without Internet. They have wireless in their neighborhood and he has a wireless laptop. He heard some of the speakers talk about cell phones and Wi Fi effects and thought it was a good thing to have concerns when it comes to things like that, but it would be nice to find out if the American Academy of Pediatrics has made a statement on Wi Fi effects on children. He would be glad to investigate. He had not seen anything in literature he gets for continuing medical education on Wi Fi and cell phone effects on children. If cell phones are a big problem for children, every teenager that comes into his office has a cell phone, so they’re all in big trouble. They could ask someone at Park Nicollet to do literature research and try to help them to make a decision on a health basis. They have wireless in his clinic and it was incredible because they could take a laptop into an exam room to do tests and print out the results. It had totally changed their ability to do things. Many of his pediatric friends use laptops in room to room to chart medical records. Elizabeth Coleman indicated she was considering moving to St. Louis Park and one of the decision making factors would be whether or not wireless internet was generalized to the community. She was currently renting in a community that did not have wireless internet, however she lived in Chaska during the time that wireless internet was installed and had a very difficult time. She was Electrically Sensitive and had been for over a decade. She was a nurse, a nurse educator and a nurse midwife and delivered many babies, and hated to think that children would be subjected to wireless in any community they lived in, although the writing seemed to be on the wall for some communities at this time. During the time she was in Chaska, she experienced a significant increase in symptoms which included: sleeplessness so severe the last four days of the time she contracted to be there she had to move to a motel outside the area, muscle twitching, balance problems, joints swelling, nerve pain in her hands, feet and low back, irritability, a very short fuse (which was not typical of her), fatigue, muscle aching, sluggishness and memory loss. These things were not to be ignored. This was what they would see in addition to immune system issues in people bombarded by these frequencies. It was not a matter of whether or not wireless was the only thing, it was cumulative and was referred to as the rain barrel effect. You can’t see how full it is until it spills over. At the point at which it spills over, people’s symptoms have gotten to the point where they can no longer be ignored. Children’s brains are very fragile and she strongly encouraged they look deep into this question before doing anything that affected every person in the community. She understood that they wanted to make it educationally advantageous for people to bring their families here and fully supported that, but making it impossible for a child to think straight did not help him or her if they provided wireless internet 24 hours a day if they can’t use it because they are so stupefied. That was what they were going to see. She would look at any community she moved into in the future from the standpoint of quality of life, and for her quality of life is a community that protected her health, not at the expense of convenience and communication, but actually protects her health. Debbie Breningstal indicated she understood that there were a number of different payment options for Wi Fi, so they couldn’t say exactly how much it would cost, because it depended on how they chose to finance. She was curious what the total investment was to make St. Louis Park Wi Fi, regardless of who paid for it? Mr. Asp replied in the $3 million range, assuming they were going to do a retail type model, which would include about $800,000 in operating capital required to get it off the ground. No towers would be built. With Wi Fi, they put access points 20-30 feet in the air on lampposts and that type of thing. Ms. Breningstal asked if the only reason they were considering doing this was for the city to subsidize people who couldn’t afford to do it themselves? Mr. Asp replied that the City was not looking to subsidize it. The question they were asking about the subsidization was to get an idea of where the interest started weighing off, if it were to be funded with taxes. It was a measurement point. Any of the cost analysis they were doing was what it would take in looking at what the risk assessment was. Ms. Breningstal stated there was a mention in the presentation that one of the reasons they wanted to look at this was because Wi Fi or internet access is becoming a commodity that should be available to people who can’t afford it. Mr. Asp responded they were asking that question of how people felt. Ms. Breningstal didn’t want her tax dollars to subsidize something like Wi Fi for residents who shouldn’t consider it a given that it be available to them. If people spend there own money that’s fine, but they shouldn’t spend her taxpayer dollars on it. Commissioner Huiras asked if they use Wi Fi access in police squads or fire engines? Mr. Pires replied that they use wireless access in Inspections vehicles, Police vehicles and are starting in the Fire vehicles. Commissioner Huiras asked if there was wireless access within the school system now? Mr. Marble responded there are some hot spots in the buildings. Dr. Alan Levitt indicated he was a chiropractor practicing in St. Louis Park. He treated a lot of people who were electrically sensitive, including himself. Many people