Government

‘I’m Going To Miss Dr. Englund’: Inland Wetlands Chairman Honors Longtime New Canaanite

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Members of the volunteer commission that oversee applications and other matters related to some of New Canaan’s most sensitive environments on Monday night recalled a vital member of their group who stepped down a little more than one year ago at age 93 and passed away earlier this month. Dr. Sven Englund, a member of the Inland Wetlands Commission for 26 years (including nine as chairman)—and a member of its forerunner, the Environmental Commission, for far longer, going back to the 1970s—died on Dec. 10. Commission Chairman Dan Stepanek during the group’s regular monthly meeting, held in the Town Meeting Room, said that “although he resigned from the commission in November of 2014, it seems like it was last month that he was sitting next to me, here at these meetings.”

“He would always poke me with his elbow if I did not get a meeting procedure right, or if I repeated myself or, heaven forbid, forgot something,” Stepanek recalled with a smile during remarks made at the start of the meeting. “He would straighten himself up in his chair, clear his throat, and then quietly reprimand me while giving me that harsh look.

Government

‘A True Town Treasure’: New Canaan Pays Tribute to Dr. Sven Englund, 93, for Contributions on Inland Wetlands Commission

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New Canaan landscape architect Keith Simpson can remember his very first appearance before the newly formed New Canaan Inland Wetlands Commission in 1988—for a subdivision on Seminary Street known at the time as the “Bryant-Kellogg subdivision.”

It required blasting out about 30 or 40 feet of rock to get through into what we know today as Scofield Lane—and in the 26 years since, Simpson and scores of fellow architects as well as residents, lawyers, soil experts and other professionals as they’ve sought approvals for sensitive projects have depended, among others, on one consistent figure on the commission: Dr. Sven Englund. “He’s a brilliant engineer and we all benefitted from his knowledge and understanding of engineering and science—he was a tremendous help to other commissioners,” Simpson said Monday night from the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center, where nearly 40 locals gathered to honor Dr. Sven Englund for his decades of service on the commission. “I think he and other commissioners have been very good about striking a balance between making sure the wetlands are protected and allowing property owners to have a reasonable exercise of their rights as property owners, but doing the job which state statutes really require, which is to protect the wetlands,” Simpson said. “There are sometimes when you have to come close to wetlands and sometimes you have to cross them and if you do it in a responsible way then it’s fair and things don’t get damaged long-term.”

During a celebration of the 93-year-old’s work—which in truth goes back to the early-1970s, as a member of the then-Environmental Commission, family members say, a predecessor to Inland Wetlands—current commission Chairman Daniel Stepanek presented Dr. Sven Englund with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Connecticut Association of Conservation and Inland Wetlands Commissions, First Selectman Rob Mallozzi and Selectman Beth Jones read a proclamation declaring Dec. 15 ‘Dr. Sven Englund Day in New Canaan,’ and Stepanek, Simpson, Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Director Kathleen Holland, son Sven Englund and others offered words of gratitude to a man that Mallozzi called “a town treasure.”

A retired chemical engineer and father of two, prominent member of the United Methodist Church and choir who also has belonged for years to the New Canaan Senior Men’s Club, Dr. Sven Englund announced in October that he was stepping down from the commission.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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Dr. Sven Englund, 93, received a standing ovation at the October 20 meeting of the Inland Wetlands Commission after it was announced by Chairman Daniel Stepanek that the longtime commissioner and former chair would step down from the post after more than 30 years. “From the bottom of our hearts, I want to thank you very much and everyone else does too,” Stepanek said during impromptu remarks following roll call. Englund described his time on the commission as “in many ways very rewarding, very exciting, very interesting.”

“And unfortunately I’m getting a little older than I used to be,” he told more than a dozen attendees, most of them on hand for the Weed Street subdivision/driveway item. “I’m 93 years old, I move a little slower and I think it’s time to begin back away from some of the commissions that I am a member of, so I will say it’s been a very interesting time, I’ve met a lot of interesting people, the members of the commission have always been interesting, thoughtful and when they joined they’ve been neophytes but they learned their lessons rather quickly and everybody has done a wonderful job.”

Stepanek said celebrations marking Englund’s tenure and contributions are planned for December. ***

Clients of the New Canaan Food Pantry are doubly fortunate this growing season for the generosity of Lexi Gazy and the Farmers Market for the produce they’re donating to the pantry: Word is that groundhogs this summer got into the wonderful Gospel Garden right there at St.