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School Says Cell Tower Lease Offers Much-Needed Boost

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By ADAM EMERSON

aemerson@tampatrib.com

Published: February 17, 2009

The oversized flagpole outside Chiaramonte Elementary School conceals revenue the school has enjoyed the past two years.

Wrapped inside the pole is a cell tower that has brought Chiaramonte about $31,000 annually in lease payments, and has enabled the school's teachers to buy supplies they long had gone without.

Teachers have bought educational games and supplies for weekend reading and math camps, and administrators have bought white boards for classrooms.

"Anything my people need, we're able to buy it now," Principal Marie Valenti said.

That gets lost, principals say, in the passions evoked by the placement of cell towers.

Seventy-three percent of Chiaramonte's students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, Valenti said. The money that comes from the school's cell tower lease has bought them new computers and field trips to museums in St. Petersburg.

Valenti said she even used lease money to buy shoes for a child who came to school wearing a pair that had split open.

The tower went up in 2006, but Valenti said she first asked whether the tower could harm students. When she learned that regulators considered it safe, she convened a meeting with parents to talk about its placement and the money it would provide.

Only a few people attended.

Ever since a South Tampa school nixed plans in January to erect a cell tower on its campus, opponents have amassed support from parents at several schools who say they don't reject cell towers - just cell towers on school grounds.

Principals interested in the leases, however, say the money they bring is critical as PTAs watch their fundraising slow.

Even in the best of times, Chiaramonte's PTA raised, at most, $10,000 in one year, Valenti said.

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285.

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