ODESSA, Fla. — Another battle is brewing in a Tampa Bay community over a cell tower.
Neighbors in Pasco County's Odessa are pushing back on a proposal to build a cell phone tower in their backyards. The proposed Anthemnet/Verizon cell tower would be 155 feet tall and located in wetlands near Lake Geneva and Lake Minniola in Odessa.
Darlene Moore has lived in that Odessa neighborhood for the last 10 years.
"This is my escape," Moore said. "A piece of a little peace."
Moore and other neighbors said they got a notice a few weeks ago about plans to build the tower.
"We thought this was our dream home when we moved here, and we're being run out," Moore said. "That's how I feel."
Their concerns range from changing the character of the neighborhood to the environment and their health.
"Having a giant 155-foot cell tower within a thousand feet of my house? We really don't know what the health repercussions are of having a cell tower in a residential neighborhood," Mike DeMeo said. "You can't find a better spot to put it?"
Representatives of Anthemnet, the company behind the proposal, held a meeting Monday to answer questions about the project.
Neighbors say roughly two dozen of them attended the meeting to learn more about the proposal and raise their concerns.
However, Moore questions how much her input will be taken into account.
"I feel powerless actually, because they're having meetings but I don't feel like we really matter," she said.
However, DeMeo said he won't be swayed and hopes the neighbors will have influence over the county commissioners' decision to accept the proposal.
"It kind of feels like David vs. Goliath," DeMeo said. "We're going to try to band together with flyers and meetings and show up at the commissioner meetings and try to tell them how upset we are with the proposed project."
The proposal will go before the Pasco Planning Commission at their meeting on Nov. 16 and the Pasco Board of County Commissioners on Jan. 23.
Tuesday afternoon, we reached out to Anthemnet and the family who owns the property where the proposed tower will be built, but have not yet heard back.