The Santa Fe City Council late Wednesday denied appeals from opponents of telecommunications decisions of the city's Board of Adjustment and Historic Design Review Board.

Two of the appeals were related to upgrades of AT&T's cellular phone system in Santa Fe to 3G. In each of those cases, only Councilor Miguel Chavez voted in favor of the appeal. Councilor Patti Bushee was absent during the voting.

One of the cases concerned modifications to a base station on Camino Carlos Rey. The city said the improvements didn't need to be reviewed. The Cellular Phone Task Force appealed to the Board of Adjustment, which upheld the city's decision late last year, and then to the council, which agreed with the Board of Adjustment.

The other case concerned modifications to a base station at Paseo de Vistas on land leased from the city. The task force also appealed the city's action in this case to the Board of Adjustment with the same result.

The council did approve an appeal by AT&T of a Feb. 15 decision of the board denying it a special exception for a telecommunications facility at St. John's Methodist Church and a height waiver.

AT&T is seeking to install a new cell tower inside an existing chimney at the church and to increase the height from 44 feet to 53 feet in a historic zone.

The church is in the Historic Review Overlay District.

Chavez was the only councilor voting against this appeal.

The council also denied appeals from the Cellular Phone Task Force regarding decisions of the Santa Fe Historic Design Review Board to designate the church as noncontributing and to allow AT&T to make alterations on a chimney and other improvements to conceal multiple antennae at the building at 1200 Old Pecos Trail.

Councilors Chavez and Matthew Ortiz voted in favor of the appeal.

Arthur Firstenberg, who says he is hypersensitive to electromagnetic signals from wireless devices, is president of the nonprofit Cellular Phone Task Force.