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WINSTED — The town’s School Building Committee met at Hinsdale School on Thursday, Jan. 6, to begin preliminary discussions on closing one of the school district’s buildings.
Before the start of the 2011-12 school year, the committee is expected to close one of the three town-owned school buildings: Hinsdale School, Batcheller School or Pearson School.
The closure is due to the Board of Education’s decision to move the town’s seventh- and eighth-graders to the semi-private high school, The Gilbert School.
During the meeting, the committee discussed how the district should go about determining which building to close and also toured the Hinsdale School building.
Committee chairman Joseph Beadle said that he hopes to gather as much information about all three buildings as possible before any decision is made.
“We need to come up with a strategy and how to tackle it,� Beadle said. “What I hope we can do is to get as much information as possible about the work that has previously been done at these buildings. Not just mopping the floors and fixing the faucets, but major repairs, including the things in each school that still need to be upgraded.�
Board of Education members Paul O’Meara, Raymond Neal and Kathleen O’Brien were present at the meeting.
“This is not a cut and dried issue,� O’Meara said. “We need to get the numbers to see how much it would cost to get each school where it needs to be and what will be the most cost-effective long-term plan would be.�
Before the meeting, Beadle e-mailed members of the board an evaluation of Hinsdale School conducted in 2006 by O’Riordan Migani Architects of Seymour.
In the report, the architects propose a plan that would bring Hinsdale School to current building and fire codes.
The plan includes asbestos abatement, a new elevator car and tower and upgrades to the entire building.
If all of the improvements in the report were undertaken by the town, the company estimates that it would cost $5,941,314.
“I do disagree with some of the things that they said in the report,� Beadle said. “The building code is not a retroactive code. If the building code changes we don’t have to take a building and bring it up to present day code as long as its not an immediate danger to life and health or making someone sick. If it’s in good working order, there is no reason to bring it up to [building code] standards. The fire code, on the other hand, is a retroactive code. As that code changes, it requires that we make changes that are acceptable.�
Because of which, Beadle said he will be talking with the town’s fire marshall, William Baldwin, to discuss current fire code issues with the three buildings.
There were no decisions made at the meeting.
However, before the meeting ended, O’Brien told the committee that she could not see the Board of Education closing Pearson School.
“I don’t think the town would be in favor of closing Pearson,� O’Brien said. “The town uses [the gym] for basketball and things like that, so I can’t see it closing.�
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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.