Officials Approve $44,000 in Contracts To Reconfigure Finance Department at Town Hall

Officials last week approved approximately $44,000 in contracts to reconfigure the Finance Department’s area at Town Hall in a way that makes it more welcoming and also creates space for two more bodies. The department is “the central service agency” of the town and “people need to feel that they can come in and ask any questions” of the staff there, according to interim Finance Director Sandra Dennies. Yet “right now, when you walk in, you walk into a big gray hall,” she told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting, held Sept. 12 at Town Hall. “It is not user friendly.

Cherry Trees Coming To Cherry Street

After planting elm trees on Elm Street, New Canaan’s tree warden on Tuesday said he’s bringing cherry trees to Cherry Street. Bob Horan, owner of Pauley Tree & Lawn Care Inc., told the Board of Selectmen that he’s overseeing the planting of three cherry trees near the corner of Cherry Street and Burtis Avenue where a dead sugar maple now stands. “I like the cherries on Cherry and elms on Elm—I commend you for that,” First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said during the board’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall. The discussion emerged as Mallozzi and Selectman Beth Jones by a 2-0 vote (Selectman Nick Williams was absent) approved a $14,160 contract with a Stamford-based tree care company for multiple tree pruning and removals at various locations around town. The work at Burtis and Cherry is part of the bid won by Stamford-based Almstead Tree, Shrub & Lawn Care, Horan said.

Parks Superintendent: Town Playing Fields ‘Better Conditioned Now Using Less Pesticides and More Organics’

Officials last week approved more than $100,000 for the purchase and application of grass treatment products at New Canaan’s athletic fields, both on school grounds and in parks. A figure that has come down as some grass fields are converted to artificial turf, the approximately $109,000 approved by the Board of Selectmen will be divided between two contracts: $90,911 for the purchase of products from Burlington, Mass.-based Tom Irwin Inc. and $18,200 for Harwinton-based Championship Turf Services to apply them. “It has been working great separating the products from the company that is applying them,” John Howe, parks superintendent with the New Canaan Department of Public Works, told the selectmen at their Aug. 22 meeting, held in Town Hall. “We own the products and we know how much we are supposed to apply and make sure that we get that applied.

Selectmen Approve Contract To Replace Guiderails on Nursery Road

Officials last week approved funds to improve the guiderails along the sides of a town road that the state had deemed “poor” and in need of “corrective action.”

The new, Merritt Parkway-style guiderails for Nursery Road will replace the existing cable ones, following a unanimous vote by the Board of Selectmen for a $58,750 contract with a Plainville-based company to do the work. “The [Connecticut Department of Transportation] rated this guiderail as ‘poor’ so it needs corrective action,” Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer with the New Canaan Department of Public Works, told the selectmen at their regular meeting, held Aug. 22 in Town Hall. “They say it’s a high priority of corrective action. It’s a residential area so we are going with a Merritt Parkway-style rail and the funds are available in the guiderail account.”

The contractor is Eagle Fence & Guardrail.

Town Approves $32,780 Contract for Masonry Repairs at Schoolhouse Apartments; Senior Living Facility To Secure Funding for Work

Officials this week approved a $32,780 contract for a Darien-based company to do masonry repairs to the town-owned Schoolhouse Apartments building on South Avenue. The funds will come from the senior living facility itself, through HUD, according to Bill Oestmann, superintendent of buildings with the New Canaan Department of Public Works. “[Schoolhouse officials] had went out and got some quotes to do repairs on the buildings and sidewalks and they were confused because the numbers were so crazy—all the quotes were something different—so explained to them at that time that these policies had been implemented there, that the town owns all that property, we are liable for all that stuff, so we will mange the project, they are going to give us all the funds through HUD,” Oestmann said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “They had no problem with that.”

He added: “And at the end of the day, the town owns the building and so we want the work done properly so it will last.”

The 1931-built Schoolhouse Apartments originally had been constructed as New Canaan’s first junior high school, and it was built in a style—brick, with a cupola—that complemented the original New Canaan High School (now the New Canaan Police Department), which opened in 1927 (the same year Karl Chevrolet was founded). Oestmann said DPW officials met with contractors and after the project went out to bid it garnered estimates that varied widely—some $20,000 between them.