Business

New Canaan Playhouse Committee Established to Identify Funding, Uses

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What’s the best way to operate the town-owned New Canaan Playhouse? That’s the heart of the question that the New Canaan Playhouse Committee is charged with addressing, members the Board of Selectmen said Tuesday as they formally appointed a panel of locals from the Town Council, selectmen and Board of Finance to make recommendations concerning future of the Elm Street fixture. While officials have said New Canaan is not in danger of losing the building, the committee will consider funding mechanisms to raise the estimated $3 to $4 million to bring the 1923-built structure up to code, as well as additional uses for the space. “The Playhouse Committee is tasked with the exploration of the public and private options leading to the funding of capital improvements, as noted in the 2015 budget review,” First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said during the meeting, held in the training room of the New Canaan Police Department. The committee is composed of John Engel, Steve Karl, and Joe Paladino of the Town Council, Neil Budnick of the Board of Finance and Beth Jones of the Board of Selectmen.

Government

$60,000 Restored to Proposed IT Spending for New Canaan Public Schools

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Finance officials on Tuesday restored $60,000 to New Canaan Public Schools’ proposed spending plan in information technology. Saying that the funds, $15,000 per year under a four-year equipment lease—the equivalent of 90 computers—“sounds like an awful lot” to ask the district to do without, Board of Finance member Jim Kucharczyk at the group’s regular meeting urged the group to restore the money. “I think it is $15,000 well spent and I think the implications of pulling 90 systems out of the schools would have a negative impact on the program that we offer our kids,” Kucharczyk said at the meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at New Canaan Nature Center. The finance board voted 9-0 in favor of restoring the funds as the group approved a proposed municipal budget for fiscal year 2016. The overall spending plan now is in the hands of the Town Council, which is scheduled to set a final budget at its April 1 meeting.

News

Schools Plan $600,000 in Security-Focused Technology, Facilities Upgrades

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The district intends spend nearly $600,000 in the second phase of a plan to bolster security at all five public schools, officials said Thursday. Though officials do not disclose publicly details of security plans and equipment in the schools, Superintendent Dr. Bryan Luizzi said during a presentation of the district’s capital budget that the planned upgrades involve continuing “some of the work that we began, finishing off a couple of things that we are important to finish.”

“There are technology components to this and there are also facility components to this,” Luizzi told officials from both the Town Council and Board of Finance during a meeting held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. “There are no staffing pieces to this, so there are not recurring costs that are built in beyond maintenance of the technology pieces that we have.”

The comments came after Luizzi’s formal presentation of the Board of Education’s proposed 4.87 percent increase in operations spending. Total capital needs during fiscal year 2016 will come to about $12.3 million, the district estimates—a figure driven mainly by an estimated $10.1 million project to renovate the 1957 Saxe Middle School auditorium and create sufficient visual and performing arts classroom space to accommodate a burgeoning student population. (Download a copy of the schools’ proposed budget here, and see page 131 for information on the district’s 5-year capital plan.)

Director of Digital Learning Dr. Robert Miller on behalf of the schools put in for and received a state reimbursement grant that will return about 20 percent of the district’s planned $598,500 investment in security, Luizzi said.

Around Town

DPW Seeks $125,000 for New Sidewalk Connecting Elm Street to Irwin Park

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Public works officials are seeking $125,000 next fiscal year to create a widely anticipated sidewalk connecting the top of Elm Street to Irwin Park. The sidewalk would run along the west side of Weed Street and, according to preliminary engineering plans (see PDF below), could involve removing one row of maple trees and a tree stump, and relocating a set of mailboxes at Woods End Road. The sidewalk wouldn’t run up against the roadway but would have a “grass shelf” between it and Weed Street, Department of Public Works Assistant Director Tiger Mann said Tuesday during a budget request presentation to the Board of Finance. “All we will need basically are handicapped accessible ramps on either end and across Woods End Road and some of the driveways and what have you,” Mann said at the finance board meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. “But we will not be adjacent to the roadway, so we will have grass shelf and that gets a lot easier and a lot less expensive to construct.”

The $125,000 for the new sidewalk is part of an overall $785,000 request for engineering in fiscal year 2016 (see page 29 here), along with $5 million in bonding for the town’s regular street paving program ($2.5 million per year over two years).

Government

‘It’s Pretty Sobering’: Future of Playhouse Uncertain

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New Canaan would need to spend some $2.1 million—with an estimated $450,000 beyond that, for abatement—in order to bring the Playhouse Theatre on Elm Street to safe, structurally sound and ADA-compliant condition, public works officials said Tuesday. The 1923 building needs parts of its roof and brick exterior replaced ($550,00), an elevator and ADA-compliant wheelchair access ($1,120,000), new gutters and drainage system ($200,000) and, perhaps most of all, a new layout for its sprinkler system—currently perched above a layer of insulation in the ceiling, according to Michael Pastore, director of the New Canaan Department of Public Works. “If the sprinklers come on, it’s going to soak that insulation, get heavy and probably bring down the ceiling,” Pastore said while presenting DPW’s budget request (see page 39 here) to the Board of Finance at a meeting held in the Sturgess Room of the New Canaan Nature Center. “That’s the situation we have.”

The figures above do not include contaminant abatement for any capital work needed—Pastore said a consultant hired to assess the structure last year put the figure at $450,000, strictly based on the Town Hall renovation. “It could be more, it could be less,” he said.