Around Town

Town to Waveny Walkers: Use the New Footpaths, Not the Road

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Frustration with pedestrians who walk in the main road through Waveny—rather than on new pathways specifically created for them—is quickly turning into action, parks officials say. According to Recreation Director Stephen Benko, despite the recent additions of three brand-new pedestrian paths that hug the roadway, many who come to the park to jog, walk their dogs or push baby strollers favor the roadway that’s meant for cars, raising traffic and safety concerns. “Unfortunately, we might have to put up a ‘No Pedestrians’ ” sign,” Benko said of the rising problem. He said that visitors may be walking in the road because of the seasonal dryness of the pathways—a problem that will soon be addressed. The Department of Public Works is currently contracted to lay down a .25-inch layer of stone.

Government

Parks Officials Designate New Areas at Waveny for Drone Operators, Eye Kiwanis for This Fall

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Drone pilots finally have a viable and designated place to fly this summer. Parks officials on Wednesday created a plan for drone users and their devices to operate at Waveny. Under a proposal that the New Canaan Parks & Recreation Commission approved 8-0 during its regular meeting, beginning June 26 and through Aug. 15, drone-using members of the New Canaan Radio Control Society will be able to fly the devices in an area west of the water towers, near the softball fields behind Lapham Community Center, while model plane and “quad-copter” racing owners fly on the same field but nearer to the main road through Waveny. Flying will take place 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekends and 12 to 4 p.m. three days per week, commission Chair Sally Campbell said.

Animal 411

‘The Male Was Not Responding’: Bit by Dog at Spencer’s Run, Woman Gets Angry with Nonchalant Owner

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Police this month fielded a complaint from a Norwalk woman who said she’d been bit at Spencer’s Run by a dog whose owner—a New Canaan man—failed to show sufficient concern. It happened on the evening of April 7 (a Friday) at the Waveny dog park, according to a police report obtained by NewCanaanite.com through a Freedom of Information request. According to a report from the head of the Animal Control section, Officer Allyson Halm, at about 5:30 p.m. the woman had been throwing a ball to her dog “when a white shepherd or husky-type dog came over to them and the two dogs began to fight.”

The woman started yelling and tried to break up the scrap, and told Halm that “the other dog’s owner was far away and didn’t seem to know what was going on,” the report said. Soon, the man—a Spring Water Lane resident—made his way over to secure his dog, and the woman instructed him to leave the park, as his dog had bitten her, the report said. Yet, according to the woman, “the male was not responding,” the report said.

Government

‘It’s That Dire’: Town Pursues Backup Plan To Erect Standalone Cell Site by Water Towers at Waveny

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Saying the owner of the Waveny water towers appears unwilling to renew leases with four wireless carriers whose antennas are perched atop one of them, town officials on Tuesday pursued a backup plan to erect a new standalone cell site in the same area. The Board of Selectmen voted 3-0 to amend the town’s contract with a Danbury-based wireless solutions company so that it can design and build a tower or other infrastructure there that not only provides cell service to a wide swath of the town but also carries New Canaan’s primary radio transmitter for all emergency services. It appears that Aquarion, which owns the towers and the land they’re built on “has no appetite to renew” its leases with AT&T Wireless, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile, First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “This is the right and proactive approach that the town must take so that we are not caught in 2018 with not serving one-third of our community with cell service and the entire community with radio emergency,” he said. “It’s that dire.”

Flagged by town officials last summer and made public in September after Mallozzi and others worked for months to facilitate communications between the two parties, the threat that wireless service gear will come off of the water towers grows more real as time passes and the end of the carriers’ leases approach.

Government

‘The Town Needs To Invest a Little More’: Officials Call for More Funds to Maintain Public Parks’ Grounds

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More maintenance is needed in New Canaan’s parks, particularly in landscaping the areas immediately around public buildings, and the officials in charge of them say they’ll seek more money in the upcoming budget season to care properly for the cherished properties. The Parks Department doesn’t have the funds needed “to adequately maintain the parks,” Sally Campbell, chairman of the Park & Recreation Commission, told members of the Town Council at their Nov. 16 meeting. “I just still can’t believe the conditions of the landscaping around our town buildings and around our beautiful town assets,” Campbell said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “And we are fortunate that [Parks Superintendent] John Howe does an amazing job maintaining the athletic fields and maintaining our baseball diamonds—and those are kind of easier to maintain—but to maintain the landscaping around Lapham [Community Center], or in Irwin Park where the weeds are just all over the place or the town buildings, we just need more money.”

The comments came during a pre-budget season review of parks and recreation before the Town Council, the final funding body to sign off on New Canaan’s spending plan each year.