While the Greenwich legislative delegation – also known as the Feckless Foursome – were at yet another self-promoting PR event on Friday, there was actually some good news coming out of Hartford.
A move to wrest control away from the state siting council – which has complete authority to approve cell tower locations – got an important committee endorsement at the state legislature. Click here for article
Connecticut is one of only three states with such siting councils. Citizens in Greenwich have recently protested loudly various efforts to locate these towers, especially one which would violate the deeded trust of the Greenwich Pinetum, one of the most precious and beautiful open spaces in town.
I have no idea whether this bill has any chance of passage, but it seems to me our local legislators ought to be supporting it instead of grandstanding behind yet another one of their bills that was nothing more than a publicity stunt – the proposal to keep cell towers 750 feet away from any school (who came up with that arbitrary distance?)
More and more, the Greenwich legislators have made themselves irrelevant in Hartford with their outspoken ideology. They have isolated themselves in a way that doesn’t serve any of our interests. As Hartford takes more and more of my personal income, makes my commute to Manhattan a hellish experience and treats Greenwich like the idiot cousin with a trust fund, the Feckless Foursome can only bark back with meaningless rhetoric instead of going to work in the Capital hallways to cut deals, smooth relationships and get us the best outcomes.
There was a time when fiscally conservative Republican legislators were extremely effective in Fairfield County. Today, we get only preachy, political haiku from the likes of Rep. Lile Gibbon, whose only purpose, it seems, is to get re-elected. (Dear Rep. Gibbon, please take me off your mailing list and save the first class stamp … I need to hear real solutions and not more right wing moralistic pronouncements such as your condescending “Common Sense” commandments.)
An of course, there was fumbling Fred Camillo, who had to withdraw his own domestic violence legislation because he didn’t understand the issues. Click here for article in the Greenwich Time
Can it get any worse?
