HARTFORD — The state House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Tuesday, May 24, to require regulations for wind-turbine projects in Connecticut.HB 6249, An Act Requiring a Moratorium on the Siting of Wind Projects Until the Adoption of Regulations, passed by a vote of 132-6, suggesting state representatives are as concerned as residents about possible environmental hazards and the impact on natural resources and quality of life that the turbines might pose.The new legislation does not apply to Colebrook, where two controversial applications to build turbines are already in the works. In the meantime, the Connecticut Siting Council held a straw poll this week on one of the Colebrook applications, indicating approval by a 6-1 margin for West Hartford-based BNE Energy to build three wind turbines near Flagg Hill Road.Hundreds of residents have spoken out at hearings and in written testimony regarding the proposed Colebrook turbines, with the majority of residents opposing the project for environmental and quality-of-life issues. Towering windmills as tall as 480 feet have been proposed, which would dwarf many city buildings in an area where many 18th- and 19th-century homes still stand.State Rep. John Rigby (R-63), who lives in Colebrook, voted for this week’s legislation. He said he supports regulations for wind power before any turbines are built in the state. “During the debate it was pointed out that there are no regulations for cellphone towers,” he said. “In the case of wind turbines, we have an opportunity to carefully lay out the guidelines for installation, and the public gets to be part of the process through public hearings.”Under the approved legislation, which now moves on to the state Senate, the Department of Public Utility Control and the Department of Environmental Protection must adopt regulations that consider tower height and distance from neighboring properties, flicker, noted hazards of wind turbines and the impact on natural resources, among other issues. A public hearing will be required for each application.Opponents of the bill said the Connecticut Siting Council was organized to be an independent authority, which already has the tools to make decisions on wind turbines. Imposing regulations on the council is a departure from the group’s original mandate.Colebrook resident Joyce Hemingson, who runs Fairwind Connecticut, a group opposed to wind turbines in Colebrook, called this week’s legislation a good start, but noted that Colebrook is exempt from the legislation because two applications are already in progress — number 983 at Flagg Hill and number 984 off Rock Hall Road. “The House vote, I think, is good for the state of Connecticut,” Hemingson said. “Hopefully other towns won’t have to go through what Prospect and Colebrook have gone through for the past few months, trying to make sense of these petitions.”Two weeks ago, the Connecticut Siting Council voted 6-2 against an application to build wind turbines in Prospect, saying the turbines would have been too close to residential neighborhoods. However, this week’s straw poll regarding application 983 — the Flagg Hill proposal in Colebrook — suggests the project is nearing approval. The siting council has yet to conduct a straw poll on application 984, which is closer to local residences.“I think people are going to look very closely at the decision in Prospect if the Colebrook project is approved,” Rigby said. “The siting council has said we don’t have as many people in Colebrook as they do in Prospect, but we’re just as important. Our opinions should be weighed the same way.”Hemingson acknowledged that residents would still have the opportunity to challenge any decision in court, but said she cannot be certain that wind turbines will never be built in Colebrook. “People should be concerned,” she said. “If these turbines can be sited 150 feet away from someone’s property, everyone should be worried. No one anticipated that 500-foot-high turbines were going to be proposed for residential neighborhoods.”If approved in the Senate, the law requiring regulations for new wind projects would go into effect July 1. The regulations themselves would be drafted in the next year.
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Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.
“I was a library kid. I walked to the library after school,” she said.
For Sher, the library is as much about the people as it about the books.
“Part of the job I love so much is that running the library is such a community,” she said.
She treasures the relationships she has built, whether recommending books, celebrating accomplishments or helping patrons through difficult times.
“I am thankful that our community is so supportive of the library, unlike what is happening in some other places where librarians are villainized,” Sher said.
Sher takes pride in the Hunt Library’s reputation for being “open and welcoming to everyone. People come in and see things and get pulled into things they weren’t expecting. Our library is seen as a positive force.”
Sher came to Falls Village after being awarded a fellowship at Adamah Farm, then a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. She worked at pickling, in the greenhouse and later in the development office. She also worked as a nanny.
At the same time, “I was in the library all the time,” she recalled. “I’m a voracious reader. The library is where I met a lot of my first friends in Falls Village.”
She became assistant librarian at Hunt and worked in that position for almost a decade before becoming the executive director four years ago.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino
Sher met her husband, Adam, while working at Adamah. They had their wedding there in 2012. He now emcees many events which she co-organizes with the Falls Village Recreation Commission.
Sher and her family live near the library.
“It’s an easy commute,” she said with a smile. “My kids run back and forth. I can go home to walk the dog if I need to.”
“My kids have grown up here.” Her oldest son, Eli, “loves volunteering. He helps with Augustfest and often helps set up chairs for ArtWall gatherings.” Her younger son, Noah, is often at events and was eager to taste cookies at last year’s holiday cookie swap.
