You all know that Bethany and Woodbridge are two different places. Have you thought about how?

I moved to Bethany in January 1990, after spending most of my previous years in urban settings in America and Indonesia. My beloved spouse & I discussed this strenuously during the preceding months of house-hunting. He was persuaded by a third cousin we had visited in rural Ontario in 1985, who remarked that he & his wife decided that they should raise their kids either in the city or the country--never mess around in the suburbs. Joe wanted to try living in the country "for a couple of years." I said that people like us moving to places like Bethany were what turned them from rural to suburban.

One good part about moving here has been learning to love the culture of the Town Meeting. I have few regrets.

I began to notice differences between Bethany and Woodbridge very soon after our older kid entered kindergarten as part of the largest entering class in 20 years. Her elementary class size was regularly 25-28 kids throughout her K-6 career. I didn't think about it, because that was the size of my elementary classes in the late '50s, considered on the small side. But a friend in Woodbridge was terribly anxious when her child's class size went up to 22--"I don't see how learning can take place in that environment." Mine did OK at Amity & University of Chicago and seems to be surviving her first year at NYU Law; so she must have learned something in the big kindergarten.

The debates about buying open space consumed Bethany for years, threw out of balance the long-standing party divisions and tipped elections. Hearts broke when the Bethany Farms tract went to new housing. School enrollments increased. The old guard--who fought against municipal purchase of open space--couldn't understand that they no longer knew everyone in Bethany, that the political texture of the population had changed. And Woodbridge? From where I sat 5 miles away, it seemed less of a problem to impose a moratorium on new housing, to apply for grants to buy some of the land that might otherwise go to development.

I put all this out as prelude to what I observed on 1/12 at the CT Siting Council hearings. The 4 hours, 24 minutes of recording are currently in spin on Woodbridge Government Access Television, channel 79 (or channel 22-916 if you have QAM-tuned TV). The two segments of hearing will probably play repeatedly every evening in the following week. Check wgatv.blogspot.com for possible updates.

The issue of cell tower placement on private property necessarily gets into sticky personal relations, and everyone was carefully respectful of that. I think Sen. Joe Crisco summed it up best, how the question pitted one lovely neighbor against others.

A number of Bethany citizens offered comment in favor of placing the tower at the proposed site. They mostly confined their arguments to lack cell phone coverage along Route 69 and the Bethany/Woodbridge border at Routes 63 & 67; issues of public safety (the worst auto accidents happen on Rte 69) were raised. This and community feelings are really what that the Siting Council will hear.

At the hearing, someone asked, Why not put the tower up in Bethany if they need the cell phone service there? That may be a question for another docket. What the crowd may not know is the relation between the landowner and the Bethany people who testified, the Bethany town librarian and the farmers uphill. One commenter in Bethany has kept llamas on his land, across the road from a CSA we once belonged to. The retired cardiologist--who has remade himself as the Green Man in recent years--has farmed his own produce (even if he doesn't market it) and hosted a variety of musicians from across the state for parties of Old Time, bluegrass, Celtic, and contradance.

Do we really know our neighbors?

If I try to leave personal relationships out of the equation, my thoughts on the place of a cell tower in a rural setting are still divided. I really wanted to keep the Bethany Farms tract as a wilderness of walking trails. But I also really like technology and know its value to preserving and improving human life. I've enjoyed the view of the reservoir while driving downhill on Route 69--it makes me think of Cape Breton rather than Vermont. And while I have to admit that the landscape is already cluttered with water filtration installations (good for humans!) and power lines (also good for humans), I don't think that is sufficient argument to further clutter the landscape. IF you believe that a cell tower is clutter.

This past summer, my husband & I took our first real vacation in three years. We rented a cottage for a week in Westport, MA, near the Rhode Island border and Horseneck Beach State Park. Windmills for electrical generation were a common feature of the farms around us. I thought they were pretty. I admit that I don't know how their height compares to the proposed 195-foot structure. But I tentatively suggest that in 2010--well into the 21st Century--technological structures are a necessary part of a rural landscape.

Aesthetics are always going to divide people. When Chicago's John Hancock building went up, people complained that it looked Satanic. Now it looks pleasingly symmetical compared to other skyscrapers & is certainly more distinctive than the Tower formerly known as Sears. To me a monopole looks better than a lattice structure. But maybe that's my urban upbringing.

The Siting Council will make its decision no matter what I think. I can only offer a little sidebar to the WGATV recordings, where people can speak for themselves.