News

‘I Think It Is Chilling’: Board of Ed Rejects Proposed Change to Bylaws Regarding Public Comments at Meetings

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Saying they shouldn’t risk the perception that questions, suggestions or thoughts from the public are unwelcome, members of the school board this week rejected a proposal that would have limited the scope of comments from attendees at their meetings. The Board of Education also softened some new language regarding behavior at its meetings, changing two instances of the word ‘boisterous’ to ‘unruly’ in defining conduct that is not allowed, after school board member Penny Rashin flagged it. To the suggestion that a member of the public who wishes to address the board present his or her thoughts ahead of time for inclusion on the agenda, Rashin said, “I think it is chilling, actually, to require somebody in town to think they have to get a board member on the side in order to speak.”

“It is not obvious from the face of this that that’s the case,” Rashin said at Tuesday night’s regular Board of Ed meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “I think somebody could just read the policy and think, ‘Oh, I have no right to speak,’ even though procedurally they could get a board member to support it. We do have controls, the controls are two minutes to any speaker, I think sometimes you do have uncomfortable comments that you listen to as a Board of Ed member but we are elected representatives and I think that there is a real difference between email communication and face-to-face communication and it takes a lot of courage, actually, for a number of people to come to speak publicly to a board like this and I have always been proud that we have encouraged anyone that wanted to come, to come.

Government

Caucus Results: New Canaan Republicans Back New Candidates for Town Council, Board of Ed

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New Canaan Republicans on Tuesday night backed four candidates for Town Council and three for Board of Education—an incumbent from each elected group failing to garner the required votes for party endorsement—during the Republican Town Committee’s caucus at New Canaan High School. Officials said just 285 total ballots were cast during the caucus, which saw most voters exit the high school auditorium even before candidates had a chance to give their speeches. The hopefuls now eye the Nov. 3 local elections, to begin their terms on the Town Council and Board of Ed soon afterwards. “It’s a great civic duty on your part to attend this,” RTC Moderator John Ponterotto told those gathered at the caucus at the outset, prior to opening voting for those who wished to cast their ballots prior to candidate speeches.

Around Town

Copper Beech Planted by Waveny House as Locals Honor Ted Winpenny on Arbor Day

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The head of New Canaan’s Public Tree Board gathered with a selectman and small group of locals on the windswept field by Waveny House on Friday morning to dedicate a newly planted copper beech tree to the memory a civic-minded New Canaan man. This year’s Arbor Day planting was dedicated to Ted Winpenny, a man whose numerous activities in New Canaan made it difficult for the board to decide just where to plan the tree, board Chairman Tom Cronin said. “Do we plant the tree at Mead Park, where Ted helped organize the annual Labor Day doubles tennis tournaments?” Cronin said, as Winpenny’s daughter and grandson, Belinda and Benjamin Paris, stood nearby. “Do we plant it on Cherry Street, in front of the New Canaan Community Foundation that he helped to establish, which is an organization that has soon will hit a milestone of more than $10 million to local charities since its inception? Do we plant near Waveny Care Center, where Ted volunteered for so many years?

Government

New Canaan Residents Invited to Find Town’s Largest Trees

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Town resident Chris Schipper refers to trees here in New Canaan as “magnificent plants” and “creatures that have stood the test of time.”

New Canaan’s appreciation of trees, particularly large ones, increased in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which took down so many of them, Schipper said Wednesday at a meeting of the Public Tree Board, held in the computer room at Lapham Community Center. “It makes New Canaan bucolic, to have all of these trees around and these tree-lined streets,” said Schipper, a member of the volunteer board that assists the New Canaan tree warden in overseeing trees on public land in town. “We’re not going to end up like Rye or other places that are just built out in cleared lots.”

The board, which already is overseeing an effort to take an inventory of public trees in New Canaan, is inviting all residents to participate in a new “Notable Trees Project.”

The board’s goal is to develop and maintain a register tracking the largest tree of each species in town. All native and non-invasive naturalized tree species are eligible and a newly created “New Canaan Notable Tree Register” will be available on the board’s page on the town’s municipal website. Connecticut through its statewide “Notable Trees Project” has been documenting big trees in the state for about 30 years.

Around Town

VIDEO: New Canaan Honors Dick Reifers with Arbor Day Sycamore at Mead Park

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In the last year of his life, New Canaan’s Dick Reifers is remembered by one close friend as planting an endangered tree on his own property, the Metasequoia glyptostroboides or “dawn Redwood”—which interested Reifers after its rediscovery in China about 70 years ago. On Friday, New Canaan friends, relatives and town officials remembered Reifers as an civic-minded, avid gardener and generous member of the community, in honoring him with the Arbor Day planting of a sycamore tree on the banks of Mead Pond. New Canaan Marks Arbor Day 2014
 

Trees that in recent decades is known for carrying a disease that makes them lose their leaves midsummer instead of in the fall, George Valchar said, sycamores yet often live 140 years or more, and are among the tallest in this area, sometimes reaching 160 feet. “Let’s hope that our young American sycamore will survive the early years and then will grow into a giant 150-feet-tall tree with branches turning white with a little green and a little gray, and that the citizens of 2200 as they walk by will admire the great Dick Reifers American Sycamore,” Valchar said at the pond moments before he and others spread soil over the base of the sycamore to mark the day. The event included a proclamation by First Selectman Rob Mallozzi that was delivered by Selectman Beth Jones.