NewCanaanite.com (http://nctest.proxy02.mageenet.net/tag/rick-franco)
This week on ‘0684-Radi0’ (hit ‘Listen in Browser’ above on your smartphone), we explore an idea from Parking Commissioner Peter Ogilvie. This installment of 0684-Radi0 is sponsored by April Kaynor and Kelly DeFrancesco, luxury property specialists with William Raveis Real Estate.
One month after town officials preliminarily “lined out” a new parking configuration on Elm Street that loses downtown New Canaan more than a dozen spaces, some merchants say the change already is having a dramatic effect on business. Though parking woes already were aired daily by customers, the new scheme that includes a legally required 25-foot buffer zone between a crosswalk and parking space “has had an immediate impact,” according to Maxine Berg, owner of Jade, a popular luxury fashion fitness boutique at 7 Elm St. “We felt it immediately, the minute those spaces were taken,” said Berg, who purchases parking permits for the Center School Lot for herself and staff at the shop. “Especially on my part of Elm. There were four, five spaces.”
Prompted by a resident’s formal complaint about New Canaan’s non-compliance with what appears to be a seldom-observed state law, the town rather suddenly in mid-July was compelled to eliminate 13 parking spaces on Elm Street, which has five crosswalks.
A Logan Road dog is under 45 days of strict home confinement after suffering a puncture wound while tussling with a raccoon, officials said. It happened around 3 p.m. Friday, and the 12-year-old Border collie had the raccoon in his mouth when the mammal appeared to have bit the dog in the face. The dog is up-to-date on its rabies vaccinations, according to Officer Allyson Halm of the New Canaan Police Department’s Animal Control section. The raccoon got away. ***
The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday approved by a 3-0 vote the hiring of Sandra Dennies as interim CFO for the town.
One lesson I learned in seven years of studying Latin in the New Canaan Public Schools involves the word ‘mos.’ It’s a noun and in the singular it means habit or custom. In the plural, ‘mores,’ it translates as character because, taken together, a person’s habits and customs form his or her character. It’s where we get our word ‘morals.’
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At the time I launched NewCanaanite.com, nearly three years ago, convenience and cost alone guided my own spending habits. I only asked ‘Can I find it here in New Canaan?’ if I were downtown already and needed something straightaway. Yet today, before purchasing or signing up for anything, I consciously seek out a local retailer or service provider—a habit so ingrained that it’s become second nature, part of my character.
The Planning & Zoning Commission during a special meeting on Monday night reviewed some 65 yet-to-be-released conditions that it is considering as part of an approval for the closely followed Merritt Village proposal. Though still in draft form and therefore not public, the approval P&Z discussed appears to land on 105 total units at the proposed development. The specter of an affordable housing application looms over the project, should property owner M2 Partners and the town fail to reach a compromise. During an interview after the P&Z meeting, New Canaan resident and would-be Merritt Village builder Arnold Karp said he and his partners “have sat through six months of hearings.”
“We went from 160 to 140 to 123 to 116 to get 105? That doesn’t sit that well with myself or my partners, because it’s way too arbitrary and capricious,” Karp told NewCanaanite.com.