Saying they need more information, members of the Board of Selectmen this week put off voting on contracts for a future “bridegroom’s room” at Waveny House.
Building officials came to the Board at its regular meeting Tuesday seeking approval for two contracts that would see a chandelier installed in a former IT Department office that the town now wants to convert into the groom’s room for weddings at Waveny.
The room also would be painted, but the selectmen said they first need to understand how many lower wall electrical outlets are in it, and also what color it will be.
“I don’t think we’re ready,” First Selectman Dionna Carlson said of voting on the contracts, totaling about $15,000. “I don’t think we’re ready for this one. It sounds like somebody needs to look at if we need to put new outlets in, because otherwise we’re not going to do the painting.”
Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll agreed.
The contracts, with Aladdin Services and Darien Electric, had been brought forward by Bill Oestmann, buildings superintendent in the Department of Public Works.
The electricity in the current groom’s room (to be converted to the bride’s room because it’s closer to a lady’s bathroom) sometimes goes down, Oestmann said.
“There’s some temporary electricity that was put up there years ago when IT was there,” he said. “So we want to move that, paint the walls and actually have Darien Electric … put in a chandelier. There’s no lighting in the room. And it’s a big room. So we want to add a light, which would match the other rooms that have lights in the center of the room. And then also we’ll have Aladdin Services paint the bride’s room down the hall. We’re switching them back and forth because the new men’s room is down at the other end of the building. So we want the groom’s room to be down where the men’s room is, and the [bride’s] room to be up closer to where the ladies’ room is. And we don’t want brides and grooms seeing each other before the wedding and crossing paths, going to the bathroom. And it’s time. It’s time to paint these rooms and clean them up, freshen them up.”
Yet the former IT room was painted “recently,” Murphy Carroll said, “and all the conduits were left on the wall.”
“How much money did we spend painting it when IT moved out?” she asked.
Oestmann said he didn’t remember.
Murphy Carroll said, “So in that room, you’re going to take all those conduits that run everywhere, and you’re just going to put in one center light fixture? That’s going to be the extent of the light in that room?”
Oestmann said yes, “unless they want to do lamps around the room or something.”
“We had a lighting consultant that represents the manufacturers,” he said. “He came there and he did the math for us to tell us what we would need.”
Asked how many outlets are located near the room’s baseboards, Oestmann said he didn’t know.
Murphy Carroll said, “It just seems to me, we just spent a lot of money painting this room and I don’t know what we spent on it. Now we’re going to do it again. And who picks out the pink colors and stuff like that? Where’s that decision made?”
Oestmann said the plan was to “swap the colors.”
“We’re going to take the pink that was in the other room, make this room pink and make the bridegroom’s room blue,” he said. “We’re just swapping the rooms around.”
When Murphy Carroll asked whether the room was a “salmon color” now, Oestmann said, “I guess. I’m not good with colors.”
Murphy Carroll said, “We did it once and we didn’t do it right and now we’re doing it again.”
Public Works Director Tiger Mann said, “I don’t know that we didn’t do it right. We just had IT in the room, now we’re changing the room to a different use. So we’re painting that room for a different use.”
Carlson said the town should consider painting the rooms in more neutral colors so that they can have multiple uses, and also should consult with Waveny House Wedding Coordinator Rachel Lampen regarding the colors.
Karl said he agreed with Murphy Carroll regarding the outlets because “everybody these days has a phone to charge or, during those big ceremonies, there’s always stuff that’s getting plugged in.”
He added that while the IT Department had a handful of desks “and power all over the place,” the baseboard outlets should be used in the future instead of “all this wiring running up and down the wall.”
“So it’ll look a lot nicer for sure,” Karl said.
Regarding the contracts, Carlson said, “It sounds like we’re not ready for prime time on this.”
Mann said that Public Works would come back to the selectmen with an outlet count and color scheme, after consulting with Lampen.
Carlson said the town would save money by only purchasing one color for the wedding prep rooms instead of two.
I am happy to contribute the paint so we can use two colors rather than just one color? What did the town spend on renovations at Waveny and Irwin roof recently? How large is the town of new Canaan over all budget this year?
It currently stands at about $183 million, a 4.67% year-over-year increase. The Board of Finance and Town Council haven’t finished with it yet.
Sorry, this all strikes me as micro management and back-seat driving by our Selectmen on a relatively minor set of expenditures, given the overall budget. The explanations given by the Town employees closest to the proposed work were reasonable. The last line/paragraph in the article says it all; only thing missing was a reference to taking advantage of Home Depot’s springtime paint promotions.