(03 Feb 05) The date for the public hearing on SB-92 has been announced. S.B. No. 92 is on the agenda for a public hearing being held by the Energy & Technology Committee on Tuesday, February 8th. The hearing starts at 1:00 PM in Room 2B of the Legislative Office Building. Public is limited to three (3) minutes. Sign-up for the hearing begins at 12 Noon in Room 2B. See the Legislative Bulletin for additional details.
If you are interestd in learning more about what the hearing process is like, the legislature provides A Guide to Testifying at Public Hearing and an instructional video on the same topic.
(27 Jan 05) SB-92 was among the proposed bills that the Joint Committee on Energy & Technology voted to reserve for subject matter public hearings.
Please stay tuned... There will be at least five calendar days notice of the hearing. The Energy & Technology committee normally holds its public hearings on Tuesdays & Thursdays starting at 1 PM.
The Antenna Bill was introduced on 11 January 2005 by Senator Donald J. DeFronzo of the 6th District. The bill, which is entitled An Act Concerning Amateur Radio Communications, has been given the formal designation Proposed Senate Bill No. 92 (SB-92) and referred to the legislature's Joint Committee on Energy and Technology.
Representative Art O'Neill of the 69th district has introduced HB-5918 An Act Concerning Municipal Regulation of Amateur Radio Antennae [sic], a House companion bill to SB-92. Note that while the titles and statements of purpose of SB-92 and HB-5918 differ, the actual text of the proposal is identical for both bills. HB-5918 has also been referred to the Joint Committee on Energy & Technology.
Representative Sandy Nafis of the 27th house district and Senator Billy Ciotto of the 9th senate district have introduced HB-6036 An Act Concerning Amateur Radio Facilities. This bill joins SB-92 and HB-5918 in the Joint Committee on Energy & Technology.
SB-92 has been quietly collecting a growing number of co-sponsors thanks to your efforts. Co-sponsors of SB-92 now include:
It is worth noting that one of the co-sponsors of SB-92, Rep. DelGobbo from the 70th Dist. in Naugatuck, is a ham; his call is WA1ZSP
Connecticut hams get call to arms on PRB-1 bill
Ham Radio Antenna Bills Introduced in Two Northeast States
Right now many proposed bills are before the the Energy and Technology committee; each of these bills is vying for the committee's attention.
The committee is required to complete each phase of its work by specifed deadlines. Thus, it may not be possible for the committee to hold public hearings on all the proposed bills that have been referred to it. One of the first items of business on the committee's agenda will be to select which of the proposed bills referred to it are most worthy of further study. This is likely to happen soon, at the committee's meeting on Thursday, 27 Jan 2005.
To progress, an antenna bill must be one of the proposals that the Energy & Technology committee chooses to reserve for a public hearing. You may want to contact the co-chairs and members of the Energy & Technology Committee and let them know that you think SB-92 is important and in the best interests of the people of Connecticut and this is a subject that merits a public hearing.
To help you, here are some "Hinks & Kinks" for communicating effectively with your legislators plus some Sample Letters that you may find useful as a starting point. If you decide to use one of the sample letters, please take just a few minutes to customize it with your own experiences and thoughts.
If you contacted your legislators about PRB-1 legislation in the months leading up to SB-92, HB-5918 & HB-6036 being introduced, now is the time for another brief e-mail or telephone call. Make sure that your legislators know the number of the bills in which your are interested. Remind your legislators that you think they should add their names as co-sponsors of SB-92. Follow up but don't become a pest.
A very brief e-mail to Senator DeFronzo (DeFronzo@senatedems.ct.gov) expressing your appreciation for his introducing SB-92, to Representative O'Neill (Arthur.ONeill@housegop.state.ct.us) for introducing HB-5918 and to Representative Nafis (Sandy.Nafis@cga.ct.gov) and Senator Ciotto (Ciotto@senatedems.state.ct.us) for introducing HB-6036 would be appropriate. It wouldn't hurt to also cc: your legislators on those messages.
