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The 170-foot antenna tower that sprung up last month beside the new Public Safety Building has been a communications disaster between its McKinley Avenue-Addison Street neighbors and city staff. 

So when City Manager Jim Keene remarked, toward the end of a lively City Council discussion about the tower Tuesday night, that he believed in the end the tower would come down, the tower’s neighbors in the audience cheered. 

But the process of finding alternatives to the tower is likely to be complex. The council voted 8-0, with Councilmember Polly Armstrong absent, to have Keene write a report outlining the process for selecting a consultant on the project. He did not say when he would bring that report back to council for its approval. 

Councilmembers agreed they wanted to hire the consultant for $50,000. The consultant would evaluate alternatives to the tower, such as antennas dispersed throughout various parts of the city. The consultant would also look at possible adverse health effects from radiation emitted by the antennas. 

The debate, however, was over how the consultant was to be chosen. 

Councilmember Dona Spring said she wanted the neighborhood, which falls in her district, to have the last word on naming the consultant. 

But the city manager argued that the formal decision must rest with the City Council. 

“You can’t abdicate that, that’s your responsibility,” he said. 

He outlined a process whereby city staff and neighborhood representatives would develop the job description for the consultant, then the staff and neighbors would choose the candidate with the best qualifications. Keene agreed that the neighborhood and staff should reach a joint decision. 

Not everyone thought the neighborhood should have veto power over the consultant, but Spring insisted that due to the mistrust between the neighbors and the staff, it was necessary. 

In a public hearing last week – and in weeks of letters and calls to councilmembers – the neighborhood expressed its distrust of staff. Although proactive in choosing the design, color and landscape of the Public Safety Building, staff blindsided the neighborhood when it chose the 170-foot tower, neighbors said. 

Spring insisted that as part of the process, the city had to agree not to put the tower into use, until after the consultant’s report had been made. Communications antennas are now atop the old public safety structure, which is to be demolished once the new building is operating. 

Keen agreed that the tower would not be put to use until the council gave its go-ahead. He warned, however, that another neighborhood might get the tower in the end.