don’t appreciate what it is like to be that way. It was emotionally disturbing for him to hear a pediatrician have an attitude about this, which was very unfortunate for the children affected by it. He was in strong agreement with the earlier speakers and of all the research that showed there were health concerns. Maybe it didn’t affect every single one of us, but there were plenty that it did. For those of them that it did, to blast them with it 24 hours a day was not fair and would cause him to consider moving his business out of St. Louis Park. He had been there for a long time and preferred to stay. He has Internet at his office, which was not wireless by choice. They needed to find ways to get Internet to the people they were trying to, in a way that was not affecting every single person, every single place in the city. That was not fair. Jean Sloan stated she was in favor of Wi Fi and thought it would be a wonderful addition to the city. If the City did not put it in, how long would it be before private providers put the same or more radiation into the environment than would be there if the City put it in responsibly and with health concerns in mind? Mr. Asp responded there was a lot of good dialogue occurring. Cell phone coverage’s had different power levels and different frequencies that operate differently. You are seeing more and more hot spots in communities and there are a lot of providers looking at it. One of the things you can see were many smaller networks and more systems deployed over time, but more disjointed. They were working with providers and getting an understanding of some of their intentions. A lot of wireless is operating in St. Louis Park today on a lot higher power levels than Wi Fi. You could probably make an argument that by having a little more universal coverage, it would discourage a lot of higher power alternatives. One of the common things that cable companies do to try to hit certain areas is put in a higher power transmitter and try to focus a lot more energy in given areas to try to cover spots with less money. There were a lot of different scenarios. Ms. Sloan thought this could actually be a good thing with less power? Mr. Asp replied it was hard to predict. Some of the technologies not currently under consideration by the City would be more focused and more intense. Mr. Pires stated if Ms. Sloan was asking whether the City had the power to prevent the private sector from coming in and putting in wireless services, they could not prevent that. Ms. Sloan stated that was not her intent. Her question was if it were put in on a universal basis throughout the City, if it would be less potentially dangerous than having bits and pieces and high power with two or three companies putting it into the same place because of competition. Debra Anderson asked if Minneapolis utilizes Wi Fi, what affect does that have on a city who borders them? Is there any overlap with hot spots if St. Louis Park does not go Wi Fi? Her daughter brought home her new wireless laptop and they noticed a signal and she didn’t have wireless, but did have cable. If St. Louis Park would go wireless and some people subscribe and others don’t, does it give everyone in the City access to it and how would they control subscriptions and is it better to have everyone pay a little as a utility fee? Mr. Asp replied regarding the security issue on access, if they have a neighbor with a wireless router and they have a cable modem service or DSL service hooked up, there are certain settings that they have to go through to set up security and passwords to prevent other people from using it. Manufacturers have those products set when a consumer plugs those in, there are no settings they have to change to make it work, but they leave it wide open with no security. That is where a lot of security concerns come in. If the City moved forward, they would be doing a higher level of security. Everyone would have access to a given page and they could put in their passwords and codes or put in a credit card and that security information. They wanted to have a first layer of access into the network and then do authentification if it is a qualified user. If the City of Minneapolis implements Wi Fi and if they border the city, some of the areas would have coverage, but access available only to subscribers. The transmitter power that Wi Fi nodes put out is about 250 mili watts, which is less than a cell phone power output. Wi Fi transmitters don’t propagate that far, that’s why they have to put a grid of cells at about a 1,000-foot spacing. If they were more than 1,000 feet from the City of Minneapolis border, there would be less of a signal. Ms. Anderson asked if there was ever signal confusion when border cities have separate Wi Fi? Mr. Asp replied that when they access that point, they would select which system they were subscribed to. Chair Dworsky asked if the nodes were omni directional or could they focus into one City as opposed to the next city? Mr. Asp replied that they could put in reflectors and make it a directional antennae. Most of the cells are omni directional, but there is such a small coverage area, it wasn’t worth the cost of putting the extra antennaes onto it. Leslie Edelman stated she had a vested interest in Wi Fi going into St. Louis Park. Dr. Levitt’s office has been her chiropractic office for about 25 years. With more and more wireless going up all over the place, she ended up collapsing and passing out. This has become a very big issue for her with Wi Fi going into a lot of the places that she frequents. Those are places she can