Move The Tower! Save The River!
Free Wireless Internet in Sauk County!
Newsletter - September 11, 2004
This is the first edition of the Move The Tower Online Newsletter. Just over three weeks ago, on August 20, 2004, I received an email from a neighbor who lives on Jones Road in Spring Green. This email informed me that Sauk County had approached another resident about acquiring a parcel of their land at Jones Road and Thuli Road to build a 250 foot communications tower for use by Sauk County employees. This was the first that anyone in Spring Green had heard about this tower. The editor of the Spring Green Home News had never published a story about this tower.
I joined with my neighbors to try to find out more about this tower. Building the tower near the banks of the protected Wisconsin River was shocking, but even more shocking was what I was about to discover after investigating the project behind the tower. There is lots of information to catch up on and lots more to discover. Nothing will change unless hundreds of citizens contact their supervisors as soon as possible. A list of every county supervisor, their phone numbers, addresses and email addresses is at: http://www.highway60.com/movethetower/list_of_supevisors.htm
The Move The Tower Web Site Home Page is at: http://www.highway60.com/movethetower/ The web site is updated regularly.
On September 1 the Sauk County Communications
Infrastructure Committee (CIC) met in Spring Green.
Mark Cupp, Executive Director of the Lower Wisconsin State Riverway Board, was
on the meeting agenda, but was not even allowed to deliver his prepared remarks
during the meeting. Please read his inspiring and passionate appeal to the CIC
to reconsider their proposed desecration of the riverway:
http://www.highway60.com/movethetower/LWSRB_040901.htm
My notes on the meeting are at:
http://www.highway60.com/movethetower/cic_meeting_notes_040901.htm
September 1 Letter to the Editor in the Spring Green Home News, "Engineering Political Loopholes" is at: http://www.highway60.com/movethetower/letter_040901.htm
September 4 article in the Baraboo NewsRepublic - "Tower has some upset" http://www.baraboonewsrepublic.com/articles/2004/09/04/news/news2.txt
September 8 Letter to the Editor in the Spring Green Home News, "Prairie Fire Erupts in Spring Green": http://www.highway60.com/movethetower/letter_040903.htm
September 10 Capital Times
"Proposed Sauk County Tower Site Stirs Concern"
http://www.madison.com/toolbox/index.php?action=printme&ref=archives&storyURL=/archives/read.php?ref=wsj:2004:09:10:385799:LOCAL/WISCONSIN
Visit the "Move the Tower! Save the Wisconsin River" forum on Madison.com. You can post your comments. You can register if you want to vote on whether the tower should be moved. http://www.madison.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=249
Why is this tower being built?
The Spring Green tower is only the tip of the iceberg of a larger issue. Sauk County is spending $6,000,000 on their aging and redundant communications systems that only the county can use. No resident will be able to communicate using these towers and antennas. While Sauk County is doing this, other cities and counties across the country are deploying state-of-the-art wireless networks to provide free or low-cost high-speed access to the Internet! Is Sauk County's spending our tax dollars to build the WRONG network? The county's "plan" to build this network is two years old. In the meantime new wireless technology has become available that is cheaper, faster, easier to deploy and is based on standard Internet technology that every resident can take advantage of, as well as the county emergency services. This is the same technology that is being proposed by the Department of Homeland Security.
"Free Public Wireless Access to the Internet in
Sauk County":
http://www.highway60.com/movethetower/freepublicaccess.htm
"The Case for a Public Wireless Network in
Sauk County" shows how other counties have already started deploying the latest wireless
networks.
http://www.highway60.com/movethetower/case_for_wireless.htm
This project has great impact on our lives and our local environment. This fight will take more than a few weeks or a few months. Even after 15 years of the Lower Wisconsin State Riverway Act, the river is still threatened by the current Sauk County Board of Supervisors. We need your help! For a list of things you can do see: http://www.highway60.com/movethetower/what_you_can_do.htm
Our tax dollars are being spent on this project as we speak. The time to act is now. The sanctity of the Lower Wisconsin River and the future economic development of our county is at stake. The supervisors are not discussing this project publicly. Your phone calls, emails and letters will make a big difference.
If you want to be removed from this Online Newsletter, please send an email that mentions, "remove me from newsletter". You will be promptly removed.
Thanks.
Mark Culverhouse MoveTheTower@Highway60.com