Bob Butman

Library To Request Higher Town Contribution for Rebuilding Project; Proposed Allocation Still One Year Away

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New Canaan Library in presenting its operating budget for fiscal year 2020 in the coming weeks will request that municipal funding bodies increase the town’s planned contribution to the organization’s widely anticipated rebuilding project from $5 million to $10 million, officials said Monday. Though the organization will not make a formal capital request this year, “We have shared with every person that will talk to us that we are hearing from the community an expectation that the town should be in at a more significant number,” library Director Lisa Oldham said during a meeting with members of a Board of Finance subcommittee. “Mainly I hear $10 million,” she said at the meeting, held at the library. “We have shared that with everybody. When we come to talk to you, it is likely that our ask will be more in that range.”

She addressed Neil Budnick and Chris LeBris, members of the Board of Finance Library Liaison Subcommittee.

Around Town

New Canaan Connection Brings ‘Red Notice’ Author Bill Browder To Library Talk

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Town resident Ellen Crovatto, prior to joining New Canaan Library as its development director, spent a career in investment banking. She worked 12 years on Wall Street and the last part of her career was spent raising private equity capital for investing in the former Soviet Union. “My role was to invest and raise half a billion dollars for the very first early stage investment in Russia in vouchers,” Crovatto recalled on a recent morning. And in that role, she crossed paths—at conferences, for example—with Bill Browder, the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management who would go on to publish the nonfiction bestseller “Red Notice,” subtitled “A true story of high finance, murder, and one man’s fight for justice.”

An absorbing book that is, as the back cover says, part “financial caper,” as well as “crime thriller” and “political crusade,” “Red Notice” tells the story of Browder’s intrepid and freewheeling professional entry into post-Soviet Russia, launch of Hermitage and subsequent clashes with corrupt Russian government officials and oligarchs, punctuated by the death of his own attorney, Sergei Magnitsky (whom Browder calls “the bravest man I have ever known” in a photo caption). Next month, thanks to Crovatto’s connection to him, Browder will come to New Canaan for a special library-organized event.

Around Town

‘Wonderful, New, Highly Qualified’: Five New Faces at New Canaan Library

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New Canaan Library Director Lisa Oldham said the organization has five “wonderful, new, highly qualified librarians and other staff” that have come on since October. Meet them below. According to Oldham, the library last year “lost some talented staff to retirement and incredible opportunities elsewhere.”

“We lost three people to the west coast,” she said. “Two to a startup and one to a big Washington state library. We have taken our time to find the very best people for the roles, because we are so committed to delivering excellent service to the people of New Canaan.”

We asked the new library employees to provide us with some basic information on their backgrounds, and to describe what they’re doing in their roles.

Around Town

‘We Are Incredibly Thankful’: New Canaan Library Obtains Signed Contract on Key Property for Rebuilding Project

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New Canaan Library officials said Tuesday that, thanks largely to demonstrated support from the town, the organization has a signed contract to purchase a key property on its block—an acquisition that allows the library to pursue a widely anticipated rebuilding project. Acquiring the .19-acre parcel at 48 South Ave., currently the site of a multifamily dwelling, is hugely important because setback regulations would have forced the library to put parking aboveground without it—spoiling a vista for motorists approaching downtown New Canaan by its major north-south artery and forcing the organization to shoehorn its new $25 million facility into a far smaller footprint. Making good on a promise to support the project, officials last week handed the library a $475,000 check to complete the $1,475,000 acquisition. “We are incredibly thankful to the town of New Canaan for this huge vote of confidence and this signal that the community is behind the library in building this new building,” New Canaan Library Executive Director Lisa Oldham said. The formal acquisition will allow the library to draw up renderings of the planned new facility and start fundraising in earnest—an effort that’s been on hold for more than one year, as negotiations with the owner of the coveted property got underway.

Around Town

‘The Community Is Behind It’: Finance Board Votes 8-0 in Favor of $475,000 for New Canaan Library As Rebuilding Project Nears

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Calling New Canaan Library a vital community hub whose new building will benefit the town in numerous ways, finance officials on Tuesday night unanimously supported a proposed $475,000 special appropriation for the organization. Approved 8-0 by the Board of Finance at the group’s regular meeting, the funds are designed to help the library acquire a key property on its block and trigger a widely anticipated capital campaign. Purchasing the .19-acre property at 48 South Ave., currently the site of a rented multifamily dwelling, “is critical to any plans the library might have, because not only does it complete the campus footprint but setback rules would make other properties that they have acquired useless for construction purposes and limit their use for parking spaces,” finance board member Chris LeBris said during the meeting, held at Town Hall. “So the entrance to town—instead of having a nice new library building—would be, essentially, several blocks of parking as you drive down South Avenue, so for the town aesthetics there is a reason to do this.”

The appropriation still requires the approval of the Town Council, which meets next week. Conceived by town leaders after library officials said during budget discussions last fiscal year that they would go forward with their rebuilding plans even without it, the appropriation has received wide community support, finance board member said.