Controversy and anger continue to be the primary signals from a proposed tower that will broadcast cell-phone, radio and possibly television transmissions from a perch off Skyline Drive overlooking the Eagle River Valley.

South Fork Construction has a permit to build a 100-foot antenna tower and is seeking municipal approval for an additional 30 feet of height. Those additional feet are still not permitted, but, according to Anchorage Assembly member Anna Fairclough of Eagle River, a 100-foot tower cannot be stopped at this phase of the process.

That has neighbors angry over what some say are broken promises made by the municipal government not to allow additional towers to nest above Eagle River.

Within less than 500 feet of the proposed tower sits a 275-foot antenna tower that was built more than a decade ago and has since been purchased by ACS-Television. Neighbors at a community meeting last week said an original tower was put up without the necessary permits, and when it was damaged in a wind storm, a replacement tower was allowed only after negotiations that resulted in an agreement not to allow other towers in the area.

"Promises were made by the zoning-enforcement people and the Muni that this would not become an antenna farm," said Kirk Currey, who lives near the proposed tower but outside the 500-foot radius. "There were assurances to the locals and to Eagle River that there was going to be underground power cables. That was not done. There was going to be a fence. That was not done. There was going to be ample capacity."

Currey and some other neighbors went to a meeting of the Eagle River Community Council last week as a united block of four neighbors repeated slammed the process which is leading to the antenna tower.

All said they were involved in the negotiations that allowed the special-use permit for the existing tower. They also all believe the conditions of that special-use permit have not been met.

Neighbor Pete Skarbo also remembers promises made when the original tower was permitted.

"The Muni told us, 'OK, this will be the only thing that goes up.'"

Fairclough told those protesting neighbors that it was not the assembly's intent to grow an antenna farm when the antenna-tower ordinance was amended in 1999. In fact, she said, the intent was just the opposite, and an ordinance amendment in 1999 gave incentives to the existing tower to take on as many customers as possible.

She said that ordinance was on her desk on her first day as an assembly member in 1999, and although she voted for it, she said she didn't have a lot of time to study the measure.

Fairclough said that what she knows about the proposed tower off Skyline Drive does not seem to meet the intent of the 1999 ordinance changes.

She said she's been waiting for more than a week to get a report from Craig Campbell, the municipality's director of the Department of Planning, Development and Public Works, on the municipality's role in the permit process.

She held virtually no hope to the neighbors. "That tower is going in," she said.

Those were the exact words of Skarbo, who pointed out that the pad for the tower has been installed.

The Eagle River Valley council passed a motion to oppose the additional height for the proposed tower on March 13. On March 14, the Eagle River council did the same.

The Eagle River council's letter in opposition will be written by Charlie Horsman, a former council president and long-time board member who is now off the board. He was asked to do that by council president Deborah Luper. Although she asked a couple of questions during the discussion, she stepped aside for the actual vote because she is director of business development for Eklutna Inc., the Native Village corporation which owns the land that was leased for the site of the proposed tower.