no longer go. If they start blasting this all over, there would be virtually no place many of them would be able to be comfortable, safe or stay on their feet. It was one thing to confine it to buildings, but it was not responsible to blast it all over. They needed to take a very hard look at it before they did it. Commissioner Browning asked the audience how many people had Internet access? (Almost all raised their hands). How many of those have wireless access? (5 people raised their hands). Mr. Edlovich stated that they had so many resources in the community he believed the University of Minnesota Department of Pediatrics could give an opinion on the effects of Wi Fi on the health of children in the community. At the hospital next to his office, there is Wi Fi up and down the hallways. He could check with them to see if they had any studies about having Wi Fi in the hospital. People’s concerns were valid, but it would be nice to access some other resources for more information. Jan Page commented she had a lot of concerns about Wi Fi because she had to end her career because she came down with Fibromyalgia and multiple chemical sensitivity, which meant she is sensitive to a lot of chemicals in the environment. She never thought this would happen to her and her parents never thought her career would end at 45. She was an occupational therapist and worked with a lot of people with health problems and she didn’t ever have a patient who thought it would happen to them. She encouraged them, when they were making decisions, if people were telling them that there were health concerns, to take it seriously and think what it would be like to see their granddaughter or daughter have serious health problems. Were they willing to take that risk in order to have something different than was already available? Everything in her life had changed. She recently read research they were finding that people like her were sensitive because they had a genetic propensity to be more sensitive to things than other people. It was in their genes. Things that were happening to her were most likely going to start happening to a lot of other people unless they made different decisions about how they lived. She hoped they would take that into account. Claudia Johnston-Madison stated she came to the meeting to encourage them to move forward with wireless. She thought it was a good idea, but listening to the health concerns, now she was not so sure it should move forward without a lot of research. She encouraged them to do that and listen to the medical community. John Phillips indicated that he would like to see the City continue to study the potential of health problems. They had been bombarded with a lot of health issues, but he thought they should put it in if at all feasible. It would help many within the community, including the business community and some of the seniors who could use Internet access. The schools would also like it. He thought they should continue looking into this and not give up because ten people have said they have a problem with it. Dr. Ray indicated that the study in Europe was a compilation of all of the studies that had been done in the world. It was a huge study. It would cite that there were 8-10 studies that had shown each one of those items. They didn’t need to look at small studies that have been done on a local basis when this was worldwide data accessible to everyone. It was depressing to read this study because it was so thorough and complete and so scary because they saw these things moving forward. Now it was hot spots and could be avoided. They have to stay away from restaurants and coffee shops and go to those that don’t have wireless. They needed to keep those places available to the people who have problems. Mr. Ray stated they all wanted to do the best for the community and wanted to advance technology. There were many benefits to it. Looking at the big picture, who was really selling the product? Tobacco companies hid all kinds of studies that showed that cigarettes were bad and when they came out, there were class action lawsuits. He didn’t trust everyone that sold something. Do you think people selling wireless are going to do a study and come out saying that this wasn’t bad? There are multi-billion dollar companies behind this technology and that was why there was a lack of data. You need to find information from someone not selling the service. He would challenge them to go home and put their face in front of the microwave. They had all been told not to do that because it would leak something that was not good. He didn’t feel good inside when the talked about “hot spots”. Were they really “good for you” spots? “Hot spot” denoted that there was something going on that they couldn’t see. Dr. Loren stated he was asked to come before the Commission with information that was science based. If the plan is based on cellular technology or having high-powered transmission towers, they would have to take into account issues most people weren’t aware of. When there is a high- powered transmission tower, there are broadcasts, which were what most people worried about. The broadcast wasn’t the major issue, although some people would not like it. People who were highly sensitive might feel bad about it. Other issues are of more general concern for scientists and electrical engineers that he had been dealing with over the last year. There were amazing new findings and studies at the University of Iowa they should be aware of. When you have a high power transmission tower, there are other effects they don’t bargain for in addition