We hams love talking about our antennas and our towers. However, when talking to public officials, please refer to what we require reasonable accommodation for as: "antennas and their support structures," or "station antenna structures," or "amateur radio antenna structures." That is how the various FCC documents, include 47 C.F.R. 97.15(b) refer to them.
A supporter in the legislature advised that we make certain the word "tower" never was said or appeared anywhere in print. "Call them radio antennas," he said. "Everyone has one of those."
If you doubt that contacting your legislators is worth a few moments of your time, please read the following message from one of our colleagues:
Just a quick note, this evening when I got home there was a message on my answering machine.
It seems that Rep. ******** called and left a message. He thanked me for my email and said that he had called the legislative offices "upstairs" and put in his support as a co-sponsor of the bill. He gave me his direct number and said if there's anything else he could do, to just call.
Now that's government service!
I hope others have as much luck as I did. It only took about 15 minutes on my part and seems to have done at least something to forward our cause. If we have enough people writing, this might just work!
73
There's no guarantee that you'll be rewarded with such an immediate success, but the moral is still clear: one person can make a difference. And if you don't do it, who will? Contact your legislators, let them know what you think.
PRB-1 is an order issued by the FCC in 1985 and later codified in the Code of Federal Regulations at 97.15(b). One of things this order did was to declare that a strong federal interest in promoting amateur communications exists.
The order and regulation require that the boards & commissions in your town provide "reasonable accommodation" for antenna structures that are necessary for an amateur to effectively engage in amateur communications.
PRB-1 is also a preemption order. Local regulations that fail to reasonably accommodate but rather operate to preclude amateur communications in their communities are in direct conflict with federal objectives and are preempted.
47 C.F.R. 97.15(b) and PRB-1 are indeed Federal law. They therefore apply in Connecticut. Moreover, they apply to the actions of each of our home towns. A federal law can preempt both state and local law (and regulations) in cases where there's a conflict between the state/local law and the federal interest.
The federal requirement for reasonable accommodation must always be satisfied in matters dealing with amateur radio antenna structures. Having a requirement for reasonable accommodation specified in the state statues imposes no additional requirements on cities and towns beyond what they're already required to do under the existing Federal regulation and FCC orders.
So, why do this?
As hams, many of us have become well acquainted with the details of Part 97 of the FCC rules and we are especially aware of this aspect of the law. We might take it for granted that everyone is as familiar with this particular part of the Code of Federal Regulation as we are. Well, not everyone is. In particular, the elected and appointed officials who serve on the local boards & commissions that write the local land use regulations and make decisions effecting our antenna structures are nowhere near as familiar with these particular federal rules as we are.
Like amateur radio operators, individuals who serve on local boards & commissions are civic-minded volunteers. And, like amateur radio operators, board members typically have no formal training in the law beyond what they've read in those sections of the Connecticut General Statutes which govern the board on which they serve. Just as many of us keep a dog-eared copy of the FCC Rule Book next to our operating position, local board members typically have a well-worn copy of the General Statutes close at hand at every meeting.
The proposition that a federal regulation supersedes the town's regulations, regulations adopted and applied in accordance with the General Statutes, can be an especially "tough sell" for an amateur radio operator appearing before a town board. Even when informed of its existence, local officials often have a certain amount of difficulty understanding exactly how an "obscure" rule contained in Part 97 of Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulation applies to them. However, these same officials all readily grasp the concept that the General Statutes of the State of Connecticut apply to their actions and limits their powers.
This leads to the approach of incorporating the language of the Federal requirements into the General Statues. There it will be readily visible to the individuals responsible for writing the regulations and making the decisions that effect antenna structures used by amateur radio operators.
No. For an amateur radio operator to encounter some difficulty in receiving reasonable accommodation from his/her town is not a rare occurrence. On at least two occasions Connecticut amateurs went to court over their towns' failure to provide reasonable accommodation. Both cases were decided against the town and in favor of the plaintiff, i.e. these amateurs sued their towns and won.
