Government

First Selectman: Funding for Security Cameras at Waveny Could Come Sooner Than Budget Season

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After saying earlier this month that there’s no pressing need to install security cameras at Waveny’s entrances and that the work could wait until next summer after the fiscal year 2021 budget is set, New Canaan’s highest elected official on Tuesday conceded that funding for the project could come through as a special appropriation before then. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said he is to meet with the Police Commission on Wednesday night and that the Board of Selectmen could take up a definitive plan as early as the elected body’s next meeting (Oct. 8). “I’m not sure we will have a definite plan,” Moynihan said during the selectmen’s regular meeting, held in Town Hall. “We are working with a security consultant and we will hopefully have further discussion.”

He added, “We will definitely have further discussion at our next meeting, whether or not we adopt something at that meeting.

Around Town

PHOTOS: Thousands Attend Caffeine & Carburetors in Downtown New Canaan 

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Thousands of residents and auto enthusiasts headed to downtown New Canaan on Sunday morning for a popular car show now in its eleventh year. 

Featuring 700 specialty and classic autos, Caffeine & Carburetors on Pine and Elm Streets is “growing and growing and growing,” First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said. “A lot of people come to New Canaan just for this,” Moynihan said while mixing with the crowd opposite Pine Street Concessions on a clear, sunny morning. 

Moynihan, who conceived of the town’s Tourism & Economic Development Advisory Committee, said Caffeine & Carburetors creator Doug Zumbach is seeking to promote the show for New York City residents traveling by rail to New Canaan. Doug Zumbach launched the auto gathering outside outside his eponymous coffee shop at Pine and Grove Streets in 2008, and it quickly drew crowds from about a dozen vehicles to 50 and more, outgrowing that small area. The final installment of this year will be held Oct. 20 at Waveny. 

Government

‘Our Hands Are Tied’: Parks & Rec Chair Voices Frustration Regarding Security Cameras at Waveny

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Saying she and others researched a proposed installation of security cameras at Waveny’s entrances, the head of the New Canaan Parks & Recreation Commission on Wednesday night voiced frustration about what appears now to be the appointed body’s inability to make a formal recommendation on the widely discussed matter. Faced with a petition calling for the cameras that now has garnered more than 2,200 digital signatures, the Commission earlier this summer formed a subcommittee to study the issue, solicited an expert recommendation from police, met with vendors and prepared to request a $25,000 special appropriation for the installation. The Commission was “ready to move forward,” Chair Rona Siegel said at its regular meeting, held in Town Hall. “However, we were just informed that it is not in the purview of Parks and Rec to determine where security cameras go, it is [up to] the Board of Selectmen and the first selectman, Kevin Moynihan, to determine and that, lucky us, we’ll just be stuck with the aesthetics of the cameras.”

Addressing the petition’s creator, Hilary Ormond, a guest at the meeting, Siegel continued, “So I share your frustration, because I think that the time and effort put on that was meant for whatever the outcome and recommendation from the police chief was, but we are here with our hands are tied.”

Moynihan, also a guest at the meeting, said he had issued a statement on Waveny and cameras and that he intends to meet with the Police Commission to discuss the matter. “Public safety is the Police Department’s responsibility, and when I observed how flailing our staff was over this issue, I realized it was not being handled properly, so we are working on a plan and we will come forward with a plan for the selectmen, working with the Police Commission,” he said.

Government

‘Just Because They Showed Up for Work’: New Canaan Remembers Victims of 9/11 Terrorist Attacks

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On a Tuesday morning 18 years ago, New Canaan commuters Joe Coppo and Eamon McEneaney boarded a train to get to their trading desks in lower Manhattan, the town’s highest elected official recalled. While those 46-year-old men started their day “as many Wall Streeters from New Canaan do,” Brad Fetchet, 24, who grew up in town “arrived early at his trading desk at the World Trade Center at the Wall Street Street firm he had just recently joined,” according to Kevin Moynihan. Within two hours of arriving for work, all three were killed. “Three shining souls among nearly 3,000 innocent people whose lives were taken at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, just because they showed up for work,” Moynihan told more the 120 residents, police, firefighters, EMTs, municipal workers and government officials gathered out front of Town Hall on a clear, sunny morning for a ceremony honoring those who perished during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and as a result of responding to it.

Board of Selectmen

Garden Club Funding $80,000 Flexi-Pave Path Installation at Irwin Park

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Town officials last week approved an approximately $80,000 contract with a Danbury-based company in order to complete a final section of pedestrian-friendly footpath surfacing at a popular Weed Street park. The Board of Selectmen at its regular meeting Tuesday voted 3-0 in favor of the contract with Tri-State Flexi Pave, which is to surface the footpath that traverses the southeastern part of Irwin Park. The funds will be paid by the New Canaan Garden Club, officials said. “We were one of the first installations in this area and in the country, as well,” Public Works Director Tiger Mann said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “The material has held up very, very well.”

He added, “It doesn’t seem to be falling apart, it’s not getting brittle, it’s not having any repair issues.”

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams voted in favor of the $79,360.40 contract, which includes $5,000 in contingency funding.