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During his travels around the state distributing goodies in pursuit of re-election in November, Governor Lamont might perform a valuable service by pausing for a moment here and there to examine the performance of ordinary management in state government.
Two weeks ago the big failures were in education, where a state technical school teacher who had been fired for abusing minority students was reinstated to her job with $225,000 in back pay. An arbiter ruled that since the technical school system hardly ever fires anyone, it couldn’t fire this teacher either.
Then, under pressure of a gender discrimination lawsuit, the state Board of Regents for Higher Education reinstated a community college president and paid her $775,000.
Meanwhile the parade of misconduct in the state police continued. First eight state trooper recruits were dismissed for cheating on an examination at the police academy. Then over several weeks five troopers were suspended on various charges, including theft, sexual assault, hit-and-run driving, and domestic violence.
Then Bill Cummings of Connecticut’s Hearst newspapers produced a more shocking report: that four more troopers had escaped discipline after being caught creating hundreds of fake traffic tickets to try to gain favor from their superiors — and that state police headquarters could not explain why the four were let off so easily.
According to the Connecticut Examiner’s Steve Jensen, at least the commanding officer of the state police, Col. Stavros Mellekas, issued a note of caution to his department. “These incidents do not define us,” the colonel wrote, “but we need to step up and lock down behavior.”
And then a case worker for the state Department of Children and Families was charged criminally with helping a client evade arrest for child sex trafficking.
The governor, a Democrat, had nothing to say about these incidents of misconduct. Republicans didn’t call attention to them either. After all, most of the state employees involved are members of unions whose endorsements are coveted.
But even if no one in authority is curious about these cases, they still suggest that state government is not operating well for the public and, worse, that Connecticut’s politicians are too scared to try to change that.
If competence and integrity seem hard to achieve in state government, developments last week in Bridgeport suggested that achieving competence and integrity in government in Connecticut’s cities may be impossible.
Mayor Joe Ganim, whose first administration was a criminal enterprise that sent him to prison for seven years, last week hired as the city’s senior labor relations official a former Newtown police officer who was convicted 10 years ago of embezzling $95,000 from the town’s police union while he was its treasurer. Of course in Bridgeport city government a background in embezzlement may be considered valuable experience.
And a month after agreeing to a three-year extension of his contract, Bridgeport school Superintendent Michael Testani announced that he would leave in November anyway to become superintendent in neighboring Fairfield. But since Bridgeport may be Connecticut’s leading poverty factory, it is hard to blame anyone in public education for departing for a place where most students come to school prepared to learn — or where the kids come to school at all. (Last week Hartford’s superintendent acknowledged that 44% of that city’s students are chronically absent.)
The state and federal governments have been doing the poverty thing for almost 60 years. Will another 60 years have to pass before anyone in authority in Connecticut notices that it’s not working?
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer in Manchester. He can be reached at CPowell@JournalInquirer.com.
The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Lakeville Journal and The Journal does not support or oppose candidates for public office.
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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.