Government

Town Awaits Bids on Waveny House ADA Project as Major Funding Decision Looms

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Municipal officials say they’re eagerly awaiting contractors’ bids this week for a major multi-part project at Waveny House, as the town decides whether and how quickly to redress the historic structure’s noncompliance with ADA standards. Originally believed to be a project of narrow scope costing about $1 million, a multi-year project now expected to cost $2.8 million would include creation of ADA-compliant bathrooms and installation of an elevator so that disabled people could access Waveny’s second floor—where the Parks & Recreation Department is located—as well as required upgrades to a fire escape and entrances to the brick mansion from its west porch and rear balcony. 

While some municipal leaders have said they support the project, including First Selectman Kevin Moynihan, others—including some members of New Canaan’s legislative body—have voiced concerns about spending the money while much of the large structure itself still has no clearly defined long-term use or identified revenue stream beyond the roughly $100,000 to $140,000 generated annually through renting it out for events such as weddings. “We have got to make some decisions about this project, because if we have no project, we probably don’t have a Waveny House,” Moynihan said Monday during a meeting of the Selectmen’s Committee on Facilities and Infrastructure, held via videoconference. 

The Board of Finance and Town Council are expected to vote next month on whether to authorize the funds (the issuance of bonds to pay for the project, and attendant public hearings, would still need to follow). Bid packages expected to arrive Thursday could make a major difference in the town’s decision, officials say, especially given the prospect of cost-savings with contractors finding less work now amid the COVID-19 public health emergency. “The numbers will help us decide,” Moynihan said.

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‘They Haven’t Been Forthcoming’: Town Seeks Information from Utility Co. on Gas Installation Plans

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Town officials say the utility company that began installing a natural gas main in New Canaan two years ago hasn’t been forthcoming about its plans for this year since the onset of the COVID-19 public health emergency. 
Eversource has interpreted the governor’s declaration about “essential businesses” being able to continue their work to mean that it doesn’t cover new services or new installations of natural gas, according to New Canaan Public Works Director Tiger Mann. Yet the town is hoping the company “will relent” on its read of the new requirement “because if nothing comes forward in this construction season, then we will be looking at a delay of the project for a year,” Mann told members of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings & Infrastructure during a meeting held Monday via videoconference. 

“In a nutshell, we have asked them for their plans for 2020 several times. They have come back with limited information. We are going to sit back down with them and ask for some more detailed information to see if we can guide them into certain areas of town—they seem to be expanding and want gas service—and then see what their plans might be for 2021 and 2022, given the fact that they haven’t been forthcoming so far. So we are hoping that they might help us plan for the future.”

Mann had said during a Board of Selectmen meeting last week that Eversource hit pause running service lines from the gas main or expanding that main further into New Canaan, as originally planned. 

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said during Monday’s meeting that part of Eversource’s thinking “may be that with the new installations they don’t want to go into people’s homes currently.”

“But it’s no reason why the business projects can’t go forward,” he said.

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Elm Street Poised To Regain Lost Parking Spaces by Playhouse

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Advised that a 25-foot buffer doesn’t apply to the area because it’s not an “intersection” under the state’s definition, town officials say they plan to re-stripe parking spaces on either side of the crosswalk in front of The Playhouse on Elm Street. Public Works Director Tiger Mann said plans include a “bump-out” to prevent vehicles from parking too close to the crosswalk and “protect pedestrians.”

“So we actually kind of kill two birds with one,” Mann said during a Jan. 9 meeting of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure, held at Town Hall. “It’s not actually just putting the parking spaces back.”

It wasn’t immediately clear just how many spaces New Canaan will regain once the plans are approved by the Police Commission. 

The town had lost a total of 13 spaces in the summer of 2018 after a town resident put New Canaan on formal notice about its noncompliance with a 1949 state law that prohibits parking within 25 feet of a marked crosswalk at an intersection. After repaving Elm Street, which has four crosswalks between Main and Park, the town redrew parking spaces in observance of the law.

News

Small Women’s Locker Room at Police HQ Limits Ability To Hire More Female Officers

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The female locker room at the police station—a 1926 building that hasn’t seen a substantial renovation in nearly four decades—is so small that the department may not be able to hire more women, officials said last week. At six female officers, the New Canaan Police Department now has more women in uniform than it ever has in its history, “and it’s a good thing happening to us,” according to Police Chief Leon Krolikowski. Yet “there is a limitation in our female locker room, because we may not be able to put on any more female officers because there’s just not enough room,” he said during a Jan. 9 meeting of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure. “So that’s just another thing that nobody ever planned for.

Around Town

New Committee To Develop Formal Purchasing Policy for the Town

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A newly formed committee will develop a formal purchasing policy to help guide the town’s process of awarding bids to contractors, New Canaan’s highest elected official said last week. The Audit Committee identified the need for such a written policy, and it will be developed soon by the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure, according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan. “Right we have a policy out of [the] Finance [Department] which is not very clear to me,” Moynihan said during a regular Board of Selectmen meeting, held Dec. 17 at Town Hall. 

“This committee is going to recommend purchasing policy—a written purchasing policy that is more clear—but also a committee like this can review with [Public Works Director] Tiger [Mann] and [Buildings Superintendent] Bill [Oestmann] the lay of land we have with contractors and how realistic it is to put things to bid when we don’t want to get the lowest bigger out of Bridgeport with unreliable work and that kind of thing.”

The committee will put together a purchasing policy that the selectmen can review in February or March, Moynihan said. The matter arose as the selectmen discussed whether to approve an approximately $13,000 contract with a with a Shelton-based heating and air conditioning company to install A/C units at Lapham Community Center.