Club Getaway is located in New Milford, but arriving tour buses often enter through Kent.
KENT/NEW MILFORD — A years-long push by South Kent Road residents to ban Club Getaway-bound tour buses from the winding country road is finally seeing headway, and David Schreiber, who owns the all-ages resort, is thrilled.
“It’s not going to happen overnight, and we do have to work together, but it’s moving in the right direction, which is beautiful,” said Schreiber on July 3, a week and a half after the New Milford Town Council agreed to work with the town of Kent towards effective regulation for large commercial vehicles on the roadway.
Schreiber said he’s heard complaints from neighbors for fifteen years regarding buses shortcutting down the narrow lane and has tried “everything” to get the bus companies to reroute via larger roads, but his lack of jurisdiction outside the resort’s boundaries, as well as the fact that the affected road lies in two separate towns (with the state owning the Kent section), has made things difficult.
Club Getaway is a woodsy retreat center that offers youth programs, family stays and adult camps. It sits on South Kent Road just below its intersection with Route 341.
Buses coming from the south often choose South Kent Road for the final stretch of the journey, despite a recent adjustment to Google Maps – requested by Club Getaway – so that it no longer recommends the stretch of the road between Gaylordsville and Spooner Hill Road in Kent as a route.
Schreiber said that he was “touched” that Kent First Selectman Marty Lindenmayer turned up to the June 23 New Milford Town Council meeting to commit to finding a solution that keeps buses off that section of the road, where residents have complained about tight or impossible vehicle passes and scary moments walking the dog.
Schreiber said the recent progress has been largely due to a May 30 Facebook post in the Kent community group by South Kent Road resident Kristin Barese, who initiated communication between Lindenmayer and New Milford Mayor Pete Bass and presented the Town Council with a 145-signature petition calling for action, and one of his employees getting yelled at the Kent Station Pharmacy.
On June 26, Lindenmayer explained steps were already being taken towards that end: “Mayor Bass and I will work with our legislators to ensure we get the right routes marked appropriately while our two Public Works departments will work with CTDOT to mark roads and keep our local residents safe and the buses on track.”
“Shouting at one of my employees in public, especially, when they are not on the clock, is disgraceful,” Schreiber said in his own post in the Kent group, dated June 10. He also noted the employee, like anyone else working at the resort, had nothing to do with what routes the bus companies decided to take.
Reflecting on July 23, he described the incident as a boiling point due to “built up frustration,” but that the behavior was still unacceptable. “I want this to work, and I’ll do anything to make it happen, right?” he said, “but really, there’s a time and a place, you know — call me.”
Despite the ugliness, Schreiber said that he’s glad the issue “is all out in the open now,” and that progress is being made.
When all this is over, he hopes both the bus drivers and passengers alike will be glad to avoid the country-lane pace of South Kent Road. “It’s gonna be great for the community, it’s gonna be great for Club Getaway, and it’s gonna be great for Club Getaway clients,” he said. “It says on a GPS it’s four minutes shorter going down South Kent Road, until a bus actually gets on South Kent Road, and it’s ten minutes longer.”
State Sen. Stephen Harding
NEW MILFORD — State Sen. and Minority Leader Stephen Harding announced Jan. 20 the launch of his re-election campaign for the state’s 30th Senate District.
Harding was first elected to the State Senate in November 2022. He previously served in the House beginning in 2015. He is an attorney from New Milford.
In his campaign announcement, he said, “There is still important work to do to make Connecticut more affordable, government more accountable, and create economic opportunity. I’m running for reelection to continue standing up for our communities, listening to residents, and delivering real results.”
As of late January, no publicly listed challenger has filed to run against him.
The 30th District includes Bethlehem, Brookfield, Cornwall, Falls Village, Goshen, Kent, Litchfield, Morris, New Fairfield, New Milford, North Canaan, Salisbury, Sharon, Sherman, Warren, Washington, Winchester and part of Torrington.
MILLERTON — James (Jimmy) Cookingham, 51, a lifelong local resident, passed away on Jan. 19, 2026.
James was born on April 17, 1972 in Sharon, the son of Robert Cookingham and the late Joanne Cookingham.
He attended Webutuck Central School.
Jimmy was an avid farmer since a very young age at Daisey Hill and eventually had joint ownership of Daisey Hill Farm in Millerton with his wife Jessica.
He took great pride in growing pumpkins and sweet corn.
He was very outdoorsy and besides farming, loved to ride four wheelers, fish, and deer hunt. He also loved to make a roaring bonfire.
He was a farmer, friend, husband, father, son and brother. He will be missed by many.
He is survived by his father, Robert Cookingham, wife Jessica (Ball) Cookingham, daughters, Hailey Cookingham-Loiodice (Matt), Taylor Ellis-Tanner (Jimmy) and sister Brenda Valyou, as well as many cousins, nieces and nephews.
He is predeceased by his mother, Joanne (Palmer) Cookingham.
His daughter, Hailey, will always keep his legacy alive by their father-daughter antics, such as their handshake, nicknames and making “quacking noises” at each other.
Services/Memorials will be held at a later date.
The Kenny Funeral Home has care of arrangements.
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.