News

NCHS Grad, Baseball Coach, Community Impact Officer: NCPD’s Ron Bentley Takes On ‘Downtown Beat’

By |

A 1994 New Canaan High School graduate and assistant coach of the varsity baseball team who has been serving as a police officer in town for more than a decade will start working the “downtown beat” next week under the re-launch of a widely praised and popular program, officials said Wednesday. Officer Ron Bentley will “connect with merchants, residents and visitors in the center of town” as well as “deter criminal activity, enforce traffic laws and make our village a safer place to both visit and do business in” as the New Canaan Police Department’s designated Community Impact Officer, Chief Leon Krolikowski said in a press release. “We are committed to better protecting and serving the New Canaan community in both an efficient and effective manner,” the chief said. “The CIO program is just one of the many ways in which we will fulfill our mission and commitment to our town.”

Bentley, who grew up on Millport Avenue, said during an interview with NewCanaanite.com that he is excited to connect with more people and merchants in the heart of the business district. The longtime New Canaanite—an East School alumnus whose little brother, Charlie, is a New Canaan firefighter—said he put in for the role of CIO because he feels a strong affinity for New Canaan and sees the downtown beat as a way to strengthen even more effectively and directly relations between the department and wider community.

Government

‘We Should Embrace Things That Are Unique To New Canaan’: First Selectman Questions Suggested Change out of Charter Revision

By |

In suggesting that the first selectman should no longer serve as chairman of a major funding body in municipal government, the volunteers now studying New Canaan’s main governing document are creating a problem where none has ever existed, the town’s highest elected official said. It doesn’t appear that any active members of the Board of Finance favor making a change to the group’s chairmanship, First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said in an interview. “Certainly it is a unique situation in New Canaan but it is one that absolutely works,” he told NewCanaanite.com. “It is almost like the Charter Revision Commission has sought to create a problem that did not exist.”

“The volunteers that are the active on the Board of Finance are very, very pleased with the present setup of things and have found it extremely workable for them. I believe that they want to get answers as to what was the driving force for Charter Revision Commission to suggest such a change when such a change was not brought to the Charter Revision Commission by members of the Board of Finance.”

The comments follow the Charter Revision Commission’s votes in favor of changes to the role of the first selectman with respect to the finance board.

Government

‘Is This Really the Year?’: Councilman Flags $35,000 Request for NCHS Club Sports in Proposed Budget

By |

A proposal that would create a way for New Canaan High School club sports to apply for some public financial support through the district was met last week with a raised eyebrow from at least one town funding bodies’ member concerned about its scope and timing. Town Councilman Jim Kucharczyk during a budget presentation last week called the $35,000 that the Board of Education is seeking to set aside for a pilot program “a nontrivial amount.”

“In a year where we are already funding a major renovation project at Saxe” and facing a required, steep increase in healthcare costs in the district, Kucharczyk said he would “raise the question: Is this really the year we need to allocate $35,000 with everything else that’s going on to the fencing and ski teams?”

His comments, made during New Canaan Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Bryan Luizzi’s Feb. 2 budget presentation to the Town Council and Board of Finance, address a proposed new policy (embedded in full as a PDF at the end of this article) that the Board of Education supported by way of including the additional $35,000 in its final proposed spending plan. Sports such as squash are not part of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, or CIAC, because not enough public high schools in the state have a team. That often relegates a sport to private funding only in New Canaan, because it means the district’s Athletic Department cannot offer funds, and the bylaws of the New Canaan High School All Sports Booster Club only allow disbursement of funds to CIAC sports.

Around Town

‘We Are Not Going To Do Anything Irresponsible’: For Now, New Canaan Location of Abilis Tied To Doubtful Viability of The Hub

By |

The head of a nonprofit organization that serves people with developmental disabilities said his agency will only start operating out of The Hub in downtown New Canaan under the board now in charge of the facility if that group somehow achieves financial viability. New Canaan resident Dennis Perry, president and CEO of Greenwich-based Abilis, said his organization’s first priority is to avoid doing “anything that puts the population we serve at risk.”

“I will not open up and find the facility that we are operating in is not financially viable, and then have to shut down,” Perry said when asked about the prospect of operating out of the lower level of The Hub, as per a Memo of Understanding now in place. “The discontinuity that would create for these individuals who do not transition well—we would be irresponsible to do that.”

The comments come as questions surround The Hub’s ability to make money and self-sustain—a challenge that the building’s former operator, the Outback Teen Center, was unable to overcome, ultimately closing for good last summer. Inchoate plans for a catch-all community center appear to have garnered little support. An online campaign seeking to raise $25,000 in support of The Hub has banked just $2,320 in two weeks—with more than a quarter of that from board members themselves—raising questions about the community’s interest in the broad program that’s been proposed for the facility.

Government

Board of Ed: Nonresident Teachers’ Kids in Public Schools Are Not Driving Classroom Staffing Costs

By |

Nonresident teachers’ kids who attend New Canaan Public Schools are not pushing any class sizes past a tipping point where, under the district’s own guidelines, a new teacher must be hired as a result, officials said Tuesday night. In a year where health insurance costs are acknowledged to be necessarily high, salaries and benefits account for 81 percent of the Board of Education’s proposed $87 million spending plan for next fiscal year. Staffing levels are determined in part by the district’s own class size guidelines, and town officials have asked the school board to look hard at those guidelines in this budget season. Board of Ed Chair Dionna Carlson told members of the Town Council and Board of Finance on Tuesday that she investigated the question of teachers’ children and total “sections” in the schools, “and I can tell you, I did the analysis: There are no additional hires that occur due to teachers’ children being in the district.”

The comments came during a joint meeting in which Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi presented the Board of Ed’s operating and capital budgets, together with Director of Finance and Operations Dr. Jo-Ann Keating and other district officials. The finance board and Town Council each will review, discuss and possibly tweak the BOE’s proposed spending plan again prior to voting on it.