MARIETTA - Ricky and Carrie Welkis of Marietta said they have taken loans against their home and retirement, incurred $10,000 in legal fees, lost weight and quality time with one another over preventing a planned cell tower at Eastvalley Elementary School near their home.

Other parents and neighbors voiced their concerns and frustrations at a community forum on the tower on Saturday afternoon at Eastside Baptist Church off Lower Roswell Road. About 50 people attended. The vast majority was against the controversial cell tower and signed affidavits and petitions against the proposal.

The organizers of the forum were three Cobb residents who live near Eastvalley, who filed a lawsuit in Cobb Superior Court against the Cobb school board and Superintendent Fred Sanderson, after the board approved construction of a 150-foot cell tower on July 23 at T-Mobile's request.

"We wanted the community forum to engage and get people out to talk and hear," said Carrie Welkis, who has a child attending Eastvalley. "I have a firm belief in my own core belief system that this is not safe."

Kevin Nicholas is a single father of two Eastvalley students who attended the forum. He works in the telecommunications industry and said he has problems with the way in which the board has downplayed the public's concerns.

"The whole thing stinks," he said.

"Ranging from the notion that this thing was sold on the cheap, a no bid process, the health concerns, the legal questions about how this was all done without having proper notice to the public. We have 300 signatures. What has to be done here?"

Janis Snipes lives on Freydale Road near the school. Her grown children attended Eastvalley and she worries about the impact the tower will have on those who live close to it.

"When I'm in my backyard at my swimming pool, I'm going to be able to see the tower," Snipes said. "I don't have a problem with them, like at Wheeler (High School) where they're on the football stadium. There aren't little kids sitting under it all day."

The forum's organizers asked tower opponents to show up in large numbers at a Cobb school board meeting at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, at which the cell tower will be discussed, and another board meeting at 7 p.m. Oct. 22, when there will likely be a vote on the matter.

Organizers also asked them to contact their board members to make known their opposition. They've accused the board of failing to acknowledge that hundreds are against the tower. So they continued to ask more people sign a petition and affidavit for a lawsuit.

In their lawsuit, Ricky Welkis, Bennie Skaggs and Jonathan Young claim the board violated Georgia's Open Meetings Law by placing the cell tower vote on the agenda the day of the July 23 meeting. The board's agenda that was published earlier that week did not mention the board would vote on the tower proposal.

The temporary restraining order that the three parents requested was granted by Senior Cobb Superior Court Judge Michael Stoddard, who issued a 30-day restraining order on Sept. 21 that halted all work on the cell tower. The plaintiffs are awaiting the outcome of the board's vote.

Though Eastvalley isn't in his district, board member David Banks attended the forum. He was the only member there.

Banks didn't reveal how he would vote, but did wonder why the board is voting again when it has already signed a contract with T-Mobile for the tower.

"What is the vote going to do?" he asked.