When she is not at the library, Sher likes to hike with her family. Bella, their Portuguese water dog, often accompanies them.
Sher enjoys seeking out people to offer events at the library.
“I do a lot of different community programming. It is one of my favorite parts of the job.”
Augustfest, featuring food, music and an auction, is the library’s biggest fundraiser.
“This summer we had a record 152 attendees, which was pretty incredible.”
Yonah Sadeh, a filmmaker from Falls Village, inaugurated the VideoWall this year, Sher explained.
“I’ve known Yonah since he was two. It’s wonderful to work with him as an adult.”
The VideoWall complements the library’s ArtWall, which showcases a new artist each month. Sher praised the ArtWall committee for its work and highlighted December’s popular “12x12 Show,” featuring works by local artists, each measuring 12 by 12 inches and priced at $150.
Sher added that some of the artists who exhibit at the ArtWall offer workshops to students at Kellogg School, next door to the library. In September, artist Danielle Mailer worked with the children. Vincent Inconiglios taught a class last November.
Being next to the school, said Sher, is a great advantage.
“Kids are coming after school, to see friends, work on projects, find a great book. Kids that love the library end up using the library as grownups.”
This past year, in partnership with Adamah, the library and school created a garden, with excess produce made available at The Center on Main.
This year is Sher’s second year participating in the Troutbeck Symposium in Amenia with James King, director of the library at Salisbury School. The Troutbeck Symposium is “a gathering of a year of student historical inquiry across the region” in which students “uncover stories that have been overlooked, forgotten, or never recorded.”
Last year, Sher and King began a project with a group of students researching Irish immigrants in Falls Village, exploring ancestry and creating small magazines about their findings.
They continued this year, visiting St. Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery on Dublin Road, cleaning seven gravestones and even righting one with the help of stonemason and gravestone restoration expert Karl Munson. Paul Kozeazny, a representative of the Catholic archdiocese, helped secure access to the site.
A film documenting their activities will be shown at the symposium in spring 2027.
A full schedule of programs and events, ranging from tech help to ceramic mug-making, can be found on the library’s website.
Despite spending her days surrounded by books, and a busy schedule of programming, Sher still loves to settle in with a book at home.
For more information on library programs and events, visit huntlibrary.org
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Touré was born in northern Mali in 1981. His father, the renowned guitarist Ali Farka Touré, came from a family of soldiers and wanted his son to join the army. The younger Touré studied drums and the calabash and practiced guitar in secret. He earned his father’s blessing to pursue music shortly before Ali died in 2006, and they played two tracks together on Vieux’s debut album.
Touré is known for his deft, polyrhythmic playing, and his songs grow out of riffs that repeat and layer to hypnotic effect. He draws on rock, blues, Latin music and various African traditions. This distinctive blend builds on his father’s work adapting the sonic traditions of Mali’s arid north to the guitar.
Vieux’s album “Mon Pays” (“My Country,” 2013) honored Mali’s culture after Tuareg separatists and extremist groups seized the north in 2012. “Samba” (2017) was recorded before about 50 listeners in Woodstock, New York. In 2022 came “Les Racines” (“The Roots”), a return to his father’s desert blues, and “Ali,” on which he and the trio Khruangbin reworked eight of the elder Touré’s songs.
Touré leads the Ali Farka Touré Foundation, which focuses on cultural and educational work in Mali. Around the anniversary of Ali’s death, it holds a festival in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Bamako has been under blockade for much of the past year, besieged by JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Against this backdrop, Touré continues to carry the music of Mali to audiences abroad.
At the Nov. 5 concert, Touré’s desert blues will share the bill with Gnawa, the music LanGus plays, which developed in Morocco among West Africans who were brought north across the desert as enslaved people. Gnawa is religious music traditionally performed at all-night healing ceremonies called lila, intended to carry participants into trance.
Samir LanGusProvided
LanGus was born and raised outside Agadir, Morocco, and began learning Gnawa from its masters at age 8. He plays the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute made of wood and camel skin. The player strikes a low string with the thumb to create a deep, resonant pulse. Iron castanets clatter over the sintir’s bass line, and vocalists trade call-and-response refrains.
LanGus infuses the tradition with jazz and improvisation. In New York, he founded the ensemble Innov Gnawa. His first solo album, “Gnawa Love,” came out in February.
Touré and LanGus’s Nov. 5 concert is one of the last public events at Race Brook Lodge, which is for sale and ended full-service operations at the end of 2025. The lodge’s final scheduled event, on Nov. 6, is an evening of Rumi’s poetry with translator and vocalist Haleh Liza Gafori, cellist Isabel Castellvi and ceremonial bard James Bird.
For tickets, visit rblodge.com.
James FitzGerald is a student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on ecological restoration and international environmental cooperation. He splits his time between Lakeville and New Haven.
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