West Lawton resident critical of cell phone pole placed in her side yard

Connie Wood said she didn’t know a cell phone tower was going to be placed next to her west Lawton home until the pole just appeared one day.

“It was put without my consent or my knowledge,” she said, of a 35-foot-high pole that is within feet of her house. “Just one day, I came home and there was this pole.”

That pole, and 25 others like it, are being placed by U.S. Cellular in various parts of the city as part of that company’s systematic upgrade to provide 5G coverage to Lawton cell phone users. Cell phone companies have said the towers are necessary if communities want 5G coverage, and Lawton City Council members discussed the issue in 2021 before putting an ordinance into place in November 2021 that sets criteria cell phone carriers must follow to receive the revocable permits that allow placement of towers within city easements.

The council then followed that policy to grant revocable permits to U.S. Cellular in four separate actions between December 2021 and September 2023.

Residents have become aware of the placement of those towers in residential areas, and some say the towers are too close to their homes and not meeting the law. Council members are expected to address placement of one of those towers (a stop work order has been issued for a pole on Micklegate Boulevard), but the other sites appear to be in compliance with their revocable permits, city officials said Friday.

Wood isn’t happy about the tower that is in the easement of her side yard along Cheyenne Avenue, and she doesn’t like the fact it was placed without her knowledge or her consent.

Wood said her first assumption was that it was a pole for a street light, “which I thought was really odd, but I wasn’t going to complain if it was free lighting.” But, she said she began hearing rumors and her research revealed the pole was a cell phone tower. She said she contacted the City of Lawton and U.S. Cellular corporate officials to confirm the pole’s function and to ask questions, but didn’t get very far. Initially told the tower had not been placed correctly and would have to be taken down, Wood said she was later told by U.S. Cellular that they had followed all permit requirements and the pole was properly placed and would stay.

Wood said even city officials are confused about whether the pole was placed correctly, which has resulted in conflicting answers to her questions.

She’s not the only resident with a problem. Wood said another couple is having the same issues with a pole near their house and, like her, they have gotten different answers to their questions.

“Every department at the City of Lawton, permitting, communications, council members, all have had different stories, which means mass confusion and zero transparency,” Wood said. “And it’s not just me; Greg and Patty are dealing with it.”