to the actual broadcast radiation that comes in the radio or cell phone, etc. Those are far more detrimental than what we see more easily. One of them is the effect of the high power equipment that is at the base of the tower. That equipment chops the sinusoidal wave that we are getting from the power company at 60 hertz. It chops it and creates dirty power causing transient harmonics and makes high frequencies generated on top of the presumably smooth sinusoidal 60-hertz wave they are supposed to be getting clean from the utility company. This is a high frequency, which is generally between 2 kilohertz and 100 kilohertz and there is very high frequency above that up to about 1 megahertz and extra high frequency about 2 megahertz. The high frequency is traveling on the wires and comes into the high power lines which come in proximity to houses and schools. It enters the homes, because everything is connected somehow throughout the system. That causes high frequencies in our walls and inside our houses, which are unrelated to the actual problem of the broadcast. They have to deal with high frequencies on the lines inside the walls in their houses. This has been proven at several universities. Another issue is the issue of radiation that comes from the high frequencies on the high power lines, which become a horizontal antennae. They cause an induction in the wires that are inside of our houses. That induction leads to very apparent energy utilization that looks for capacitors and our bodies are capacitors. It looks for capacitors in the farmhouses. Recently 300 sows, female pigs, have been incidentally killed by using a normal power, which was not done for a study. This will be published soon. The pigs were unable to move in and out of the unhealthy environment they were in. The third issue is modulation. A study in the East block showed that mice were exposed for 24 hours to regular un-modulated frequencies and nothing happened to them. But high frequencies that were modulated with data killed the mice within 30 minutes. He was not saying that humans were going to be killed by that, because humans can move back and forth from a dangerous to a safer environment. If they don’t feel good, they move out of the way. But what happens to a baby that cannot go out of the way, it could lead to sudden infant death syndrome. They were not sure, but if something can kill a sow in eight hours and a mouse in 30 minutes, they have to be a little more cautious. He was not saying that all broadcast transmission should be avoided. There are technological ways to solve the three problems that he mentioned to a large extent, at least 90-95%. If the City of St. Louis Park or Hennepin County decide to allow high-powered transmission towers to be put in our midst, then they owe it to the citizenry to look for the potential solution that would provide protection from what he mentioned. Those are presently possible to do today. He requested they don’t do it at all, or do it with protection, which was not that expensive. Mr. Asp commented that a Wi Fi system would be 300 low powered transmitters located about 20-30 feet above ground. It would not be a high powered transmission tower type of network. It would have about a 250-miliwatt transmitter on the utility poles. It was a lot lower power level, like putting a cell phone on a tower in terms of intensity. The coverage area would be about 1800 feet. Rick Lucision stated that his family is electrically sensitive and have been forced to move outside of the Twin cities metro area. It has held them back in a lot of ways. They still come into St. Louis Park and do business, but would be forced to look elsewhere if this came through because he wouldn’t put his family into jeopardy. Dr. Loren added that the radius mentioned was much better than some of the high powered towers that transmit for miles, but it was still a lot higher than what they would have in a wireless hub inside a home that would go 100-200 feet. Even though it was not as bad as what he thought it could be, he still felt that some of the issues he had raised, was still a little too good for comfort. He was not saying they should not do it, he was saying that there is way to marry the two issues and have what they wanted as long as the City was willing to do what it took to protect the citizen, which might be a little easier because they are doing a distribution. There are things that can be done that have been recently patented and available. It has been used a lot in Eastern Block counties, in Russia, in Kazakhstan and is now coming into the United States. There was no reason not to have technology if they can protect the citizens from the effects. Chair Dworsky stated it was his hope that those who had offered resources would let Mr. Pires know how he could get a hold of them. They would commit to explore the resources that made sense for them to do so. How will the findings be reported back to the citizens? Mr. Pires replied that the input from this meeting and the survey input would be combined into a report including the other analysis. Information will be on the City cable channel and on the City web site, www.stlouispark.org. People can call him to provide resources mentioned. Mr. Pires also said he would continue checking into the issues mentioned tonight to see if they had been raised in other cities such as Philadelphia that were also looking at this, and he wanted to benefit from what they had learned as well. The report will be completed by the end of August. Adjournment Respectfully submitted by: Amy L. Stegora-Peterson Recording Secretary