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‘I Don’t Think the Public Knows’: Police Commission Calls for Renovation of NCPD Headquarters

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Though it may look perfectly fine to those driving past on South Avenue, the New Canaan Police Department building has defective plumbing, mold, crumbling masonry, 16 broken windows, a leaking skylight, a sewer fly problem in the men’s locker room, loose and broken tiles in the women’s and poor or non-existent ventilation throughout, officials said Wednesday. Two of four men’s jail cells have been closed due to plumbing issues, Police Chief Leon Krolikowski said during a regular meeting of the Police Commission, and the old-style cell bars in them also must be replaced with flat plexiglass doors because prisoners have tried to hang themselves by the bars. 

Several offices in the building are not connected to its centralized HVAC system, and 48 windows require hardware that’s no longer available because the windows themselves are so old, he said. “There is moisture in some rooms—that’s not a good thing,” Krolikowski said during the meeting, held in the training room at police headquarters. “Ventilation in processing areas is nonexistent and we often get narcotic smells in our hallways due to evidence storage and no way to ventilate that.”

The comments came during a general update to the Commission, as the police building itself—though multiple town bodies have acknowledged the pressing need for renovation—sits as-is while town officials consider a complicated, multi-transaction proposal that would see the department relocated downtown (more on that below). “I don’t think the public knows any of this,” Police Commissioner Jim McLaughlin said, referring to the problems enumerated by the chief during his brief presentation.

Government

Police Commission: Let’s Take a Second Look at Parking Changes That Cost Elm Street 13 Spaces

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Members of the Police Commission said Wednesday night that they’re willing to take a second look at a decision they made last summer to comply with a seldom-observed state law, leading to the elimination of 13 parking spaces on Elm Street. 

Prompted by a local attorney’s assertion that there appears to be a relevant 1950 opinion letter from the state attorney general and an appellate court case that could empower the town to find relief from the statute, commissioners said during their regular meeting that they would ask for a formal opinion from municipal counsel. New Canaan lost 13 spaces on Elm Street after a resident put town officials on formal notice about the town’s lack of compliance with a state law requiring a 25-foot buffer between crosswalks and parking spaces. Though local officials at the time asked transportation consultants and the state about what New Canaan might to do find a way out from under the restriction, no path to exemption materialized, and the Police Commission—the town’s on-street parking authority—voted 3-0 at its July 18 meeting to change Elm Street’s parking configuration. 

Merchants in the heart of New Canaan bemoaned the loss of parking. 

A guest at this week’s Commission meeting, Richard Stewart, said the change has upset him. Saying he’s seen a high number of vacant storefronts on Elm, Stewart told the Commission, “I know they are all under attack from Amazon and the Internet but in New Canaan that is such a vital thing for our town—we don’t have like Darien has a waterfront, we have the 100-acre cent er of town with the retail space and everybody comes in and it becomes a friendlier town.”

According to Stewart, an opinion issued by the Connecticut attorney general in 1950, one year after the statute in question took effect, could give municipalities the ability to pass an ordinance that allows them to get out from under the 25-foot rule. Stewart said he would investigate the option which while it “doesn’t have the power of law, still has power.”

He added that he found an appellate court case where a man fighting a $90 parking ticket was told by the court that he would have the ability to be exempted from the parking rule but that his city didn’t have an exemption on its own books, “so let’s make sure our town does that.”

Stewart said he would return at the Commission’s April 17 meeting with the information.

Charlein Megherby

‘I Just Don’t Think It Is Solving the Problem’: Concern That Sign at Nursery Road Is Creating Traffic Problems Elsewhere

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Back from spring break last week, Sarah Haddad watched from her Marvin Ridge Road driveway on three straight mornings as 12, 20 and 17 cars made U-turns there between 8 and 9 a.m.

She watched other motorists drive slowly and make U-turns in other people’s driveways, all so that they could turn right onto Nursery Road because, following recent decision by town officials, it’s no longer legal to make a left Nursery during the morning rush. “Not only do I really not like having my private driveway that I maintain, that I plow, that my children stand at the top of for their bus stops every morning, being used by people to turn around,” Haddad told members of the Police Commission during their Feb. 27 meeting. 

She added: “I just don’t think it is solving the problem. I think it is just going to still send people on Nursery. They know this route.

News

Police Report Sharp Rise in Motor Vehicle Violations

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New Canaan Police last week reported a 35 percent rise in the early part of the year in motor vehicle violations flagged by officers. 

Two-thirds of violations such as speeding and distracted driving results in verbal warnings, while one-third end up in tickets for motorists, Chief Leon Krolikowski said at the Feb. 27 meeting of the Police Commission. “We are trying to target mostly moving violations that cause accidents,” Krolikowski said during the meeting, held at the New Canaan Police Department. 

In January alone, New Canaan Police reported 524 motor vehicle violations, up 387 from the same month in 2018, the chief reported. 

Commissioner Paul Foley said policy of issuing verbal warnings to motorists in violation for two-thirds of the stops represents “good community policing.”

“Because I just don’t want to go back to the old days of writing a lot of tickets just to write tickets,” Foley said. He added that “people really appreciate the verbal [warning].”

“They do, because I hear about it,” he said. Krolikowski said officers issue that warning “when it’s appropriate.”

“It all depends on the circumstance,” the chief said.

Anna Holbrook

Officials Approve Installation of ‘No Left Turn’ Signs on Nursery Road on Trial Basis

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Saying they feared the change could exacerbate safety concerns by pushing motor vehicle traffic near schools, town officials approved the installation of two temporary “no left turn” signs to ease congestion in a residential neighborhood during rush hour. Traffic on Nursery Road spikes to more than 300 vehicles between 8 and 9 a.m. on weekdays, officials have found—a result of New York City-bound motorists avoiding the congested Merritt Parkway. One proposed solution has been to prevent motorists traveling toward New Canaan along Marvin Ridge Road from turning left onto the top of Nursery Road in the mornings, as well as from turning left onto White Oak Shade Road from the bottom. 

Yet doing so likely would only push cut-through-seeking motorists deeper into New Canaan, including to Old Norwalk and Farm Roads, according to a traffic study from engineer Michael Galante of Frederick P. Clark Associates, a Fairfield-based planning consulting firm. Even so, members of the Police Commission during their Jan. 16 meeting approved the measure 3-0.