Board of Selectmen

‘I View This As An Expendable Area’: Future of Kiwanis Park Uncertain

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Months after ridding a town-owned home in Kiwanis Park of its tenants, First Selectman Kevin Moynihan disclosed Tuesday that the structure could be used for New Canaan YMCA summer camp operations under a new public-private partnership. 

The Y has “a very vibrant activity there, and we are in discussions with them about having them take over the house which is now vacated,” Moynihan said during the Board of Selectmen’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall. 

“Also, the YMCA could perhaps accommodate some of these smaller activities to supervise that [with] lifeguards of theirs, so it could become more of a public-private partnership to use the park,” he continued. Addressing parks officials during a presentation of the Recreation Department’s budget, Moynihan added, “We really don’t need to maintain a facility [at Kiwanis]. We are accommodating out-of-towners at the [Waveny] pool, basically to supplement the budget. And we probably don’t need to do that any more because the pool has really become very active. So the discussion is, do we really want to maintain what in my view is an outdated facility or do we want to try to resuscitate it?”

In order to meet a Board of Finance operating budget guideline for municipal departments of -2%, “you have to figure out which activities we cease doing and cut back, and everything can’t be done in one year,” he said.

Board of Selectmen

‘An Inconvenient Political Party’: Selectman Devereaux Critical of Changes in Leadership of Local Boards and Commissions

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Saying political partisanship has no place here, Selectman Kit Devereaux on Tuesday criticized the manner in which fellow Democrats are being removed from leadership positions on local boards and commissions. Calling changes now underway in the chairmanships of municipal bodies “a matter that has been a concern not only me but to many of our constituents,” Devereaux during the Board of Selectmen’s regular meeting said she has no issue with “the first selectman’s right to shape our boards and commissions with his appointments.”

“I do find it of great concern when the chairs in question feel embarrassed or demeaned in the process,” Devereaux said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. 

“These volunteers have given decades of invaluable service to New Canaan. They should be honored. They should be treated with dignity and respect, not embarrassed. Further, I think that any such action should be motivated by what is in the best interests of New Canaan, and not because a chair happens to be a member of an inconvenient political party.

Government

Skeptical Historical Review Committee Member Calls for Access to Library To Gauge Problems with Facility 

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Saying she didn’t believe that New Canaan Library’s building and systems are failing, a town resident and preservation architect on Tuesday called for the town to direct a municipal committee to gain access to records and study the reported problems. 

A review and assessment by the Historical Review Committee “would provide the town with objective, professional information on the status of the existing facility,” Rose Scott Long-Rothbart told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting, held in Town Hall. A member of the appointed five-member Committee herself, Long-Rothbart continued, “This information, in conjunction with a full accounting by the library of what has been spent in the last 10 to 15 years on maintaining its facility, will give the taxpayers a better picture of what they are being asked to support.”

She referred to the library’s request for $10 million in town funding for its $30 million rebuilding project, unveiled last week. Plans call for demolition of the current facility, including an original 1913-built fieldstone-exterior section overlooking Main and Cherry Street, to make way for a town green. Long-Rothbart said she and others don’t believe the original structure cannot be incorporated into the library’s plans. “I appreciate being invited by the library to view those plans, although at the eleventh hour,” she said.

Government

Selectmen Approve $500,000 for New Fire Rescue Truck

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The Board of Selectmen last week approved a $500,000 contract with a Watertown-based company to build a new rescue truck for the New Canaan Fire Department. 

Bid proposals that came in for the new truck ranged higher than the budgeted half million dollar figure, so the department removed about $41,000 in modifications to the vehicle—some of which it hopes to re-add in the future, according to Fire Chief Jack Hennessey. 

“Everything we cut out we thought we needed,” including a 360-degree camera, Hennessey said during the selectmen’s regular meeting, held Jan. 7 at Town Hall. “But we needed to make our number so we had to delete things. That was a lower-priority thing so we had to take as much stuff truck off of the truck as we could. There might be money in future budgets in other lines that we might be able to put some of these things back in.

Government

Re-Digging Up Roads: Water Main Won’t Serve New Canaan

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New Canaan won’t benefit from the 36-inch main line that likely will see a stretch of Main Street dug up for the third time starting this year or next, officials say. The water company’s transmission line is designed to move water from Bridgeport’s system to Greenwich, according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan. “Believe it or not, Greenwich actually contracts to sell their water to Westchester towns, and when we had the drought and we had that temporary pipeline, they had to move water which is available in Bridgeport reservoirs over to Greenwich,” Moynihan said during Tuesday’s Board of Selectmen meeting, held at Town Hall. “this is a permanent fix for that, I guess.”

The comments came during an update on general matters before the town. 

Public Works Director Tiger Mann had discussed the future project during a meeting last month. The line is coming from Wilton and will run through New Canaan to Stamford, Mann said. 

Most of the route will stick to state roads, but it will come off of Route 106 near East School before hooking back up with Route 124/South Avenue near Waveny, according to Mann.