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SHARON — It takes a certain kind of person to balance three careers successfully. Peter Steiner of Sharon seems to have figured out the trick.
Steiner is probably best known as a New Yorker magazine cartoonist. He began submitting cartoons in 1977 and, over the past 30 years, the magazine has published more than 400 of them. But he is also a painter and an artist. He had a show of portraits in Roxbury last January and will have a show at the Hotchkiss Library in Sharon in December.
To complete the trifecta, he is also a successful novelist and has just released the third in a series of thrillers set in the south of France. It’s called “The Terrorist,� and it follows the first two books: “Le Crime� and “L’Assassin.�
He will sign copies at Darren Winston Bookseller in Sharon on July 17 and at the Hotchkiss Library of Sharon on Aug. 6. And he will speak at the NorthEast-Millerton Library Annex, 28 Century Blvd., on Saturday, June 26, at 3 p.m.
Perhaps it is appropriate that this career, which combines words and images, began with cartooning, a mix of, well, words and images.
“I’ve been cartooning for as long as I can remember,� Steiner said. “I started in junior high school, maybe even before that. I was good at it. It was one of the few things I was good at, at the time.�
After he left the Army, Steiner went to graduate school and earned a degree in German literature, which he taught at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.
“I burned out there and decided I’d try being an artist,� he said. “I was painting and cartooning at the same time. Cartooning caught on first. I started getting paid for cartoons, so I went in that direction.�
Steiner said he first sold cartoons to newspapers in Georgia and Virginia before The New Yorker began to buy his work.
But he didn’t move north until his wife, Jane Cook, retired from her job in Virginia. With three grown stepchildren and a very flexible job, Steiner realized they didn’t need to stay where they were; they could live anywhere.
“We drew a circle around New York City, and this is where we landed,� he said.
Steiner and Cook moved to Sharon in 2003.
“It’s so beautiful. The whole area is just spectacular. And we found a nice house.�
They also own a home about 150 miles southwest of Paris, in a little town on the river Deme, called Beaumont-Sur-Deme. Steiner said they travel to France about twice a year, spending a total of two-and-a-half to three months there.
Steiner’s three novels are set in France, inspired by his stays there.
“I love France,� he said. “I love writing about the landscape and the walking and the cooking and friends meeting at the cafe.�
Steiner said his venture into writing is a more recent endeavor, sparked by the experience of sitting with his father as he was dying.
“When my father was ill, I started keeping a journal,� he said. “Well, it wasn’t really a journal. It was more ruminations about our relationship and death and illness. At some point it seemed kind of unfocused, so I decided to turn it into a piece of fiction, and it ended up a novel. It seemed pretty good to me, so I thought I would try to get it published.�
The book was published as “A French Country Murder� in 2003 (the title was changed to “Le Crime� when it was reprinted in paperback) and follows the exploits of a former CIA agent who retires to France. He is thrown back into the world of espionage when a dead body is dumped on his doorstep.
Steiner laughed when asked if his father was ex-CIA.
“The closest I ever came to the CIA was when I was in Virginia,� he said. “But you can make stuff up. You read enough in the paper to know kinda how they’re doing. You can write fiction in such a way that it seems you know more than you actually do.�
The mystery was successful enough that it spawned two more books following the same character, “L’Assassin� and the recently published “The Terrorist.�
“He’s sort of an alter ego,� Steiner said of Louis Morgon, his CIA agent. “I like the situation.�
And, he added, “It’s a way to fantasize about living in France.�
Steiner said his forays into painting and writing have been a treat for him and that he has been doing less cartooning lately.
“I do a lot of painting,� he said. “Several years ago I did portraits of people I knew, and a lot of self-portraits of myself making funny faces. And I really like writing. When I was cartooning, I was trying to make a living. This is different. There’s no pressure. I don’t have to do anything, so I just do it the way I want to do it.�
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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.