Eventually, T-mobile antennas will be placed atop water tower
There was some worry in Tonganoxie City Hall about whether T-Mobile would still be coming into town this year.
But Garth Adcock, marketing manager for T-Mobile, said the new antennas that are to be placed on top of the water tower at Tonganoxie Middle School should be in place by the end of the year.
Last week, T-Mobile returned the city’s contract to lease space on the water tower unsigned, causing some to think T-Mobile wasn’t going to place the new antennas.
“T-mobile ran out of money this year so they decided to install the antennas at the beginning of next year,” Mike Yanez, city administrator, said.
All of the paperwork was in place. Yanez said all the city needed was to know when T-Mobile wanted to show up.
Tonganoxie Mayor Mike Vestal said the city had waited too long trying to figure out the special use permit and he wasn’t surprised that T-Mobile would not make Tonganoxie a priority.
“You can’t blame them,” Vestal said. “They have other people that want those antennas. So we missed out on that. That would have been $1,250 a month for the city.”
Vestal also was concerned because without T-Mobile the city would have to pay to install the $6,000 worth of police repeaters, or backup emergency radio system, on the water tower. Or, the other option would be find another place to house them.
Vestal said police Chief Kenny Carpenter was considering putting the police repeaters on top of the police station until T-Mobile returned to install the repeaters on the tower.
The project was delayed in May when the City Council tried to determine how it could proceed with obtaining a special use permit for the antennas.
The special use permit was granted at the June 11 council meeting.
On Thursday, Adcock said there were some budgeting issues with installing the antennas either in 2007 or in 2008, but that T-Mobile had found the money to complete the antenna installation this year.
Adcock said he plans on regrouping with the city to finish out the plans.