COVID-19 New Canaan

Fire Department on Track for $30,000 Deficit Due to COVID-Related Expenses 

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Fire officials say that they’re now expecting to run about $30,000 over budget for this fiscal year due to COVID-19-related costs. The department’s overtime lines “were reduced in the last budget process and we have had a lot of people have to take time off with the COVID crisis,” according to Fire Chief Jack Hennessey. “People have been out of work for weeks because they have sick family members and they have been asked to isolate,” Hennessey said during the April 14 meeting of the Fire Commission, held via videoconference. “So that has been a very big stress on the overtime budget. Preliminarily right now, I am going to guess that we are going to run a $30,000 deficit at the end of the year and it’s all pretty much because of the overtime expense of having to cover people who are not able to work because of family exposures and family sicknesses.”

As of late Friday, 139 New Canaan people had tested positive for coronavirus disease and 18 had succumbed to the virus, according to the Office of Emergency Management.

Beth Jones

Firefighters Start New Mask-Wearing Policy After Two Town Workers Test Positive for COVID-19

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The New Canaan Fire Department launched a new policy with respect to wearing masks after two municipal employees—neither of them firefighters—tested positive for COVID-19, officials said Tuesday. All personnel in the fire house will wear a surgical mask when there are two or more people in the same room, and if firefighters are unable to social-distance in the trucks, they will wear masks there, too, according to Fire Chief Jack Hennessey. “Community spread is out there, so we assume everybody we run into could be potentially infected, so we are protecting each other and ourselves from everybody,” Hennessey said during the Fire Commission’s regular meeting, held via videoconference. 

He added, “We are trying to get better testing for our personnel but that is not available yet because they are still only testing symptomatic people and there is no antibody test available to the general public yet. So we are kind of in a holding pattern. No firefighters that I am aware of have tested positive or have COVID, but we do have a number of family members that are sick so we do have three or four people that have been missing work because of sickness in their families and we want to make sure that it does not come into the firehouse.”

Town Hall has been closed to the public since March 23.

Beth Jones

‘A Historic Moment for New Canaan’: Beth Jones Appointed to Fire Commission, First Woman To Serve in Role

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Beth Jones, lifelong New Canaanite and former selectman, has been appointed as a member of the Fire Commission. She is the first woman to serve in the role. “This is a historic moment for New Canaan,” Selectman Nick Williams said moments before he and fellow Board of Selectmen members Kevin Moynihan and Kit Devereaux voted 3-0 to appoint Jones. “I look forward to seeing more females on commissions that historically have not been populated with females. Beth Jones, I had the pleasure of serving with her for six years.

News

‘These Gentlemen Saved My Life’: Eight New Canaan Firefighters Honored for Oct. 30 Heroics

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Michael Bivona, Jr. had been on his way to visit an uncle in Wilton on Oct. 30, when at about 5:35 p.m. he was struck head-on on Silvermine Road. The 18-year-old remembers nothing of the horrific four-car crash, knowing only that he would have died had it not been for a difficult, careful extrication led by eight New Canaan firefighters. Until Tuesday night, he’d never met them. “It’s a miracle that I am here and I can’t thank them enough,” Bivona, Jr. said during a moving ceremony at Lapham Community Center attended by about 100 people, where the firefighters received a unit citation for their life-saving actions.

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New Canaan Fire Department Swears in Two, Promotes Two, Presents Special Commendations

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More than 100 town officials and residents joined New Canaan firefighters and their families Tuesday night for an awards, swearing-in and special commendation ceremony at Lapham Community Center. “Tonight means a lot to me because it’s something I’ve worked very hard to get, to be a career firefighter,” Damien Sheerin said after he’d been sworn in. “Tonight feels a little surreal, that all my hard work has paid off, to be a firefighter officially in New Canaan, Connecticut.”

See the photos and captions in the slideshow above for quotes and information about each honoree. They are:

Fire Commissioner Kerry Smith
Retired Deputy Fire Marshall Bill Dingee
Firefighter Jim Pickering
Firefighter Damien Sheerin
Lt. Duffy Sasser
Capt. Michael Baker

The ceremony was led by Fire Commissioner Jack Horner. Town officials in attendance included Selectman Beth Jones and Emergency Management Director Mike Handler.