Around Town

New Canaan Library on Rebuilding Plans: Keeping 1913 Building ‘Not Viable’

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In the 15 years that successive New Canaan Library boards have studied the prospect of a rebuilt facility, conducting focus groups and hiring architects to come up with designs, it’s become clear that the best plan for the community requires demolition of what remains of the original structure there, officials said Tuesday. Though they carefully considered a renovation or incorporation of the 1913 building into a future library, “each board came to the same conclusion,” Alicia Wyckoff, a former president of the organization, told members of the Board of Finance during a budget hearing at Town Hall. “In order to get the types of spaces and functions of a modern, 21st Century library that our community is requesting—more programming spaces, meeting and study rooms, more places for the teaching and learning that is so important to our community today—we need to build a new library on a new footprint,” Wyckoff said, speaking on behalf of the library, its board and supporters. “These considerations led to the Midcentury Modern design that pays homage to an historically important architectural movement and one for which New Canaan is well known.”

She added, “Furthermore, as these plans came into focus, it became abundantly clear that it was not viable to retain the 1913 building for a multitude of reasons. First, it is not financially feasible for us.

Government

‘Gaming the System’: Town Eyes Change to Fees at Dump

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Saying some residents take unfair advantage of a standing rule, municipal officials are considering a change to how the town charges those bringing brush and construction debris to the dump. As it is, it’s free for those with a Transfer Station sticker to dump the first 300 pounds of material, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. Yet “we have people that are gaming the system,” Mann told the Board of Selectmen at their Feb. 25 meeting in Town Hall. “[They] will come in multiple times a day—290 pounds, 275 pounds, things of that nature, where they are weighing at their house and then coming in and gaming the system,” Mann said.

Board of Selectmen

Town Hires Consulting Firm To Study Parking Use Downtown, Recommend Changes

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The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday voted unanimously to enter into a $25,000 contract with a Hartford-based consulting firm that will study the use and turnover of parking spaces throughout the downtown and make recommendations on future use. 

The work of Fitzgerald & Halliday will be divided into three separate tasks, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann: Taking an inventory of current municipal parking, studying utilization and turnover of parking over three weeks and providing guidance on how New Canaan could better serve visitors and workers who park downtown. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said New Canaan must understand how many parking spaces it has and how they’re used “so we can decide what can we do differently.”

“This parking picture has gotten so complicated with the addition of Boxcar and based on what is happening with Town Hall and Locust, we really need to make decisions over the next three months and need input,” he said at the Board’s regular meeting, held in Town Hall. Moynihan and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams voted in favor of the contract. 

The study comes as New Canaan weighs a proposal from Williams to eliminate metered parking downtown while still enforcing time limits. Moynihan said the objective of the new study is to make it free to park up to two hours—as on-street parking already is throughout downtown New Canaan—and also to study the budget implications of doing so. 

Members of the Parking Commission have said the change would amount to a loss of about $200,000 in revenue annually. The town last year took in more than $300,000 in parking infractions, officials have said.

Government

Officials: Trash-Collecting Company Non-Responsive To Inquiries Regarding High Rates

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Town officials said Tuesday that they’ve been unable to reach a Stamford-based garbage and recycling collection company for a reason why New Canaan is paying about 30% more than neighboring Wilton for a similar service, and will seek a new contractor. 

The town pays City Carting about $85 per ton for recycling services, compared to Wilton’s rate of $65 per ton, according to Department of Public Works Assistant Superintendent of Solid Waste Don Smith. 

“I can’t get ahold of nobody,” Smith told the Board of Selectmen when asked whether City Carting had justified the $20 difference. “I have sent emails, phone calls and text messages and nobody has gotten back to me since our last time we had this [discussion] in November.”

The comments can as the Board approved payment of about $64,000 to City Carting for invoices racked up the past three months. The town since July 1 has been using the company without a contract. 

Smith told the selectmen during their regular meeting at Town Hall that a request for proposals will go out next week. “I’m sending it to all three major companies in the area and hopefully someone else will just respond and go after it,” Smith said. The two other companies are located in Shelton and Bridgeport, he said.

Government

‘Indefensible Partisan Nonsense’: Police Commissioner Resigns

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One month after voicing his displeasure in losing the chairmanship of the Police Commission, Sperry DeCew last week resigned from the appointed body in a pointed letter to the first selectman. DeCew in his Feb. 20 letter to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said he had “reflected on your puerile, narrow-minded position to have Republicans chair every town committee” and felt he had “no option but to render my resignation immediately.” 

A member of the Police Commission since June 2012 and its chairman for two years, DeCew had attended and participated in a final meeting Wednesday. 

“The thought that New Canaan, with its wealth of talent, should be defined by a political party is indefensible partisan nonsense,” DeCew said in his letter, obtained by NewCanaanite.com. “Further, the fact that you did not have the courtesy to call me prior to the January Commission meeting and let me know that you were going to replace me as Chairman, again speaks to the unnecessary negative feelings this matter has generated.”

DeCew is a Democrat and his successor in the chair role, Paul Foley, is a Republican. This month, another appointed town body, the Health and Human Services Commission, saw its Democratic chair and one other member resign amid a change in chairmanship to a Republican.