Government

Prospect of Three-Level Deck at Locust Lot Emerges after Current Project’s Funding Is Cut from FY ‘18 Budget

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After seeing its funding cut from next fiscal year’s budget, the proposed parking deck at Locust Avenue could come back to the town with a third level, officials said. Doing so would mean the economics of the project “get much better than they are right now,” according to Parking Commission Keith Richey. “The economics for that are kind of stretched, so you add another floor and at least 70 spots which you can say is entirely for commuter parking,” Richey said at the commission’s meeting Thursday, held at Town Hall. “So that is scratching my itch because of how high the Post Office now is, that you would not have to dig down that much because a three-story [deck] would still not be very high and if you are going to fight to death to get this thing done, would you not fight to get 150 extra spots rather than just 75 extra spots?”

Long a supporter of the decking at Locust Avenue, Richey on behalf of the Parking Commission expressed frustration that it has been put off further, calling the project “snakebit,” and said he learned of the possibility of a third tier for the deck from First Selectman Rob Mallozzi. Supported by the Board of Selectmen in its review of the town’s spending plan for fiscal year 2018, the $4,125,000 in bonding for the widely anticipated parking deck was cut by the Board of Finance.

News

District Seeks Funding for Athletic Trainers at All NCHS Fall Sports Next Year

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Saying it’s a matter of student health and safety, district officials want to ensure that there’s a dedicated athletic trainer at all New Canaan High School fall sports contests next year. Because the Rams participate in such a wide range of sports across multiple venues, a single trainer “truly cannot cover everything that needs to be covered,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi told members of the Board of Education during their meeting Monday. “When we have contests happening in football and soccer simultaneously and we have different events going on, sometimes here [at NCHS], sometimes over at Saxe other places, home and away, wherever it might be, we have found a need for more increased athletic training services,” Luizzi said while presenting his proposed budget for next fiscal year at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at the high school. “As we have learned more about the importance of quickly addressing injuries on the field and become more aware of the danger of concussions and other things on the playing field, we believe this is a student-safety driven measure. So it is a modest increase in our athletic training services which will enable us to contract in the fall for weeks of support from an agency.”

Though it isn’t clear just how much the additional trainers would cost, Luizzi’s request—conceived by NCHS Athletic Director Jay Egan, in attendance at the meeting, the superintendent said—comes as part of a plan to spend $115,000 overall for “contracted services.” The area that will see a spending decrease of about 4.5 percent from the current year, under Luizzi’s proposed budget, with plans to move some positions from contracts to full-time personnel.

News

Superintendent of Schools Proposes 3.8 Percent Spending Increase for Next Fiscal Year

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New Canaan’s school district is seeing a shift, demographically, where its 52 students in English as a Second Language programs have increasingly intense needs, the superintendent said Monday night. Run well for years by a world language coordinator who relies on tutors to “meet with students to push in with them in classes or during periods or at other times to provide them with some instructional support,” the New Canaan Public Schools’ “English Learner” services have reached a tipping point where they require a dedicated person, Dr. Bryan Luizzi said during a meeting of the Board of Education. “As we have seen the needs intensify with the student population, what we are finding is that we have a need for a more centralized management of these students in order to be sure they are getting the resources and support that they need to be mainstreamed if possible into the general ed classrooms,” Luizzi said during the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “The request tonight is for a certified teacher of ESL to join us throughout the district to provide direct support to some students, to provide training and best practices for our staff and work with the tutors to be sure they are up-to-date on best practices, to work with the town and the social services of the town to help connect these families because a student with significant needs often comes from a family with significant needs. The families are offered social services that are available through the town, and [those services] help with the transition and acclimate them to New Canaan to be successful as well … It is something I feel strongly is a need that we have here in the district.

Government

First Selectman: New Canaan Will Add No Staff to Town Government Next Fiscal Year

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The town government in the next fiscal year will launch no new services and add no headcount to the municipal payroll, New Canaan’s highest elected official said last week. Department heads now creating spending requests for the 2017-18 fiscal year have been instructed “to keep budgets as flat as possible,” according to First Selectman Rob Mallozzi. “I think the staff is requisite with the job we are doing in all departments, so there will be no adds to staff,” he said during a regular meeting of the Board of Selectmen, held Dec. 20 in Town Hall. His comments come as New Canaan faces an approximately $400,000 shortfall in projected revenue from building permits in the current fiscal year, while the school district outlines what it has described as pressing capital needs.

News

‘We Have Had Children Injured’: District Reviews Capital Needs at New Canaan Public Schools

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Children using playground equipment at New Canaan Public Schools have been injured because there’s been no proper drainage system installed for the mulch that surrounds it, district officials said this week. Playground restoration work is “at a critical stage” where additional work must be done in terms of drainage, new mulch and curbing, according to Bob Willoughby, the district’s manager of facilities operations. While the district inspects its playground equipment annually and makes repairs as needed, “the town supports us with the mulch that goes down, the curbing around them,” Willoughby told members of the Board of Education at their meeting Monday night. “We think we need to more forward on it rather quickly,” he said at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “We have had some children injured because of the condition of the mulch.”

Willoughby continued: “We did the South [School] playground and replaced all the curbing and mulch.