In Bay v. Zoning Board of Appeals of the Town of New Canaan the state superior court ruled in favor of an amateur's application for a permit for two antenna structures. The court decided the case on the basis of the town's zoning regulations and existing state law thus avoiding having to address the federal issue.
In its Order in Heinemann v. Town of Lyme, the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut took note of "facts not available to the defendants [the Town of Lyme] at the time of the... application." One might conclude that those "facts not available..." is a polite way of saying the Town of Lyme had not been aware of PRB-1.
In both cases, the towns spent significant amounts of their taxpayers' money on legal fees in defense of their boards' positions. If there had been a state statue containing the PRB-1 requirements, those boards may have investigated more fully before adopting such ill-advised positions.
SB-92 represents a win-win situation for taxpayers. SB-92 helps to insure a healthy amateur radio service will remain a viable option for supplementing state, regional and municipal emergency communications capability in times of need; these capabilities are, of course, provided gratis to the taxpayers. And SB-92 helps to inform towns about the relevant law, making it less likely that municipalities will waste their citizen's tax dollars tilting at legal windmills.
Twenty-one (21) other states have already enacted state versions of PRB-1 very similar to what is being proposed in SB-92. The ARRL Regulatory Information Branch maintains a page with links to the text of the statue for each of these states.
Within New England, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine have each passed state versions of PRB-1. In relevant part, these statues read:
Maine (MRS §3012):
A municipality may not adopt or enforce any ordinance or regulation that is preempted by a Federal Communications Commission regulation that states that local regulations that involve placement, screening or height of radio antennas based on health, safety or aesthetic considerations must be crafted to reasonably accommodate amateur radio communications and to represent the minimum practicable regulation to accomplish the municipality's legitimate purpose.
Massachusetts (MGL-40A):
No zoning ordinance or by-law shall prohibit the construction or use of an antenna structure by a federally licensed amateur radio operator. Zoning ordinances and by-laws may reasonably regulate the location and height of such antenna structures for the purposes of health, safety, or aesthetics; provided, however, that such ordinances and by-laws reasonably allow for sufficient height of such antenna structures so as to effectively accommodate amateur radio communications by federally licensed amateur radio operators and constitute the minimum practicable regulation necessary to accomplish the legitimate purposes of the city or town enacting such ordinance or by-law.
New Hampshire (RSA 674:16(IV) and RSA 674:17(III)):
Except as provided in RSA 424:5 or RSA 422-B or in any other provision of Title XXXIX, no city, town, or county in which there are located unincorporated towns or unorganized places shall adopt or amend a zoning ordinance or regulation with respect to antennas used exclusively in the amateur radio services that fails to conform to the limited federal preemption entitled Amateur Radio Preemption, 101 FCC 2nd 952 (1985) issued by the Federal Communications Commission.
This year, in addition to Connecticut, bills to enact state versions of PRB-1 are before the Vermont and New Jersey state legislatures.
To paraphrase the Red Queen from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, reasonable accommodation means what the FCC and the courts have said that it means, neither more nor less.
PRB-1 does not guarantee an amateur will be able to erect an antenna of a specific type or height. The courts have tended to agree that reasonable accommodation does require that a town adhere to a certain process. The reasonable accommodation standard has been interpreted to mean that a town must:
Under a reasonable accommodate standard, consideration of an application does not terminate once it is determined that the requested antenna structure is not permitted under local regulation. Reasonable accommodation requires that the local board should then consider what steps must be taken to "reasonably accommodate" amateur radio communications. A town must apply its regulations in a manner that reasonably accommodates amateur communications.
In considering the steps necessary to provide reasonable accommodation, a board may not balance the interests of the town in regulating local land use matters against the interest that the Federal Government has in amateur radio. The FCC has already done that balancing and issued a Federal rule that requires the board to accommodate amateur communications.
