Panel rips Tamarac over cell tower refusal.

Tamarac was harshly criticized Thursday for resisting the construction of an “unsightly” radio tower that would help replace the emergency communications system that was overwhelmed in the Parkland school shooting.

Broward County Administrator Bertha Henry told the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission that Tamarac is the lone holdout among cities that are hosting the new 325-foot towers, part of the system that will go into service next year to replace the county’s 26-year-old radio network.

“Ultimately, they have some concerns about the height of the tower in their community, and we do understand that,” she told the commission, holding its third meeting this week at the BB&T Center in Sunrise. “But ultimately, I think we’re all committed to public safety, and we can have an unsightly tower or we can have real communications gaps, and I’m hoping that they come to that conclusion.”

This prompted an acid response from Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, a member of the commission.

“Please remind Tamarac that graves are six feet deep, and we’re not really concerned about the height of the tower if we’re saving lives,” he said. “We need a sense of urgency.”

Communications are central to the ability of first responders to act swiftly and effectively, he said.

“If you can’t talk, you can’t appropriately react,” he said. “And Tamarac needs to understand and respond as if it were one of their children that were shot in that building.”

The commission voted unanimously to send Tamarac a letter urging it to cooperate with the county as quickly as possible.

Tamarac blamed the county, saying the city was willing to locate the tower on an existing tower site, provided the county agreed to the current tower’s antennas on the new tower.

“We have been trying to work with Broward County on this issue for more than a year,” Tamarac spokeswoman Elise Boston said in a written statement issued in response to the comments at the Stoneman Douglas commission meeting. “In fact, we offered them a site at least six months before the tragedy at MSD. There has never been a question about the need. We offered the County the site where the current towers exist with only one condition: that this new tower also co-locate existing equipment. The County administrator rejected this option out of hand.”

“And we will never forget that a member of the Tamarac family was lost in that tragedy,” she continued. “We must do everything possible to ensure this never happens again. That’s why we can’t understand the County’s unwillingness to work together to move this project forward. It’s time for the finger pointing to stop and cooperation to begin.”

Tamarac Mayor Harry Dressler had called the planned tower “a monstrosity” that’s “directly opposite to the city’s written goal of beautifying the city.”

The county’s emergency radio system was overwhelmed during both the Parkland and Fort Lauderdale airport shootings, leaving officers unable to communicate with each other or receive information from supervisors.

The new radio system is expected to go into service late next year.