Local opinion: South Tucson residents deserve clarity on 70-foot cell tower

I found out a 70-foot cell tower was going up behind my house by accident.

I was at a South Tucson City Council meeting pitching a citywide Wi-Fi idea when I learned the Board of Adjustment had approved an application for a cell phone tower in the middle of my neighborhood — on the Magnum Paving yard across the alley from my back door, Verizon Wireless as co-applicant. The hearing had come and gone. I never got notice. Neither did the neighbors I've since talked to.

I'm a native Tucsonan and a first-time homeowner. This house means everything to me. My partner and I are expecting our first baby. So I started investigating the situation.

What I found is a story about whether the law protects the rights of individuals or is only there to be used for the benefit of giant corporations.

South Tucson's zoning code capped commercial towers at 50 feet. The tower approved is 70. That is not my interpretation — it's the conclusion of the investigator the city hired. His report says the requirement is "binding and will limit the proposed cell tower height to 50 feet even though the application shows the design height of the proposed tower as 70 feet."

The city's Planning Director — who accepted the application, scheduled the hearing, and mailed the notices — told that same investigator he "had not previously been aware of this Ordinance."

He didn't know the rule existed.

The rule is hard to find now, because it isn't in the published code anymore. I compared South Tucson's zoning chapter as published in August 2025 to the version posted in April 2026. In the older one, the 50-foot cap is there in black and white, with a required setback from homes and a whole section of wireless standards. In the newer one, all of it is gone. This application was filed between those two versions.

I won't tell you why that happened, because I don't know. Nobody has told me. That's one of many problems here.

In May, after residents packed a meeting, the City Council voted 4–1–1 to rescind the approval "pending results of investigation." That was the right call, and it stands.

The investigation examined one narrow question: whether staff mailed and published notice on time. Its own opening sentence says so. It never asks whether the Board of Adjustment had authority to approve a cell tower at all — the question Arizona law turns on. State statute says a board of adjustment "may not make any changes in the uses permitted in any zoning classification." The investigation never treats the height violation as a problem. It never asks who deleted the standards.

Then, on July 7, the Council was told by City Attorney Jon Paladini that the report found "no irregularities" and that "all the proper procedures were followed." The trouble is the report makes but one narrow conclusion: that staff complied in providing notice.

The investigator's evidence came from the official whose conduct was under review. "Planning Director Licea has provided me with emails from residents," the report says. No neighbor or other official was interviewed.

I filed three public records requests in May — 78 items — asking for the notice list, the proof of mailing, and the record of how the code was changed. The city has produced nothing: no records, no schedule, no legal reason for withholding. The documents that would settle this are being withheld from the public.

I want three things, none radical.

1. Produce the records.

2. Run a real investigation — one that publishes its findings in full, discloses what it did and did not examine, and talks to all involved.

3. Council must pass a wireless ordinance putting decisions like this before the elected council in public.

South Tucson is one square mile of mostly single-story houses with a small budget and a volunteer mayor. I don't think anyone set out to do harm. But a government that can approve a structure against its own written law, then can't produce the paperwork, has a problem bigger than one tower.

Let the law and the record prevail. All power is in the hands of the people.