With Permission
Reed.
Only minutes before the midnight deadline for the legislative year came to a close Wednesday, State Rep. Lonnie Reed’s cell tower bill was unanimously approved by the state Senate.
Reed (D‑Branford) said the legislation, which updates the way the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) approves cell towers, is expected to be signed into law by the governor. The Assembly approved the bill unanimously in April.
The legislation is particularly important to people in Branford who have seen an onslaught of cell tower proposals in their community in the past three years.
Reed told the Eagle yesterday that she was happy and relieved that the legislation will finally become a reality.
“It makes the cell tower process much more interactive with municipalities, conservationists, neighborhood associations, schools and child daycare centers,” Reed said. “It is important to so many throughout the state and to so many legislators from both sides of the aisle.”
The bill’s passage in the Senate was not without drama. In the last minutes of the 2012 session, as the clock was ticking toward midnight, she said, the moment when all bills die if not voted on, she learned that the cell tower bill was in trouble in the Senate.
As sometimes happens, amendments from another bill almost got tacked onto her bill, an action that would likely have doomed the bill.
She recounted what happened next.
“I rushed upstairs, circled the Senate, and began talking to senators who really wanted the Siting Council Bill. I found the Senate energy chair, John Fonfara, who grimly told me he was fighting to get my bill on consent, but it was touch and go.
“The bell rang downstairs and I ran down to vote. It’s now 10 minutes to midnight. I could not leave the House Chamber because the votes were coming fast and furiously.” At that point she said she began to frantically text various senators and their staffs.
“Suddenly, I get a text back from Sen.Fonfara.” He says: ‘You’re good.’
“The Siting Council bill had passed unanimously with only minutes to go. As the clock struck Midnight, several House members from both sides of the aisle who wanted the bill too,rushed to my desk to ask, ‘Did it make it, did it make it?’ When I said, yes, the hugs commenced.”
The legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. Pat Widlitz (D‑Branford and Guilford), requires cell companies to notify towns 90 days, instead of 60, before filing an application with the CSC. This gives towns more time to participate in the site selection process.
The legislation also requires cell companies to provide towns with more precise information and maps, describing why a cell tower is needed in the area. In addition, it also orders the CSC to give more weight to towns’ suggestions.
The bill would fine cell companies that intentionally mislead the process by submitting false data. It urges the CSC to choose sites that serve as large a regional area as possible, and reemphasizes the need to keep towers out of residential neighborhoods and scenic areas.
Reed and Widlitz, who is chair of the House Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, have been fighting for new cell tower legislation for three years. The bill was overwhelming approved by the legislature last year, but a technicality prevented it from being signed into law.
In 2010, again on the last day of the legislative session, the Senate rolled the bill in another one unconnected with Siting Council issues. The hybrid bill passed in the Senate, but had to come back to the House for re-approval in the last seconds of the session. “An impossible task,” Reed noted. Click here to read the story.
This year the cell tower bill survived the other side of midnight.
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Anyone else see the irony here?
A cell phone was used to contact other legislators, to vote on a bill to limit cell phone towers.
Good thing for them that there was a cell tower nearby.