Marian Ferguson
Latest News
Auto Repair
Blinds
Building/Remodeling
Floor Refinishing
Insulation
Landscaping
Landscaping
Lightning Rods
Moving
Overhead Doors
LAKEVILLE — Marian Ferguson finished her life peacefully on Monday, Nov. 21, 2022, at the Sharon Hospital. With her were her loving husband Carr, her daughters Laura, Sharon, Marcia and Sandy and her four beloved sons-in-law. Sending their loving farewells were her eleven grandchildren and her three great grandchildren, in each of whom she instilled her own great love of Lakeville and her home on its lake. When she arrived on its shores in 1962, she sensed she had found her home for life. In the six decades since, she formed abiding friendships with other parents, fellow sailors, golfers, tennis players, skiers, skaters, bridge players, worshippers, demonstrators, hikers and travelers. Her gusto for life, and friends, her grace and athleticism were legendary.
Marian was born Marian Evelyn Nelson on June 15, 1931, in Toledo, Ohio, to Robert Nelson and Marian Neely Nelson. Marian’s formative teen years were spent in Larchmont, New York, where she was elected her high school’s queen, “not just for her intelligence and beauty but for her enthusiastic friendship with all of us.” During a summer break from college in 1950, she was offered a spot at Sun Valley, Idaho, entertaining resort guests in its swim show and waiting on tables. On her second day there, she met one of her busboys, Carr Ferguson, who was also summer college help. They fell in love at first sight and married four years later as soon as their graduate and law degrees were in hand (hers in speech therapy and his in law).
Work took them first to Washington, D.C., where their first two daughters were born, then to Iowa City, Iowa where their third daughter joined the family, and to New York City and Lakeville, their fourth daughter being born in the Sharon Hospital.
The heart of Marian’s life was her family, whose own lives gave her greatest satisfaction. Her work as a speech therapist, however, benefited countless patients and students, starting at Cornell with older stroke victims of aphasia (a problem she confronted herself in her last years,) and later, children with the same disease while working at Stanford University’s Institute of Childhood Aphasia.
Equally rewarding, was her work on speech and learning issues for students in New York and Washington schools. In Washington, she participated in the establishment the first secondary school dedicated to such students, serving as the Chelsea School’s first diagnostician and admitting officer as well as classroom teacher, for which service her students voted her their commencement speaker.
Marian travelled extensively and adventurously in her later years, voyaging to the remote highlands of New Guinea and bathing among penguins in Antarctica.
At home, she was a consummate hostess, sharing her rambling house on Lakeville Lake, “Roundelay” with an ever-expanding number of friends, friends of friends and many a chance-met stray. Her motto on all occasions was “the more the merrier.”
Her loving family will strive to keep her welcoming spirit alive and bright, carrying her legacy of hospitality and kindliness into the future.
Donations or offerings in her memory may be made to her dear friends at the Salisbury Volunteer Ambulance Service, P.O. Box 582, Salisbury, CT 06068.
Related Stories
Get Local News Delivered To Your Inbox
Subscribe to receive stories reported for, by, and about our neighbors, on the issues affecting you.
By signing up you agree to our
privacy policy
.
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.