Call it a classic, double-edged sword. Gov. Rick Scott just signed a bill that clears the way for superfast 5G wireless technology in Florida. It would likely enhance Florida’s chances to attract advanced-tech companies to the Sunshine State, including tech-trending cities such as Tampa. Good.
But then there’s that other edge.
Perhaps you’ve noticed a trend over the last few decades with the proliferation of cell towers. They now dot our landscapes, not always unobtrusively.
With the newly signed HB 687, there now could loom scenarios of countless “micro antennas” topping ever-sprouting utility poles. St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman has noted that his city has already received an application to build 21 telecommunications structures 45 feet high, including one in front of the Museum of Fine Arts and another in front of the Dali Museum. Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn can envision similar aesthetic blasphemy on the wrong right-of-ways in Ybor City, near the Riverwalk and along Bayshore Boulevard.
There’s also this: The Legislature and Gov. Scott are telling Tampa, St. Pete et al to, in effect, suck it up, stop complaining, accept the dictates of Tallahassee and take one for Team Pragmatics. Buckhorn has labeled it a “power grab.”
So much for the usual ideological suspects quoting Thomas Jefferson extolling the virtues of local government governing best–because it was closest to the people. How naive.