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WEBUTUCK — While the Webutuck Board of Education (BOE) works to reduce its cafeteria program deficits, it voted at its Aug. 2 meeting not to increase its school lunch rates.
Business Administrator Mary Grden recommended no increase to the lunch rates this year. But she qualified that by saying that the school should “be mindful of where we’re headed,� and suggested that at some point in the future the school could adopt an “a la carte� system with prices based on a student or teacher’s menu choices.
“Historically we’ve had a [cafeteria] program that ran huge deficits,� BOE President Dale Culver pointed out. Webutuck has been narrowing that gap, he continued, and moving forward the board will keep working to reduce that deficit while improving pieces of the program.
Trustee John Perotti was in favor of not increasing the lunch rates, feeling it would amount to yet more financial burden on district families.
The board also debated updating the cafeteria’s system of charges and collections.
Currently, any Webutuck student can charge food to a running tab that is sent home monthly to be paid. Parents can either pay off the debt when they receive the bill or put credit on the account in advance.
Grden estimated that the current aggregate total of collections still unpaid nears $1,200. But she also said that there was a pattern of unhealthy snacks being charged to the account, which brought up a discussion among board members on the options that parents have.
Board Vice President Joe Herald said that at one point the charge system was structured so that if a student or family’s charge balance reached a certain threshold any further charged lunches would be restricted to certain food items like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Herald also said that currently parents have the option to restrict what foods can be charged to their child’s account, which would prevent students from abusing the system and charging lots of snacks or would send up a red flag if a child had particular food allergies.
The charge system is four or five years old, Herald said, but he believed there were still parents who were unaware of their options. He suggested the board continue to make further efforts to communicate better with the public in regards to these issues.
Superintendent Steven Schoonmaker said during an interview a few days after the meeting that he was under the impression that the charging threshold was still in place and the only issue was that it was inconsistently applied. That will change come this September, he said.
“I didn’t hear anything the other night to indicate that the board’s directive had changed,� he said. “There was discussion about the degree to which [the policy] was consistent before I got here, and it may well be that it needs to be reaffirmed.�
At the board meeting Schoonmaker added that the school would continue to work toward getting the appropriate families qualified for reduced lunch rates. It was mainly a matter of having them fill out the required paperwork, he said.
“We have a history here that parents have a lot of reluctance to sign up for that program,� Herald acknowledged. “There’s an associated stigma with it.�
The board discussed several possibilities to opening up those options to families, including installing a table at open house meetings to sign up for such programs.
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Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.