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KENT — It was not the shortest town meeting ever, but it was short enough that residents didn’t really even get a chance to warm their seats.
The annual town meeting was held on Friday evening, Jan. 21, at Town Hall, and it lasted 12 minutes. Twenty-four people attended. Four were members of the press.
There were five items on the agenda, and since none of the items had to do with new capital spending or budget expenditures, discussion on each item was slight.
The town report and annual financial statement for fiscal 2008-09 were discussed and approved in just a minute or so. They can be found online at townofkentct.org (got to “show archivesâ€) and at Town Hall.
One resident asked why they won’t be available at the Kent Memorial Library. Town Clerk Darlene Brady said she would print up copies for the library after the town meeting.
Other than that, there was no discussion and no debates about the numbers in the 36-page audit, and there were no comments about anything in the 42-page town report. Also passed by the audience unanimously and within a minute was the appointment of Mark Sebetic, Michael Green and Mark Lenz to the Park and Recreation Commission for three-year terms.
One of the more complex agenda items was a resolution to terminate two separate bond authorizations. At a town meeting on Oct. 26,2001, residents voted to authorize $200,000 in bonds for improvements to Kent Center School; and at a town meeting on April 27, 2007, residents voted to authorize $2,340,000 in bonds to construct the new firehouse.
Selectman George Jacobsen explained that, in both instances, the town did not need as much money as anticipated for the projects.
However, because the remainder of the bonds can still be used, they must to be terminated in order for the town to maintain a good credit rating.
“It’s really just a housekeeping item,†Jacobsen said. “This is just to clean up our books.â€
The resolution passed unanimously and without debate.
GE settlement
Next, voters unanimously authorized the Board of Selectmen to apply for and accept $250,000 from the Natural Resource Trustee Sub-Council for Connecticut for the design and construction of a boat launch on North Kent Road. Dennis DePaul, who is a member of the Planning and Zoning Commission, explained that the funds are available through a settlement that General Electric made with the federal Environmental Protection Agency in 2000.
The settlement was part of a lawsuit against the company, which had released contaminants including PCBs into the Housatonic River over a 30-year period.
“There was a settlement of $7 million that has now grown to $9 million,†DePaul said. “The settlement is being divided up by several groups, with projects to increase recreational use on the river. Out of the 130 or so applicants, this project, which has been pursued by Bart Clark for the past four years, has made the cut several times.â€
DePaul said the project was one of the 23 projects approved by the council.
Finally, the selectmen were authorized to apply for a grant of $160,000 to fund a regional energy coordinator position.
First Selectman Bruce Adams said the state is offering the grant through its American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) program.
If the grant is approved, it would fund the position for two years, and the coordinator would serve several towns in the Northwest Corner, including Kent.
The item was approved by a majority of the residents at the town meeting, with one resident, John Mauer, voting against it. Mauer did not say why he voted against the item.
“This wasn’t the quickest town meeting I have ever been to,†Adams said after the meeting. “I pretty much expected a low turn out and a quick meeting because there was nothing too serious on the agenda. Actually, a lot more people showed up tonight than I expected.â€
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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.