Around Town

PHOTOS: New Canaan Beautification League Thanks Volunteers, DPW Workers at Annual Breakfast

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Members of a nonprofit organization dedicated to beautifying New Canaan gathered Monday morning at Mead Park to thank their volunteers and town employees during an annual breakfast. About 25 representatives from the New Canaan Beautification League met at the colonnade with Department of Public Works employees to celebrate their longstanding collaboration to maintain plantings around town. The league’s co-president, Faith Kerchoff, said the organization’s services include creating 207 hanging baskets for the downtown, plantings at 33 traffic triangles in New Canaan and seasonal holiday wreaths, as well as overseeing a public garden off of Chichester Road. The league last week won town approval to demolish a single-family residence at the Lee Memorial Garden and replace it with a potting shed. “We have about 150 members with a core of 30 or 40 that are really ‘in the dirt,’ ” Kerchoff said on a bright, cool morning from the grassy area inside the colonnade, where a table had been laid with coffee cake, muffins and coffee.

Government

New Canaan DPW Leaf Collection To Start Oct. 27

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Public works official have set Oct. 27 as the start date for curbside leaf collection at homes in areas of town zoned for building lots of one acre or less. Homeowners are asked to rake leaves to the curb for collection—not putting them in plastic bags or mixing them with brush or debris. According to a bulletin from the New Canaan Department of Public Works, the leaves are recycled into garden compost “so they must be free of foreign matter.”

“Debris or sticks will clog the vacuum trucks causing breakdowns and delays,” said a press release from DPW. “Leaves must be in a windrow, not in a pile.”

Residents in the 2- or 4-acre zones of town must compost the leaves on their own property—vacuum trucks will not collect in those areas, officials say.

Government

Mill Pond to Get ‘Dry Hydrant’ during Biennial Dredge

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The biennial dredging of Mill Pond is underway, an approximately $10,000 maintenance project that alternates each year with Mead. Mill Pond, which gets a far heavier sediment load from the Fivemile River than Mead does from the subterranean waterway that feeds it, additionally has a screening system called a “gabion weir” installed, according to Mose Saccary of the New Canaan Department of Public Works. “We put this in and the plan is if we keep pulling debris out of the weir, the rest of the pond will stay clear,” Saccary said. The pond—site of the popular annual fishing derby—had gone without a dredge for some 25 years until 2008, when a $1 million project was needed to clear the pond, just eight inches deep and sprouting weeds at the time. The contractor on the job is Norwalk-based Hussey Brothers Excavating.

Government

Plan To Re-Sod Athletic Fields Approved

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The NewCanaanite.com Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Baskin-Robbins, Connecticut Sandwich Co., Joe’s Pizza and Mackenzie’s. After becoming severely weather-beaten as a result of a late winter, athletic fields across the town saw delayed openings, frustrating parents and coaches seeking to get players on them as early as possible. During the season, parts of the playing fields get so much use that it makes sense for parks officials to swap in fresher sod from one area to another. On Tuesday, the Board of Selectmen approved $24,750 from the Department of Public Works Field Maintenance Fund to replace around 30,000 square feet of sod on fields throughout town. The unanimous 3-0 decision approves a request made by the DPW Parks Department to enter into a contract with Athletic Field Services of Bridgeport, which will be responsible for replacing the sod at a rate of 75 cents per square foot.

Government

DPW: New Canaan Recovering from Worst-Ever Winter for Town Roads

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Between potholes and frost damage caused by snow storms and lingering low temperatures, New Canaan is coming out of the worst winter that town roads have ever seen, officials say. And Fox Run Road—which ranks among the worst in town with a “Pavement Condition Index” or PCI in the low 50s, according to Tiger Mann, assistant director of the New Canaan Department of Public Works—is due to get an upgrade as part of an overall approval of about $1.4 million for road works. Asked at the Board of Selectmen meeting, held in the New Canaan Police Department’s training room, whether this has been the worst winter season in his experience, Mann replied: “Since we’ve been paving, yes, in our history.”

Other roads set to have milling and paving work done in this go-round (the first of many) include:

Bald Hill Road
Beech Road
Benedict Hill Road
Evergreen Road
Fox Run Road
Laurel Road (from a little south of Soundview down to Turner Hill)
Lost District Drive (from West to St. George Lane)
Ramhorne Road

“Life in New England,” First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said of the harsh season just past. “Wouldn’t trade it for anything.”