Donald Kemp Ross
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LAKEVILLE — Donald Kemp Ross, 78, of Lakeville, died on Saturday, May 14, 2022, at Noble Horizons after several weeks in hospitals to diagnose a rare form of lymphoma.
He was an active member of the Salisbury community since 2012, when he and his wife Helen Klein Ross bought and restored an old governor’s mansion on Millerton Road. He has served locally as vice-president of Lake Wononscopomuc Association, president of the Salisbury Forum and president of the Salisbury Association, as well as on national boards including as board chair of Greenpeace USA.
Donald was born in the Bronx on June 29, 1943, and spent most of his life working to make the world a better place. After graduating from Fordham Preparatory School and Fordham College (where he brought football back to campus), he joined the Peace Corps and spent two years teaching in Nigeria. After graduating from NYU Law School in 1970, he went to Washington, D.C., to work for Ralph Nader, becoming one of the original “Nader’s Raiders.” In 1971, he traveled to the United Kingdom for Public Citizen on a campaign to expose the dangers of Thalidomide. He spent years traveling this country creating Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), student-run organizations of activists advocating for the public interest. He came back to his home state to run NYPIRG and built it into New York’s largest citizen group.
In May 1979, in only three weeks, he organized a No Nukes March on Washington that drew 100,000 people from all over the country. Four months later, he coordinated the No Nukes Rally in New York, one of the largest political gatherings in the 1970s, drawing 250,000 protesters.
In 1984, he formed a lobbying firm in Albany with Arthur Malkin, a former student organizer for NYPIRG. Today, Malkin & Ross is one of the most respected firms in New York, advocating for clients in social services, education, consumer rights, civil justice, criminal justice, healthcare, energy, and the environment.
From 1985 to 1999, he directed the Rockefeller Family Fund, making grants in areas including government accountability, economic justice for women and environmental protection.
With Arthur Malkin, he co-founded M & R Strategic Services in 1991, a campaign firm in Washington, D.C., which is today a national leader in mobilizing millions to fight for issues including marriage equality, reproductive rights, immigration and housing. From 2009 to 2013, he led the MacArthur Foundation’s National Campaign to Reform Juvenile Justice, which helped enact more than 200 reform laws in the U.S., changing practices, and transforming the perception of youth in contact with juvenile justice systems.
For over thirty years, he managed the Tortuga Foundation that supported projects in areas he cared most about, including protecting open spaces and fragile lands of Alaska.
He has co-authored several books on consumer activism with Ralph Nader.
In addition to Helen, his wife of 37 years, Donald leaves two daughters, Katherine and Margaret Ross, a son, Mike Ross, from his previous marriage to Susan Deller Ross, and longtime friends he considered family. He was predeceased by a sister, Mary Ellen Ross.
A memorial will be held outdoors at his beloved home Holleywood on Sunday, May 22 at 11 a.m. Parking at the Town Grove. A tribute service will be held later in New York City. The Kenny Funeral Home has care of arrangements. Memorial contributions may be made to The Salisbury Association, New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) or to Hands in Outreach empowering girls in Nepal where he led several treks.
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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.