The saga to get a cellphone tower constructed in South Jacksonville may be nearing a close.
Crews were on site yesterday on Sequoia Drive and appeared to be drilling into the property owned by Illinois Power-Ameren Illinois near the substation to set a pole for a new tower.
Negotiations to place a new cellphone tower in or around the village began in the Spring of 2022, and has gone through many twists and turns since then. Residents have long expressed a massive service deficiency in the area, in what many have called a “dead zone” stretching from the southern portions of Community Park to as far south as Woodson.
Two weeks ago, representatives from AT&T paid to renew their construction permit for the cell tower for the Sequoia Drive property. At the time, Village President Dick Samples said that he had no contact with representatives of the company other than they had paid to renew the permit: “I have no idea. They missed the deadline to build. It’s been a full year since they obtained a building permit to build the cell tower. They missed that, and they came back in, and they renewed it for another year. It’s been completely out of our hands. We have done everything we can do, and have done to make this project go forward. It’s sure not us dragging our feet.”
The last face-to-face contact the village board had with AT&T representatives came last Fall when there was a disagreement over the need for the communications utility to use public easement to run fiber optic and electricity lines to the property. There was also zoning issues for the village’s own property along Sequoia Drive, as designations of the property had never been changed to public use in the county plat maps. Once the issues were sorted out, face-to-face talks between AT&T representatives and the village board stalled. WLDS News contacted representatives in the late summer on the project. Communication with regional AT&T representatives said the project was still moving forward, but not timeline was provided.
With yesterday’s build beginning, it may mark the end of years of frustration for residents who have struggled with the lack of cellular signal coverage. The lack of service has also frustrated local first responders and law enforcement at times who have had issues with signal coverage during certain calls for service. The lack of service in the area has angered area residents over the years as they feel they have been paying for a service that they do not receive.
AT&T representatives have previously said the tower will have the ability to outfit other carriers on the tower who would then “rent” space to allow their cell signal to also be broadcast. No projected timeline on when the cell tower’s signals will begin has been given. AT&T representatives had previously said that could take several months, and possibly a few years or more, with the timeline for service dependent upon approval by the Federal Communications Commission.