Briarlake Parents Question Attorney to Help Fight School Cell Tower

Parents at have approached an Atlanta attorney to possibly represent them against cell phone carrier T-Mobile and the DeKalb County School System, which plans to construct a cell phone tower on the school's campus.

Penny Furr sent out an email to a group of parents late last week saying she spoke with Brian Daughdrill of Roberts & Daughdrill about the issue.

"His retainer to start this case would be $10,000," the email said. "One of the reasons it is so expensive is that the cell company would start doing extensive discovery to force everyone to back down. Possibly if he could get an injunction they would back off and put the tower elsewhere rather than go through the fight."

Daughdrill has a background in real estate, and his practice is focused on legal issues regarding zoning and permitting, property rights and transactional work, including contract negotiations, according to his firm's website.

Parents at the school have launched a website, Save Our School Yard, to organize opposition to the tower, which the DeKalb County Board of Education approved in July. The board approved T-Mobile cell tower at nine locations after significant protests from , Meadowview and Brockett elementary schools got them removed from the proposal.

Briarlake Elementary's PTA voted to oppose the cell tower last month. The vote allows parents to use the PTA to organize against the proposal, according to emails to parents.

Another tower is headed for . The situation there is a little more complicated, however. Principal Joe Reed has said many students, parents and staff are happy about the proposal because of the abysmal cell phone reception on school grounds. Some consider cell phone reception a safety issue in the event of an emergency.

The Atlanta chapter of a group called Get the Cell Out has also collected about 240 online signatures protesting the erection of cell towers across the school system.