In the Connecticut General Assembly, individual legislators do not write (or draft) pieces of legislation. The legislature's joint standing committees are the subject matter specialists which have the responsibility of overseeing the drafting of legislation in full, "statutory" language.
Legislators introduce what are called "Proposed Bills." This is where all three bills are today. A proposed bill is how legislators suggest topics for legislation. It is a proposal for a standing committee to consider drafting legislation on a particular subject. Proposed bills are written in "plain English."
Only a bill that has been drafted by one of the joint committees may go to the floor of the House and Senate to be voted on. A bill that makes it to the floor is called either a "committee bill," if the bill resulted from a proposed bill or a "raised bill" if the drafting of the bill was initiated by a committee.
Making the transition from a proposed bill to a committee bill is a major milestone in the progress of an antenna bill. This decision is up to the Energy & Technology committee to which these bills have been referred.
SB-92 is a "Senate Bill" because it was introduced by a Senator; HB-5918 and HB-6036 are "House Bills" because they was introduced by a Representative. HB-6036 is a "House Bill" even though it was introduced by both a Representative and a Senator because the Representative's name was listed first.
Connecticut's General Assembly may be unique among state legislatures in that it conducts its business exclusively through joint committees. This means that the same committee drafts and reports on legislation for both the House and Senate. This makes having separate House and Senate versions of a bill unnecessary. We should expect that the Energy & Technology committee will combine SB-92 and HB-5918 into a single committee bill.
SB-92 has been referred to the Committee on Energy and Technology. The Energy and Technology committee may choose to:
The General Assembly website provides a bill tracking feature that will track action on SB-92 (or any piece of legislation) and provide e-mail updates for any change in the bill's status.
Go to the Find Your Legislator page on the General Assembly web site. This page is organized as a table of the House and Senatorial districts arranged by city/town. Clicking on the district in the House or Senate column for a city/town will take you to web page of the Representative and Senator who represents that distinct. For cities and towns that are split between two or more districts, clicking on the list of districts in the House or Senate column first takes you to a clickable map of your town that shows the district boundaries.
If you encounter any difficulty navigating these maps, there are alternate sites where by entering your 9-digit zip code or your street address, you can display a listing of your elected officials that includes your state legislators.
Proposed Senate Bill No. 92 An Act Concerning Amateur Radio Communications
Proposed House Bill No. 5918 An Act Concerning Municipal Regulation of Amateur Radio Antennae
Proposed House Bill No. 6036 An Act Concerning Amateur Radio Facilities
What's Happening?The SB-92 Status PageThe HB-5918 Status PageThe HB-6036 Status Page
Office of Legislative Research (OLR) Research Report No. 49 State and Federal Law Regarding Zoning and Amateur Radio Antennas
The Joint Committee on Energy & TechnologyContact Information for Energy & Technology Committee
The Connecticut General Assembly
A Brief Guide
The following sample letters may be useful as starting points. If you decide to use one of the sample letters, please take just a few minutes to customize it with your own experiences and thoughts.
Sample Letter #1
Sample Letter #2
Sample Letter #3 - Thanks K1BV
Sample Letter #4
Sample Letter #5 - Thanks W1AGP & WB2HTJ
Sample Letter #6 - Thanks K1VR
PRB-1 Memorandum Opinion and Order, Federal Preemption of State and Local Regulations Pertaining to Amateur Radio Facilities.
DA 99-2569 Order, In the Matter of Modification and Clarification of Policies and Procedures Governing Siting and Maintenance of Amateur Radio Antennas and Support Structures, and Amendment of Section 97.15 of the Commission's Rules Governing the Amateur Radio Service.
American Red Cross Letter to ARRL this .gif of the letter is from K1VR's web site, http://www.antennazoning.com/
Public Law 103-408 A Joint Resolution of the U.S. Congress: To recognize the achievements of radio amateurs, and to establish support for such amateurs as national policy.
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Connecticut Section State Government Liaison |
Page Revised: 02/03/2005 |