My Country Life

Archive for the ‘Southbury Politics’ Category

Cingular Wireless (AT&T), like all the big cellular service providers, is looking to make sure their coverage map looks as impressive as its competitors and, as such, has deemed rural areas as an open target to pock-mark with their cell phone towers.  Once the cell phone provider’s engineers and experts have scoped out a spot, it appears as if our federal government has created a law that makes it nearly impossible to stop them from their “crusade” (their word, not mine) to alter what little bit of rural landscape is left here in town.

As a new homeowner and resident to the area, what I didn’t know is that Cingular has been planning to build a cell phone tower at the end of Perkins Road for possibly more than a year.  What’s surprising is that my neighbors who have been here for 10+ years didn’t know either.  That may be more by design than coincidence.  The CSC’s response to the concern that people felt a bit ambushed by the news of this project was that the public notice was posted in the local newspaper.

DOES ANYONE ACTUALLY READ A NEWSPAPER ANYMORE? COULD THE CSC GET ANY MORE ANTIQUATED IN THEIR PROCESS? BEFORE THIS WHOLE THING EVEN BEGAN, IT’S BECOMING APPARENT THAT NOBODY IS INTERESTED IN THE LOCAL HOMEOWNER’S OPINION, ONLY AS REQUIRED BY LAW (which means it’s veritably ignored… “Thanks for your thoughts… Next!”)

Cingular experts have done their own surveys and determined that an area of the Shepaug Valley has a limited or less-than-desirable cell phone signal which they’d like to remedy.  Their answer is to build a 150-foot monopole tower less than 1000-feet from my property and within view from my home.

I’d say that nearly all of Southbury is quite beautiful.  The area I live in is known as the Purchase Section and is more rural than most areas of the town.  We have a dairy farm just down the road, I have a beautiful brook that runs through my property, I live on a road that is declared by local government as a “scenic road”, a neighbor a few houses down owns a few sheep and goats, and that’s just a few of many reasons why I love living in this part of Southbury.  It is appalling to me that my Perkins Rd. neighbor would be so greedy and without conscience that she would sign a lease to have Cingular (AT&T) build a permanent 150′ tower of metal emitting whatever kind of signals/energy end up being mounted on it. I can’t say enough about how much I despise her decision.

The Connecticut State Siting Commission (CSC) is the group of people that ultimately give companies like Cingular the nod to build. Interestingly, even they said something to the effect of, “I’ve never been to this area of Connecticut.  It’s like the boondocks out there.”  Yes, the keyword here is “boondocks” which they did say.  EXACTLY.  Why are you ruining a part of town so rural that it feels like the boondocks to you?  It’s a complicated answer but in the end, my opinion is that government backed corporate greed is why it’s allowed to happen.  Not to mention the local property owner’s own despicable greed, which paved the way for this project. I’ll give you a little bit of background on the public legal mumbo jumbo…

The Federal Communications Commission (the good ol’ FCC) are the thoughtful people that are in charge of setting standards and laws that determine the who, what, when, where, and why’s relating to cell phone towers, amongst many other things.  Back in 1996 the FCC revised the Federal Communication Act (now called the “Federal Communication Act of 1996) and set forth some pretty broad permissions that give cellular providers veritable carte blanche permission to build cell phone towers where they see fit.  The law appears to be written in a way that mandates that all Americans demand and have a right to uninterrupted cellular services, where ever they may roam.  So a person from, say, Chicago, who travels to Southbury, CT has an inherent right to cellular services regardless of the will of the local people who are most affected by these towers.  The policy seems to follow the premise of eminent domain, that the greater public will benefit from these towers more than the local residents who are affected and/or damaged by it.

At the end of 2009, Cingular (AT&T) appeared before the State Siting Commission to speak on behalf of their application for environmental “compatability” and public need, it was clear that the burden of proof needed to establish public need was simply determining what Cingular believes to be poor or low cellular (RF) signals.  So, in their opinion, if the service is poor, the public need is inherent.  That is the way our politicians set this up for us.  Gee, thanks.

What’s even better is that our state and local leaders are backing away from saying anything about the project, claiming that the federal law precedes state and local law.  I don’t think it’s a big surprise that Federal law usually precedes state or local laws, but this is the part that annoys me completely.  There are ways our state and local leaders could help to reduce the impact that these metal monsters have on our communities.  The Communications Act does have language in it that would allow communities to intervene in the siting process as to minimize the impact to the environment and its property owners. However, it has become apparent that the town of Southbury might argue that sticking this cell tower out in the backwoods part of town IS minimizing the impact. The 2000 census has Southbury at a population of just about 19,000. So if a dozen of those 19,000 are upset it’s become apparent that the response from our town is that we are “NOT RELEVANT”.

I could carry on about it, but once again apathy seems to be the best course to avoid a nervous breakdown or something. At this point the entire government process is nearly done and we’re just waiting for the CSC to approve the project. I don’t believe there’s anything that can be done to stop it. The process appears to be streamlined to facilitate these cell phone tower projects and the crusade of greed. What’s most upsetting is that the Archibald family had this incredible opportunity to stand up and say “no” to this. But my understanding from other neighbors is that the money being offered to them was too good to pass up, for more than one reason. I hope Mrs. Archibald thinks about how much this cost all of her neighbors so she could reap profits from a cell tower on her property.

I’ve kept a draft version of this blog entry for about a month now and could probably write a lot more things that make this more of a journalism piece than a blog entry. I’m done for now and will blog about it again, I’m sure… Like I mentioned at the start – I’ve left this open to comments, in case anyone wants to support or oppose what I’ve said.