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WINSTED — Renovation work has begun at the Winsted Health Center, with center staff expecting the new roof to be in place and completed as early as the end of this week.
“The roof is almost 75 percent done,� Kris Griffin, executive assistant to the center’s board of directors, told The Journal Monday.
She said the renovation work
began at the facility on Nov. 23.
“They are doing a great job,� Griffin said of Diamond Inc., the Waterbury-based company in charge of the roof repairs.
Also, several pot holes in the center’s back parking lot have been patched as part of the first phase of the renovation project.
“It’s going well,� Griffin said.
The center, located at 115 Spencer St., received a $131,000 federal grant for the renovations earlier this fall.
The grant will fund a series of substantial repairs on the two buildings that make up the facility — one built in 1902, the other built in 1957.
In addition to the new roof, other projects include the installation of new automatic doors and entrance ramps and new stone work for the 1902 building.
In addition, the center’s 1957 building, which houses the facility’s Veterans Administration clinic, will receive a new set of thermostats. During the winter months, center staff and volunteers often have had to open the building’s windows to help regulate the temperature inside the building.
Also, the center’s parking lot areas will be completely resurfaced in the spring, Griffin said.
Although the much-needed renovation work has begun, the future of the center’s emergency clinic remains uncertain.
Earlier this year, Charlotte Hungerford Hospital announced that it was looking into the possibility of moving out of the center and relocating to another site somewhere in the area.
At the Winsted facility, the Torrington-based hospital currently runs an emergency department daily from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation programs, as well as blood drawing, laboratory, x-ray and digital mammography services. The hospital’s four-bed Hungerford Regional Sleep Laboratory is also housed at the center.
Although the center also houses the offices of private doctors and therapists, as well as the St. Francis Center for Occupational Health, the hospital remains Winsted Health Center Foundation’s largest tenant.
Timothy LeBouthillier, a spokesman for Charlotte Hungerford, told The Journal in October that the hospital has not yet made any decisions regarding the future of its operations at the Spencer Street location, but is only exploring options to improve and expand “the scope and level of the services� it provides the greater Winsted area.
LeBouthillier said the options being considered include moving to a new local facility “at one of four locations� or remaining at the Winsted Health Center.
Meanwhile, the center has entered into talks with two other health-care providers about the possibility of moving to the center.
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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.