Dorothy Winder Okie Beach
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CORNWALL — Dorothy Winder Okie Beach, born in 1927, died peacefully on Jan. 26, 2024, after a week-long hospital stay that was rich with family, phone calls, laughter, tears and song. She managed to live all of her 96 years at home surrounded by the music, flowers, dogs and birds that nourished her soul.
Born in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, Dorothy was the cherished later third child (and a girl at that, with two older brothers) to her parents, William R. and Charlotte (Laird) Okie. She described a vibrant early life with relatives flowing easily in and out of her country homes, the second of which was inspired by ‘Uncle Brog’, whose ‘Okie Influence’ informed not only architecture at the time, but also the renovation of her own Irvington home; its wide floorboards and hand-beaded trim were a daily reminder of where she came from and what she loved.
Dorothy attended Baldwin School, Mt. Holyoke (Class of 1950) and American University, ultimately working as an inner-city librarian, but all the while studying as a pianist in what she had learned on the fly while accompanying her big brothers and their college friends in song when they made their brief, thrilling appearances at home.
At 21, Dorothy married Brewster Yale Beach, Episcopal priest and later a Jungian analyst. They moved from Youngstown, Ohio, to Basking Ridge, New Jersey, before settling in Wilmington, Delaware with their three children. For several years, she served on the Board of Directors of the Episcopal Seminary of the Caribbean in Puerto Rico. A family cottage in West Cornwall, part of the “Yelping Hill” community, drew them northward in the summer.
Divorced in her 40s, Dorothy forged a new home and a new life for herself in Hastings-on-Hudson and then Irvington, New York, becoming the long-time organist and choir director at Tarrytown’s Christ Church. She ran Dial-A-Writer for many years, a writers’ referral service that had her striding across Times Square to the 19th floor of ‘1501’. Matching writers to those with stories to tell was also a wonderful match for this curious and attentive listener who loved hearing the intimate and often strange tales from her callers (one of whom, famously, was Oprah Winfrey!)
In what was a major accomplishment, she earned a place at Manhattan School of Music in their master’s program in piano accompanying. Playing for top-notch musicians, she featured many of them in the acclaimed Music for a Sunday Afternoon series which she founded in 1974.
Dorothy possessed a deep contentment in connection, keeping close tabs on her many friends and her children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews with frequent phone calls, loving notes and whimsical birthday poems. She delighted simply in being alive, whether she was making music or playing cards, tending roses in her Irvington garden or surrounded by nature at Yelping Hill, lingering over breakfast while admiring the songbirds on the outside feeder or walking in the woods with a big stick and her ‘current’ beloved dog. When she was no longer able to garden, a kind landscaper entered her life, planting flowers around her yard that were an endless source of pleasure.
Imbued with a strong sense of home and family, Dorothy joyfully made the world her home and transformed every stranger she met into part of her family.
She is survived by her three children, Nancy Beach, Robert Beach (Dongxian Yue) and Louise Beach (Brian Skarstad), her four grandchildren, Will, Sam, Anna and Maya, and her two great-grandchildren, Vigo and Miles.
A private memorial service will be held for Dorothy in the spring at the church she grew to love, St. Barnabas, Irvington.
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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.