Selectman Williams: Concerns About Waveny Park Safety Have Been ‘Politicized’

A town official on Tuesday voiced concerns about the characterization of New Canaan’s most heavily used park as unsafe. Saying he believed that some of the talk around town about the safety of Waveny Park was “misguided a bit,” Selectman Nick Williams raised the issue during the Board of Selectmen’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall. While saying that he was “in favor of safety,” Williams asserted that “Waveny is one of the best parks in America and one of the safest parks in America.” Speaking during a section of the Board’s agenda dedicated to general town matters, Williams said that suggestions to the contrary were “perhaps politicized,” but was not specific about how. “I think it’s unfortunate that people are talking about Waveny as if it’s Central Park in the 1970s,” Williams said.

‘Taking Some Action’: Town Officials Move Forward with Proposal for Surveillance Cameras at Waveny Entrances

Following an online petition signed by more than 2,000 people, and acting on the advice of police, town officials said this week that they’re looking to install cameras to record motor vehicles entering and exiting Waveny Park. 

Parks and Public Works officials said during a subcommittee meeting Tuesday that the cost of installation might be around $25,000, for which they would likely request a special appropriation. The main purpose of the cameras will be to “show visibility of activity coming in and out of our parks,” Parks and Recreation Commission Chairman Rona Siegel said during a meeting of the appointed body’s Camera Subcommittee. The two-person subcommittee, which also includes Parks Commissioner Matt Konspore, discussed potential locations for the cameras, focusing on the three entrances to the park—one on South Avenue and two on Lapham Road, including near the Waveny Pool. “It would just be an extension of cameras at the entrances – not throughout the park,” Siegel said during the meeting, held at Town Hall. Those in attendance included Siegel and Konspore as well as Recreation Director Steve Benko, Public Works Director Tiger Mann and Parks Superintendent John Howe.

‘It’s Not the Nicest Looking Thing’: The Puzzling Concrete Block at 106 and Lapham

It had bothered Tiger Mann pretty much from the time he started working with New Canaan’s Department of Public Works, as a senior engineer in 1999. It came on his radar again years later, as the DPW set about dressing up the “gateways” into town. The town has a conceptual plan to replace it, though funding—as well as state approval—still must be had to see that plan through. “While I won’t call it ‘iconic,’ it’s been here forever and it’s not the nicest looking thing,” Mann, now public works director, said on a recent morning of the painted white concrete block at Old Stamford and Lapham Roads. Listing, immoveable, and shaped as though it had been a mooring, the structure has functioned for decades—and not very well—as a traffic island along a major state road into New Canaan.