Although Amanda Machovsky has owned a cellular phone since she began college four years ago, she never noticed any of East Lansing’s nine cellular phone towers.

Toting her brand-new, pale green cellular phone, Machovsky, an elementary education senior, says the communication tool can be a necessity - or an accessory.

“The other one I had was attached to my car,” she said. “I have a feeling I’ll be using it a lot more now that I can carry it.”

The high demand for wireless phones has sparked a demand for more wireless communication towers to carry the signals across the country - and in East Lansing.

The East Lansing City Council will discuss the placement of a new 195-foot tower at the East Lansing Public Works Department, 2000 Merritt Road, at tonight’s meeting.

There also will be a public hearing held for community members to express their opinions on an ordinance that will require the city to inform residents about communication towers placed on public property.

“The purpose of it is to plug a little loophole in citizen notification,” City Manager Ted Staton said. “It should be looked as a refining of the current ordinance.”

Councilmember Beverly Baten said the ordinance is likely to be approved.

“I wouldn’t want one where I’d have to be looking at it,” she said. “It would make you feel like you’re not in a neighborhood. You’d feel like you’re in a commercial area.”

Objections to a tower placed last fall on the water tower in Patriarche Park, which is located at Alton and Saginaw streets, caused the city council to discuss the amendment.

Joe Cleary, whose property is adjacent to the park, said he and other residents were upset by the lack of notification.

“We had no idea that this cell phone tower was going up until one night these cranes were here,” he said. “We would have appreciated that.”

Because there is no conclusive evidence the towers cause health problems, federal laws do not allow a tower to be denied for those reasons.

However, Cleary, who has never owned a cell phone, said he is still concerned about the possible negative effects of the waves emitted by the tower.

Linda Jennings, the director of corporate communications for Nextel Communications, said most wireless communications companies prefer to minimize the number of towers built by co-locating - allowing several companies to use the same tower.

The proposed tower could house as many as four companies in the structure.

“We do want to have the community aware of what we’re doing,” she said. “We follow all the laws, but at the same time, we understand that everyone doesn’t want a tower.”

Jennings said the towers, which range from 60 feet to 250 feet high, have been built and added in areas all over the nation, depending on the demand of cell phone users.

As more towers sprout up, Robert Owen, a city planning and zoning administrator, said the demand for the towers continues - as long as nobody sees them.

“They’re like landfills,” he said. “You can’t imagine living without them but you don’t want one in your county.

“People want them if it isn’t in anybody’s backyard.”