Rep. Karla Drenner Named to Southern Legislative Conference Energy and Environment Committee

ATLANTA— House Speaker David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) today announced the appointment of state Representative Karla Drenner (D-Avondale Estates) to the Southern Legislative Conference (SLC) Energy and Environment Committee. As the presiding officer of the Georgia House of Representatives, Speaker Ralston is charged with selecting members to represent Georgia within SLC.

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Rep. Karla Drenner Introduces Legislation to Ensure Students are Safe from Potential Health Risks

ATLANTA – State Representative Karla Drenner (D-Avondale Estates) today announced plans to introduce legislation that would ensure students are safe from radiation by banning the placement of cell phone towers on the property of public K-12 schools.

“The long term effects of exposure to the type of radiation produced by cell phone towers are not fully known, but initial data indicates cause for concern,” said Rep. Drenner. “Placing cell towers on school property unnecessarily places our children in potential danger and could even be viewed as experimenting with our children’s health. I am strongly committed to stopping these efforts to put cell phone towers on school property.”

Rep. Drenner will introduce two different pieces of legislation. The first bill would prevent cell phone towers from being built on school property anywhere in the state of Georgia. Her second bill would only ban the practice in DeKalb County. Rep. Drenner was led to introduce this legislation after T-Mobile entered an agreement with the DeKalb County School Board to place cell phone towers on the property of nine DeKalb County Schools.

To ensure her legislation receives proper input from Georgians, Rep. Drenner will hold a hearing on cell phone towers and her proposal to prevent their construction on school property. The hearing will be held at 11:30 AM on Tuesday, February 21, in room 415 of the Coverdell Legislative Office Building, which is located across the street from the Georgia State Capitol.

Representative Karla Drenner represents the citizens of District 86, which includes portions of DeKalb County. She was elected into the House of Representatives in 2000, and currently serves on the Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications, Health & Human Services, Natural Resources & Environment, and Rules committees. She also serves on the Special Committee on Small Business Development and Job Creation.

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