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SALISBURY — There is a new sign on the lawn outside the lower building at Salisbury Central School, near Route 41/44. At the Board of Education meeting Monday, Sept. 28, board members expressed admiration for the sign; chairman Roger Rawlings said, “That was fast!�
“You give me the go-ahead and I move,� PTO Co-president Louise Fallon replied.
The board then heard from Amy Shackleton, cousin of PTO Secretary Tracey Kaufman, about a healthy snack program she developed at the grade school in New Marlborough, Mass.
Shackleton, a nutritionist, said the program at the kindergarten-to-grade-four school is in its second year.
For $3 a week, students get healthy snacks such as cheese sticks, yogurt, pretzels, fruit. Shackleton said the program does not use foods containing hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, food colors or dyes, or artificial sweeteners.
She prepares and takes snacks around on a cart, with pitchers of water, at about 9:45 a.m.
The New Marlborough school has about 90 students.
Kaufman would like to see a similar program implemented at SCS. The board was receptive to the idea, and Rawlings asked Principal Chris Butwill to talk to the staff about it.
Shackleton said she expects a fee for her help, but did not specify how much.
Butwill spoke about the results of the April 2009 Connecticut Mastery Tests (see story, next page) and said that the elementary school students would watch President Barack Obama’s speech to the nation’s schoolchildren on Friday, Oct. 2 (see below).
The middle school will see the speech at the end of the first marking period, he added, in conjunction with an assembly noting student achievements.
Region One Superintendent Patricia Chamberlain reported on the various grants SCS receives. The Title I grant (which provides reading support services) is $59,224 (less than last year); Rural Education Achievement Program, $11,599 (same); Education Cost Sharing (ECS) from the state stayed stable at $187,266, and $34,984 in new funds, from the federal stimulus bill (ARRA), were obtained.
Chamberlain wrote in an e-mail to The Journal that Gov. M. Jodi Rell “decided to utilize federal dollars, calling them the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, to keep the ECS grant at the same funding level of previous year. Generally, the ECS for this year would have been 14 percent less than the previous year if the federal money had not been utilized.�
The state received $53.6 billion from ARRA.
Board member Brian Bartram said the transportation committee had a request for bus pickup in the walk zone (1 mile from the school). There were no extenuating circumstances, Bartram said; the request was denied.
And Kay Lindsay from the public relations committee invited all veterans, especially those from World War II, for a Nov. 10 assembly.
Board member Jim Meyer raised concerns about communication between the Board of Education and the Board of Finance. “I think [the boards] were on different pages last year and we were left out to dry.�
The 2009-10 budget process was more difficult than usual, as the Board of Finance, looking at significant reductions in town revenues, asked the Board of Education to make cuts, which in turn led to some disagreement about class sizes.
Rawlings said he attends finance board quarterly meetings, as well as special meetings and hearings at budget time.
“There are eight or nine opportunities for board members (and anyone else) to get involved,� he noted.
Meyer said, “I’m looking for some kind of guidance. We got no indication we were going in a direction� that the Board of Finance would later reject.
Jennifer Wiegel said, “Last year was exceptional, but they could have given us a number or asked us to come in lower. It’s nice to know early rather than late.�
Rawlings said he would bring the subject up with the Board of Finance.
The board also voted to add 15 minutes per shift to the cafeteria cashier’s hours, from two and a half to two and three quarter hours, at a cost of $545.60 for the school year.
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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.