Around Town

Eversource Seeking Staging Area for Proposed Natural Gas Project

By |

Update 7:45 a.m. Friday

First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said Friday that one proposed “lay-down area” for Eversource (formerly ‘Yankee Gas’)—at Waveny Park, near the water towers—has been rejected by the utility because the space is not secure. Several sites for the staging area have been discussed, and officials now are exploring whether the most viable option may be out of town, Mallozzi said. “If we cannot come to an agreement on a good, safe location that is near their potential project, I’ve asked them to cost out-of-town,” he said. If a spot on public park grounds emerged as a candidate for the staging area, Mallozzi said, the Park & Recreation Commission would need to vet and vote formally on it. No timetable for the project has been said, he said.

Government

Headwalls on Bridges along Waveny’s Main Road To Come Down during Re-Paving

By |

The headwalls on the two bridges that pinch two-way traffic into a single lane on the South Avenue side of the main road through Waveny Park will come down when it’s re-paved this summer, officials said Wednesday night. In order to widen those two pieces of the road so that cars can safely pass each other and still ensure proper drainage of the wetlands they span, new culverts will be installed, Recreation Director Steve Benko said at the regular meeting of the Park and Recreation Commission. “We’ve had a lot of people get into accidents—people go over with cars and actually hit those little headwalls and cause damage to their vehicles,” Benko said at the meeting, held in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. “[Department of Public Works Assistant Director] Tiger [Mann] is going to extend the pipe out both sides, and that will be good because the pipe is small and old. He’ll put a brand new pipe across that will handle the flow of water.”

The job is part of New Canaan’s regular street maintenance project and has already gone out to bid, officials say.

Government

Private Group Offers to Fund Re-Grading of Mellick, Gamble Fields at Mead Park

By |

The private group that oversees youth baseball in New Canaan wants to fund a full re-grading of the little league fields at Mead Park—a project that could cost $1 million and hasn’t been done in 42 years, recreation officials say. New Canaan Baseball Softball Inc., a nonprofit organization, are at appoint where “serious capital expenditures” are needed to bring it up to snuff, the group’s president, Jim Higgins, told the Park & Recreation Commission at its most recent regular meeting. “To cut to the chase, Mellick and Gamble are long, long, long overdue for a major renovation and New Canaan Baseball is proposing to—out of our own money and money that we raised—spent somewhere between half a million and a million dollars, completely redoing Mellick and Gamble,” Higgins said at the March 11 meeting, held in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. “When I say ‘redo,’ the footprint stays the same, we are not asking to change any aspect of the park, so the footprints of the fields will stay where they are. But we think the only way to do it right is to scrape the whole fields.

Government

Parks Officials to NC Baseball: At Season’s End, Take Down the Outfield Windscreens at Mead

By |

Parks officials last week approved a private group’s request to hang a windscreen on the outfield fence of the large baseball field at Mead Park, but are insisting that this time around the opaque netting come down at season’s end. That didn’t happen in the case of the little league fields at Mead that got the screens last spring, despite New Canaan Baseball’s agreeing to do so, Park & Recreation Commission Chairman Sally Campbell said during the group’s regular monthly meeting. The commission had received feedback that residents didn’t want to see the netting in the winter months, Campbell said during the meeting, held Wednesday in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. “New Canaan Baseball said they would put them up and take them down last year, and they never came back to take them down last year,” she said. “So this windscreen, too, it needs to put up by [New Canaan] Baseball and taken down by X day by [New Canaan] Baseball and we should not have to go back to you all to say to take it down.

Government

Park & Recreation Commission by 5-3 Vote Supports Caffeine & Carburetors at Waveny

By |

Parks officials on Wednesday night voted in favor of allowing the Caffeine & Carburetors gathering of classic and specialty auto enthusiasts at Waveny on two Sundays in 2015. Under an agreement between the Recreation Department and town resident Doug Zumbach, owner of a gourmet coffee shop on Pine Street and one of the popular event’s founders, Caffeiene & Carburetors will be held from 6:30 to 11:30 a.m. on May 10 and Oct. 18. Zumbach on Thursday is to go before an administrative team known as the “Special Events Committee” and Board of Selectmen approval is required for the contract. The commission asked Zumbach to ask exhibitors to register in advance (which they’re doing, 370 had signed up by Thursday, he said), restrict the number of cars in the park (460 exhibiting cars can park in Waveny), require a donation to the New Canaan Food Pantry in lieu of an admission fee “somehow work with the vendors and stress in town to promote them,” Chairman Sally Campbell said at the meeting, held in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center.