Board of Selectmen

Selectmen Approve Contract for Additional Cleaning Services at Public Buildings 

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Town officials on Tuesday approved a $9,000 monthly agreement with a Fairfield-based cleaning company to provide additional services at public buildings including Town Hall, the Police Station, Lapham Center, Ambulance Corps, Train Station and former Outback Teen Center. The Board of Selectmen voted 3-0 in favor of the contract with System4 Facility Services. First Selectmen Kevin Moynihan said he had already signed off on the agreement on an emergency basis but still needed approval from the selectmen. “The whole point is that it’s consistent with the what the schools are doing, and others,” Moynihan said during the Board’s regular meeting at Town Hall. 

“You really just want to increase your disinfecting of public spaces,” he said. 

Moynihan participated in the meeting by phone. 

The contract approval came as New Canaan braced for changes now materializing with the confirmed presence of COVID-19 in town. The public schools closed, turning to a learn-from-home program for students, and several organizations shut down entirely until further notice.

Board of Selectmen

Town Approves Easement Agreement with Property Developer

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Town officials on Tuesday approved an agreement with a private property developer that will give the public access to a 5-foot-wide sidewalk that will front townhouses planned for Forest Street just north of Locust Avenue. The Board of Selectmen voted 3-0 in favor of an easement agreement with 42 Forest Street LLC, which is owned by Darien-based Silver Heights Development. The real estate investment and development company is creating a new, mixed-use building and adjoining row of townhouses at the northwest corner of Forest Street and Locust Avenue. Located next to the Post Office, it’s the former site of a brick Bank of America building. 

Public Works Director Tiger Mann told the selectmen at their regular meeting that the town and property owner “share a property line, so a portion of the project will have a sidewalk that will be on their property and then we will have a sidewalk on our property, so we are looking for a right or easement from 42 Forest Street [LLC] to have the public basically use the entire width of that sidewalk.”

“So they are granting us an easement to utilize that portion of their property for our public to walk back and forth,” Mann said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “They will take care of the property.

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

Selectmen Approve Request To Spend $7,500 on Non-Refundable Deposit for Ice Rink Materials

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Though they haven’t yet recommended a specific trial site, those pursuing an open-air ice rink in New Canaan are readying to purchase used equipment for the facility that will save hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday approved a request to put $7,500 in privately raised funds held in a town account toward a 60-by-120-foot ice rink and accessory equipment. The non-refundable deposit is for a rink that the Fairfield County Hunt Club is selling for $75,000, according to Gene Goodman, who has spent more than one year as a member of the Parks & Recreation Commission spearheading efforts to study what would be needed to create an outdoor rink facility and where it may go. “Having looked at every site in this town, every site has its plusses and minuses,” Goodman told the selectmen at their regular meeting, held in Town Hall. “No one is an absolute clear hands-down winner.

Board of Selectmen

Public-Private Partnership: District Pursues $1 Million Refurbishment of Planetarium at NCHS

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District officials say hundreds of thousands of dollars are to be raised privately to offset a taxpayer contribution toward an upgrade of the planetarium at New Canaan High School and that the revamped facility would be used by students as well as the wider community. 

The ca.-1970 planetarium and its original projector have been “aged out for a while,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi told the Board of Selectmen at a Jan. 23 budget hearing, held in Town Hall. 

“We use it for our programs, but the opportunities that are there at the planetarium are enormous. The new technology now allows you to change the projector out and put a new projector in that use the dome as the screen in an immersive environment. And if you have been to the Natural History Museum or others and have seen a planetarium show, you have seen that this is an immersive experience that is focused on not only astronomy but multi-disciplinary, across anything, any age, any discipline, any subject.”

To upgrade the projector, sound system, dome and seats in the planetarium would cost about $1 million, Luizzi said. The selectmen at a subsequent meeting voted 3-0 in favor of a capital spending plan that includes $550,000 in taxpayer funding for the planetarium.