Around Town

Board President: New Leadership at New Canaan Nature Center

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The New Canaan Nature Center has named a member of its Board of Trustees as interim executive director, officials say. Town resident Mary Emerson is a “seasoned management and fundraising professional” has stepped in voluntarily to help steer the Oenoke Ridge Road nonprofit organization as it pursues a new strategic plan, Board President Linda Andros told NewCanaanite.com. “She is experienced in high-quality cultural and educational institutions,” Andros said. A Harvard graduate who completed doctorate-level course studies in art history from New York University, Emerson went on to hold positions at the Met and Frick in New York City, and the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, according to her resumé. More recently, she has served as executive director of the American School of Classical Studies in Princeton, N.J., and part-time as executive director of a nonprofit organization that raises funds for a college in Winchester, England.

Government

Neighbor’s Concerns About Nature Center Grounds Include Disused Trails, Fallen Trees

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Officials say the New Canaan Nature Center neighbor who recently flagged concerns about the park’s grounds is taking issue specifically with what he calls disused trails not properly “returned to nature” as well as improper removal of fallen trees. John Busch of Oenoke Ridge Road additionally showed members of the Park & Recreation Commission “examples of water walkways that are left to fall apart or rot,” commissioner Gene Goodman said during the group’s Feb. 10 meeting. The resident “suggested that there are ways to make the park more in tune with what the park should be, especially if you want it natural,” Goodman said at the meeting, held in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. “Things that are not being done or are not being done correctly, in his opinion, that would be a benefit.”

Busch had come to the commission’s January meeting and expressed in general terms that he was dissatisfied with management of the Nature Center’s grounds.

Around Town

Kiwanis Club of New Canaan Is Now Accepting Local Nonprofits’ Requests for Funding, Feb. 29 Deadline

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A local civic organization whose mission is “serving the children of the world” announced Wednesday that it’s opening its annual season for funding requests from nonprofit organization. The Kiwanis Club of New Canaan will be able to allocate up to $2,000 per applicant and will take applications through the end of this month (Feb. 29—it’s a Leap Year). “Those interested should submit a letter with the agency name, contact information, mission statement, detailed description of program, proposed use for funds and amount requested,” Kiwanis said in a press release. “Explanations of how your mission fits within the Kiwanis mission.”

Last year, with funds raised mainly through its summertime Zerbini Famiy Circus—presented in partnership with the New Canaan YMCA—Kiwanians gave a total of $16,000 to 16 local nonprofit organizations.

Around Town

Land Trust Finalizes Plans To ‘Complete the Loop’ on New Public Greenway

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More than one year after town officials approved a subdivision on Weed Street with an attendant conservation easement—a strip of land that provided the “missing link” in what advocates have called a “dream greenway,” connecting the New Canaan Nature Center to Irwin Park—the architects of that project say they’re poised to take a final step toward realizing their vision. The greenway—essentially a loop that would include a new walk through the woods between Oenoke Ridge Road and Weed Street—includes Nature Center property as well as the easement and separate pieces of New Canaan Land Trust property. The open question that Land Trust Board of Directors Secretary John Engel and others have grappled with for a year is: How to traverse the wetlands that stand between the easement and Weed Street itself? Now, Engel said, the Land Trust is working with a wetlands scientist “to give us a report so that we can make a raised walkway through the wetlands that will, on the one hand, be the least impactful on the environment and yet it has to be sufficiently substantial so that it is safe for the public.”

If completed, New Canaanites would be able to walk a loop from downtown New Canaan—say, up Elm to the intersection at Weed Street, then to Irwin Park (which itself may connect via a sidewalk to the top of Elm), then through the “new” walkway, across Land Trust and Nature Center property through the woods, then out to Oenoke Ridge Road and down toward God’s Acre and the heart of the village again. “What is important is that we are completing the circle,” Engel said.

Government

Neighbor of New Canaan Nature Center Raises Concerns About Condition of Grounds

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A longtime next-door neighbor of the New Canaan Nature Center told officials at a public meeting last week that the organization is failing to care properly for its grounds and that he plans to share steps with the town to correct existing problems and ensure they do not re-emerge. John Busch of Oenoke Ridge Road told members of the Park & Recreation Commission that he’s lived just north of the Nature Center for nearly 20 years “and I walk the trails all the time.”

“And I daresay I know a lot about how the land has been cared for and, in my opinion, not cared for,” Busch told the commission at its regular meeting, held Wednesday night in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. “I would like to share some thoughts not only about the condition currently but actions that I think this commission could take to improve the condition of the land not just now but in the future.”

Chairman Sally Campbell said the commission would form a subcommittee to establish whether it has oversight of the property and, if so, walk the grounds with Busch and report back to the full group at its meeting in February. Asked by commissioner Matt Konspore for a quick summary of what exactly is wrong, Busch answered: “The Nature Center’s land is something not been cared for. There is a lot of debris.