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100 years ago – April 1924
The nuisance of needless noise from automobiles is sharply dealt with in Document 15 of the Motor Vehicle Department, especially the practice of tooting at intersections to signify plan to hold speed and grab right of way, instead of slowing down and using eyes. Similar abuses are calling people with the horn, tire chains slapping, brakes shrieking, etc. All unnecessary noise is illegal and subject to fine.
The last of the ice left the lake on Tuesday, a somewhat later date than usual.
Daylight saving in New York and Massachusetts goes into effect on Sunday, April 27th. This state does not recognize daylight saving as regards the changing of the clocks, but many towns along railroads will of necessity change their hours of business to conform to the changing of train schedules.
John Eggleston of Lime Rock is having his house wired for electricity.
Some of the residents of Lime Rock Road decided the other day that enough cars had been stuck in the quagmire between the main road and the railroad, and took a hand in draining it. Judge Landon, among others, turned to with a shovel. Ridges were broken down and the stuff was thrown into the ruts, driving off the water, which was guided down the newly-opened gutters. Drains under the road, clogged for years, were cleaned out or rebuilt. Fresh gravel was drawn into the worst of the holes, both there and further down the road. The town scraper finished the job and Lime Rock Road is now navigable without sails or paddles.
50 years ago – April 1974
Astonishment and doubt continue to reverberate throughout Northwestern Connecticut, nearly one week after the Superior Court jury convicted Peter A. Reilly of first-degree manslaughter for the September slaying of his mother, Barbara Gibbons. The unanimous guilty verdict by five women and seven men was announced Friday afternoon after more than nine hours of deliberation spanning two days. The trial began March 1.
A handful of angry and worried horse-owners from Canaan and Salisbury stormed a closed-door session of the Connecticut Equine Advisory Council in Hartford Tuesday night in an effort to block an animal medical research center from being moved from New Jersey into Canaan. The Animal Medical Center, which has been doing research on equine infectious anemia, wishes to bring 50 of its test animals to the former Segalla Stables in Greenacres. The horse owners fear that EIA, which is a fatal disease readily transmitted by flies, mosquitoes and other biting insects, will find its way into the area’s horse population from the infected stock. Connecticut has the densest horse population in the country.
A black leather wallet belonging to the deceased Barbara Gibbons, which was reportedly stolen before her death, was found approximately six weeks after she was brutally killed Sept. 28. It was found in tall grass, about 400 yards south of the Gibbons house, some 30 feet from Route 63, and encrusted with mud. Police reportedly investigated the robbery at the time, but it is not known what the police learned.
The Housatonic Valley Regional High School Board voted last Thursday to use surplus funds from this year’s budget to buy outright a computer the math department has been using on a lease-purchase arrangement. The move will cost over $8,000, but will save over $5,000, the board said, thanks to state reimbursement and savings on annual payments.
25 years ago – April 1999
LAKEVILLE – Friends and family of Paul Nichols Jr. were shocked this week by news that the young man met his end in a raging house fire early Sunday morning. He was 29 years old. The fire began on a couch on the second floor of the Fisher Homestead on State Line Road, according to Terrence Graves, who also lived in the house. After trying to put out the fire and drag the burning couch outside, down the stairs, the couch caught on the stairwell and couldn’t be moved. Mr. Graves ran around outside to the back stairs, but the burning couch in the stairwell had a chimney effect in the old house, propelling immense heat and smoke upwards, according to Fire Marshal Mike Fitting, who lives near the house and was one of the first ones to respond. Firefighters found Mr. Nichols in the bathroom on the second floor and managed to bring him out. Emergency medical personnel went to work on him immediately, but it was too late. Mr. Fitting said the house will be demolished. Mr. Nichols was a graduate of the Lee H. Kellogg School and Housatonic Valley Regional High School in Falls Village.
NORFOLK – Illegal burning was blamed for a brush fire that covered about five acres, demanded the work of about six volunteer fire companies and resulted in extensive damage to a fire truck. Fire Marshal Richard Healy stated that the fire, reported around noon last Thursday, was the result of a grounds maintenance worker burning brush without a permit on Summer Road, a private dirt road near Doolittle Lake. The driver of the 1976 Oren pumper truck that responded told police that the truck began sliding on the muddy, narrow dirt road leading to the fire scene before hitting a tree head-on.
Items were taken from The Lakeville Journal archives at Salisbury’s Scoville Memorial Library, keeping the original wording intact as possible.
The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Lakeville Journal and The Journal does not support or oppose candidates for public office.
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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.