WASHINGTON, D.C. — What if they gave an inauguration and nobody came? Or, what if they gave an inauguration and the number of spectators was fewer than the 25,000 National Guard troops, hundreds of Secret Service agents, the entire Metropolitan DC police force, U.S. Park Police, U.S. Capitol Police, U.S. Border Patrol, FBI, police officers from states as far away as Texas, Minnesota, Illinois, Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania and neighboring states like Maryland, Virginia, New York. They all came to ensure that our democracy could proceed. Makes one realize how significant this event was.
This inauguration of the 46th president, Joe Biden, was my seventh, this time with no credentials. I went as a tourist. I know Washington very well, and I have never seen the city so quiet.
After passing my early Tuesday morning rapid COVID-19 test in Torrington, I drove to D.C. and, that afternoon, I cruised around the city to determine where I would park the following day. The city was shut down. Most of the bridges were closed. All entrances to the Capitol, the Mall and the White House were blocked by huge concrete slabs, chain link fences topped with barbed wire. Police cars with flashing lights and camo-painted jeeps and trucks parked horizontally across the streets.
Undaunted, I set out the following morning walking on nearly empty streets except for police and National Guard. (I met one guardsman from Connecticut whose father manages a Cumberland Farms in Torrington.)
Stores were boarded up and the atmosphere was cold and gray and strange.
Eventually, I was able to find some pockets of people in free speech zones. Next to John Marshall Park, which was zoned for free speech, there was a bar with all of the doors and windows open, a television inside and a few hundred quiet, mask-wearing people gathered outside, to watch the president’s speech.
Mostly the area was filled with journalists, guardsmen, neighbors and police but there were some people from Texas with crosses, and signs that said, “Jesus Saves,” loitering about.
The small crowd watched in awe as Lady Gaga sang the national anthem and we stood quietly listening to the new president’s speech. We all sang our mask-muffled last verse of “Amazing Grace” along with Garth Brooks. The sun came out and the television got hard to see and except for one woman who said that Trump is the true president (she said that he is Jesus’ president) the crowd seemed to whoosh a collective sigh of relief as it sunk in: Biden is President.
After that, I wandered over to Black Lives Matter Plaza, which is a two-block stretch of 16th Street renamed by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser after last summer’s protests.
Though the plaza is directly across from the White House there were plenty of barricades between us and the actual White House.
Not much was happening there. Large speakers were blaring Tracy Chapman singing “Talkin’ ’Bout a Revolution,” a pretty blonde shimmied through the crowd on an expensive-looking electric skateboard, journalists seemed to be interviewing each other on their smartphones, lots of Black Lives Matter flags and posters decorated the plaza but it was a calm cheerful crowd of a few hundred people milling about. Through the barricades and the barbed wire and up in the sky on the White House roof I spotted marksmen mixed in with cameramen.
Maybe this was the smallest inauguration in history, but it was one to ponder and remember.
Photographer Anne Day, formerly editor of The Lakeville Journal Co.’s Compass arts and entertainment, has been an official photographer for four presidential inaugurations, including the two inaugurations of Barack Obama, in 2009 and 2013.
For more photos, go to Instagram, @anneday13.
Vehicles and barriers cut off most visitors from the Capitol building during the Jan. 20 inauguration. Photo By Anne Day
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.