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AMENIA — During the Thursday, Sept. 15, Town Board meeting, Amenia Highway Superintendent Stan Whitehead told the board that he was going to stop applying for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant money if the town continued to put his hard-earned grant money into fund balances available to the entire town, forcing his department to go into unnecessary debt.Whitehead presented the board members with 10-page packets that detailed the history of his financial struggle with the town over the last dozen years.The issue was brought to light when Resolution No. 40 of 2011 was added to the agenda.The purpose of Resolution No. 40 was to transfer $5,000 out of the Highway Fund Balance in order to make another payment to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for a salt shed grant that the highway department received almost 12 years ago but did not use the full amount.Whitehead maintains that the grant money not used by the highway department was put into the town’s fund balance, and “all Amenia taxpayers received a benefit from it.” Therefore, said Whitehead, the grant should be repaid from the town’s contingency line instead of the Highway Fund Balance line.At the end of 2010, the highway department paid $5,000 toward repaying the unused grant money. The remainder of the balance will come due next year.Whitehead said that he spoke with the town bookkeeper and was told that since the money went into the highway department, it would also have to come out of the highway department.“But as far as I’m concerned, it already came out of the highway department when it went into the fund balance,” he said.Whitehead said that there have been two other occasions when his grant money was put into the fund balance that was available to the entire town: once while Arlene Iuliano was town supervisor and once while Janet Reagon was town supervisor.Whitehead said that revealing the issue regarding the highway department’s grant money helped oust Reagon from office in favor of Wayne Euvrard, the current town supervisor.Whitehead said that for both previous occurrences, the highway department was required to take out loans because the grant money was no longer in the highway department to be used at the department’s discretion.“If the town is going to take the money to make the board look good [by having a large fund balance], then I won’t apply for grants,” he said.Applying for grants takes a lot of time and effort, said Whitehead, but his efforts have been no help to the highway department.Whitehead said he is frustrated that his department is in debt even though he applied for sufficient funds.“Now I have to budget for [loan] payments. I watch my budget very carefully and I’ve never over-spent and I’ve never gone to the board to say I need money,” said Whitehead. “This year would have been real tough if I didn’t get that FEMA money in January.”Whitehead said he fears that the FEMA money he received in January will face the same fate as some of his previous grants.Resolution No. 40 was not voted on during the Sept. 15 meeting. The board decided that the issue warranted further inspection and will be discussed at a later meeting.
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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.