Safe Technology for Santa Barbara County

On Feb. 4, 2025, the Santa Barbara County Supervisors voted 5-0 for the newest and worst of a series of county telecom ordinances, since 2019. The board basically ignored, dismissed, and discredited our public comments and made the wrong decision. Laura Capps and Steve Lavagnino's behavior, during the meeting showed a disregard and lack of respect for the 30-40 people live and on zoom who
were there to oppose this ordinance and make public comments. The majority of people in the room did not get a chance to state their comments.
We need more people to join us to let the supervisors know that they made an unsound, UNBALANCED and unacceptable decision, that needs to be changed. If you would like to support our continued effort to improve this ordinance, please contact: [email protected]. For more information go to our webpage: http://emfsafetynetwork.org/safe-technology-for-santa-barbara-take-action/.

Today, SafeTech for SBC held a Press Conference on the steps of the SB County building, as a Call of Action for the Feb 4, 2025 Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting. We encourage everyone to show up at the Feb 4 BOS meeting to express your opposition to the Wireless Ordinance amendments that will be voted on at that meeting.
Please read the details of the Press Release below:

Dangerous Fire Risks with Proposed County Wireless Ordinance

On February 4, 2025, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors (BOS) will vote on a very dangerous Wireless Ordinance Amendment, removing public notification, hearings, opposition, setbacks and environmental protections. Small cell applications and permits will be rubber stamped!

We urge the BOS to vote NO or abstain on February 4.

Four Southern California fires have been started by telecom equipment and overloaded poles. Wireless facilities increase the risk of fires. We need fire safety protocols and other protections that are not only missing in the County’s Wireless Ordinance, but the Amendments make the situation much worse. The FCC states that safety, especially fire safety, is the responsibility of municipalities to regulate.

Issues ignored in the proposed Wireless Ordinance Amendment:

1. The fires in Los Angeles City and County have shown California and the world that we are dealing with a climate crisis, with impossible conditions under which to fight fire.

2. Santa Barbara County must do everything in their power to prevent fires from starting.

3. Cell towers and their associated equipment can and do start fires.

4. Cell tower fires are electrical fires and they cannot be fought through conventional means (water suppression) without specialized equipment until the grid has been cut. Otherwise, anyone spraying water on a cell tower fire risks being electrocuted.

5. Amidst Santa Ana wind conditions, cell tower fires can grow exponentially in a matter of seconds.

6. We are imploring SB County to implement Malibu's Fire Safety Protocol for electrical engineering rigor, and the federally required APCO ANSI for structural engineering rigor to help prevent fires in the first place.
See: https://www.malibucity.org/DocumentCenter/View/29653/Resolution-No-21-17

7. We want a setback from all properties of at least 300 feet in urban settings and up to 1500 feet in rural settings. It takes longer to cut the grid in rural settings which gives the fire more time to spread and makes it harder for residents to escape from.

Call for Action:

Send written comments to: [email protected].

Attend the BOS meeting on February 4, 2025 and urge the Supervisors, based on the fire risk alone to vote NO or abstain on the Wireless Ordinance Amendment.

Other ways to make your voice heard:

Safe Technology for Santa Barbara County (SafeTechSBC)
Mission: Educating our community about the adverse cumulative effects of invisible wireless radiation.
For more information:
• http://emfsafetynetwork.org/safe-technology-for-santa-barbara-take-action/
• 2025-01-27 Foster Letter to Santa Barbara BOS_Chiefs

"February 4, 2025, six months after the County Board of Supervisors adopted the 2030 Climate Action Plan, they will be asked to give free reign to the telecoms to blanket your neighborhood with small cell antennas when they are called to vote on the amendments to our County Wireless Ordinance. These amendments remove all restrictions from the placement of wireless facilities, therefore the telecoms can install 89 cell antennas for every one that is actually needed, including a few feet of your bedroom."

Please contact your County Board Supervisors and ask them to vote NO on the ordinance amendments on Feb 4, 2025. See links in the comments.

Meet the Greenhouse Gas Hog Coming to Your Neighborhood Small cell 5G infrastructure consumes energy and requires mining and metals processing.

Safe Technology for Santa Barbara County
Please go to webpage: http://emfsafetynetwork.org/safe-technology-for-santa-barbara-take-action/, for more info on the action item: Send written and make voice public comments to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors to VOTE NO on SB 9 & the Wireless Ordinance Amendments. We want changes in the ordinance to make it more protective and to have collaborative workshops with our experts.

SafeTechSBC also spoke at City Council right after the ordinance committee at 2 PM. We updated everyone on what just transpired and put more educational information into the public comment record.

THANK YOU to all who added their name to our most recent online petition and got involved. The word is out and growing!

This wireless ordinance process is still ongoing as you will see, so the more signatures, the better buzzz we will make to demand the protections we truly need for our city, and ultimately our county. Same issues, different ordinances. All ordinances need to be reviewed and updated accordingly.

Contact us at [email protected] if you would like to learn how to protect your city in the county and use the materials, resources, research and attorney generated reports, etc that we have compiled.

We look forward to sharing the economies of scale for our whole county.

City Council October 12, 2021

Listen to our SafeTechSBC core team speaking at the Ordinance Committee yesterday re: the small cell wireless telecommunications ordinance that was "supposed to be" voted on, but it was delayed. Watch to see how it went down, including the presentation by the city and hear from both Tripp May, from the Telecom Law Firm (Jonathan Kramer) the City hired outside council and the SafeTechSBC hired expert attorney, Andrew Campinelli. This is to be continued, so stay tuned.

SafeTechSBC also spoke at the City Council next:

Ordinance Committee October 12, 2021