Around Town

Parks Officials Turn To Public for Solutions to Dog Waste Problem at Irwin, Waveny

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Saying an ongoing problem has gotten especially bad lately, parks officials are calling for public input to address how to get those who walk dogs at Irwin and Waveny Parks to pick up after their pets. Sally Campbell, chairman of the Parks & Recreation Commission, said she’s received multiple complaints from residents and will put the matter at the volunteer group’s Feb. 14 meeting. “This year has been really bad,” Campbell told NewCanaanite.com. “What I would like to do is say, ‘What are the solutions?’ and talk about maybe just having dogs in one park or walking where they’re visible so people feel they have to pick up after them.”

Those with dogs at Waveny and Irwin either do not pick up after their dogs at all, or else pick up the waste and then discard the full bags off-trail or piled on a rock or something similar, Campbell said, which “is more unsightly.”

In the past, it’s been suggested that the town install more garbage receptacles deeper into trails where people are walking, so that they can dispose of the dog waste.

Around Town

‘Caffeine & Carburetors’ To Return: Organizers Seek Four Dates in 2018

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The New Canaan founder of Caffeine & Carburetors, the hugely popular grassroots gathering of specialty and classic auto enthusiasts, said Wednesday night that he’s seeking to hold four events in 2018. Doug Zumbach, owner of the eponymous coffee shop on Pine Street where Caffeine & Carburetors began with just 50 cars eight years ago, told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission that he’s seeking two dates at Waveny and two downtown. “We are deciding to come back this year after taking a year off,” Zumbach told commissioners at their regular meeting, held in Lapham Community Center. New this year, Zumbach said, will be an online registration system for car owners seeking to participate in the show, possible mobile app, increased insurance policy for the event (doubled to $2 million) and lecture series at New Canaan Library that touches on topics such as car restoration and teenage driving. The specific dates that Zumbach is seeking are April 22 (downtown), June 17 (Waveny), Sept.

Around Town

New Canaan Historic Preservationists Select Firm To Prepare Waveny’s Listing on National Register of Historic Places

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A nonprofit organization dedicated to historic preservation in New Canaan is hiring a Pawtucket, R.I.-based firm to put together an application to list one of the town’s most cherished properties on the National Register of Historic Places. It isn’t clear yet just which buildings or portion of the grounds at Waveny—beyond the 1912-built main house—will be included in the application that Public Archeology Laboratory Inc. is to prepare, according to Rose Scott Long, co-president of the New Canaan Preservation Alliance. If approved, Waveny will become the first public property in New Canaan to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The town three years ago voted to back the Preservation Alliance in pursuing the listing. The listing itself has absolutely no bearing on what the town does with main house, grounds or any outbuildings.

Animal 411

Police: Two Bobcat Sightings in Waveny This Month

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The head of the New Canaan Police Department’s Animal Control unit is urging Waveny visitors to bring a hazing tool with them after two reported bobcat sightings in the popular park this month. A bobcat crossed in front of a jogger’s path at Waveny on Nov. 20, following an initial sighting reported on Nov. 8, according to Officer Allyson Halm. It’s a good idea at Waveny to have a hazing tool of some kind, mostly because of coyotes, she said.

Government

Garden Club, Landscape Architect at Odds Over Future of ‘Parterre Garden’ at Waveny

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New Canaan should pause before approving a plan that would see a formal garden at Waveny house changed from its original design, according to local landscape architects. Located directly east of the balcony out back of the 1912-built Waveny house, the parterre garden is “the most important formal garden in town,” an “historically significant” area that “deserves a great deal of thought before it gets radically changed,” Keith Simpson told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission at their most recent meeting. “That configuration of the boxwood hedge has been there for over 100 years and I think it has stood the test of time,” Simpson said at the Nov. 8 meeting, held at Lapham Community Center. “And also, the Olmsted office is probably the best known firm in the history of landscape architecture in the country.