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.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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We hear New Canaan native Bruce Pauley, retired last year to Vermont, has been putting on a timber frame addition to his house in the “Green Mountain State” that uses oak trees felled during Hurricanes Irene and Sandy in New Canaan (see photos above). He’s also using mostly storm-related white pine trees for the house’s exterior and the new addition is being called “The Storm Room.”

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A demolition crew on Wednesday came for the long-vacant and neglected home at 39 Richmond Hill Road—facing complaints from neighbors and the prospect of a blight citation. ***

The committee charged with studying public and private options for restoring the town-owned New Canaan Playhouse at the “50-yard-line” of Elm Street on Wednesday finalized a document that will see interested parties propose ways to purchase or otherwise acquire, renovate and operate the 1923-built brick building. The New Canaan Playhouse Committee is seeking to make a decision about the future of the cherished, cupola-topped structure by Thanksgiving. Town leaders say New Canaan is not in danger of losing the iconic building, though its capital needs are extensive.

Government

‘This Is a Serious Public Safety Concern’: Water Tower Owner ‘Evasive’ on Renewal of Leases That Provide New Canaan’s Wireless Communications

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Officials said Monday that New Canaan’s ability to continue getting cellular service across a wide swath of town may be in jeopardy, as the owner of the water towers at Waveny appears to have balked on whether to renew leases for a handful of carriers whose antennas are perched atop one of them. Nearly half of New Canaan receives its cellular signals from the four carriers’ antennas located on top of Aquarion’s water tower, and “the town has emergency services transmitters and antennas located on that tower,” according to Tom Tesluk, chairman of the Utilities Commission. “Over the summer it was Aquarion’s plan to have the tower repainted,” he said during the group’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall. “In order to do that, they came up with a very elaborate plan which would allow the antennas to move onto scaffolding and then move back onto the tower once the painting was finished. But we found out that they decided not to repaint the tower, and now we hear from two different carriers that the renewal of the leases that these carriers have for using that tower are in question.

Government

Town, Utility Company At Odds About Why Natural Gas Talks Broke Down

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Town and utility company officials are at odds about just why talks broke down regarding a long-discussed proposal to bring natural gas into New Canaan. While members of the Utilities Commission and others in New Canaan have long maintained that Eversource failed to deliver on a commitment to bring natural gas here—the upshot of which includes a plan now in place to heat public schools with propane—officials with the Berlin, Conn.-based company said it was town’s decision to abandon plans. “It’s unfortunate that New Canaan town leaders have a different recollection of what happened during our talks to bring natural gas to town,” Tricia Taskey Modifica, Eversource Energy’s media relations manager for Connecticut, told NewCanaanite.com in an email. “We made an offer to First Selectman Rob Mallozzi and the Utilities Commission last year that would have brought natural gas to the schools, YMCA, and Waveny Care Center. Once that was complete, we would have extended the system to bring gas downtown and through the residential neighborhoods nearby.

Government

‘It Is a Big Deal’: New Canaan Pursues Major Improvement in Wireless Service

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Town officials plan this month to start soliciting proposals from wireless carriers and developers in order to answer this question, at long last: How can New Canaan address gaps in service in a way that’s aesthetically agreeable to property owners? To this point, carriers themselves have controlled a rather one-sided solution addressing that question, and the response has been largely ineffective—essentially, to erect a tower. Now, thanks to emerging technology—most importantly the far less conspicuous “microcell” sites—and an idea to deliver access to town-owned properties in exchange for creating physical infrastructure that’s palatable for New Canaanites, the town is poised to take a major step forward, officials say. Just issuing a Request For Proposals doesn’t guarantee the desired responses, but it does “create a new opportunity for developers and for carriers who have said it’s frustrating because they cannot get a ‘straight play’ in New Canaan,” said Tom Tesluk, chairman of the all-volunteer Utilities Commission that First Selectman Rob Mallozzi re-grouped during his first term. “What we are trying to do is reach a compromise, a win for both sides, where the town gets better coverage—which is really essential today—and from the carriers’ and developers’ point of view, they would get access to multiple pieces of property, including rights of way on streets, that would allow for new infrastructure that the town feels it could live with.