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Only a little more than a month ago there was a small celebration at the White Hart Inn in Salisbury. Three women lined up for a photo opportunity to mark an important occasion. Nancy Heaton, flanked by State Rep. Maria Horn, D-64, and New York Assemblymember Didi Barrett (D-Dutchess/Columbia County), received citations for her work and for the contributions of the Foundation for Community Health (FCH) to our Connecticut and New York communities over the last 20 years.
Heaton, as president and CEO of FCH, has overseen the Sharon-based philanthropic organization as it has granted more than $21 million through 609 grants to 118 organizations, and invested thousands of staff hours to support better health in our regional communities, many that historically have been underserved.
Our front page story this week by Debra A. Aleksinas provides a comprehensive look at the foundation’s work since its inception in 2003 with a goal to promote healthier individuals and communities. Aleksinas’ story also explains FCH’s connection to Sharon Hospital’s sale back then to a for-profit company. Since the early years of the 20th century, many generous donors had contributed to the hospital to help support its nonprofit work. After it was sold, then Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal petitioned to create the Foundation for Community Health “to maintain and improve the physical and mental health of all the residents historically served by Sharon Hospital, Inc.” His move was approved in Litchfield County Court, and the charitable funds were transferred to the foundation.
FCH has met its mandate, stewarding the funds from that sale for the benefit of a rural community that stretches across 17 towns in Northwest Connecticut and the Greater Harlem Valley in New York. Approximately 52,000 people call this community home.
Under Heaton’s leadership the foundation can be credited not only for what it has accomplished in awarding grants, but how it has carried out its mission. As it states on its website, it invests “in people, programs and strategies” to improve health in our community. That includes access to food, safe and stable housing and the opportunity for positive childhood experiences, along with services for seniors, mental health support, and support for immigrants and more. It also includes supporting strategic planning initiatives, focusing on infrastructure needs, and lending a hand to build leadership skills and organizational restructuring.
What this means is that besides funding, FCH has been “focused on strengthening the capacity and sustainability of … organizations so they can do their work more efficiently,” according to Heaton.
With two decades of success under its belt, FCH and Heaton envision new growth in 2024 and have new faces on the board. In 2023, the FCH board added Jill Feldstein, of Dover Plains. She is business manager of the Louis August Jonas Foundation in Rhinebeck. Dr. Zachary McClain of Falls Village, medical director of the Wieler Health Center at The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, also joined the board.
Looking ahead to 2024 and beyond, Heaton said FCH will be exploring a role in statewide advocacy efforts.
We applaud Nancy Heaton and her staff at the Foundation for Community Health for their stewardship and contribution to a healthier community.
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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.