News

Police Release Image of Vehicle Connected to Three Break-Ins at Waveny Park

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New Canaan police are investigating three vehicle break-ins that occurred on Aug. 5 at Waveny Park and have released the image of a vehicle with Pennsylvania license plates that may have been involved, according to a statement released by Chief Leon Krolikowski. The break-ins occurred at approximately 6 p.m. near the Main House at 677 South Ave. According to Krolikowski, a black male and a black female were seen inside of one of the victim’s vehicles. The windows of the vehicles were broken and valuables that were stolen included a tote bag, purse, credit/debit cards, health insurance cards, social security cards, a driver’s license, and checks.

News

Police Arrest Norwalk Woman, 44, for June Theft of Debit Card at New Canaan Event

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Police arrested a 44-year-old Norwalk woman on Aug. 4 by warrant and charged her with fifth-degree larceny, third-degree forgery, credit card theft, illegal use of a credit card receipt, and making less than $500 in charges on a credit card. She’s accused of stealing a debit card from the purse of an employee of the New Canaan Historical Society during an event that took place in June, according to the police report. On June 3, police took a complaint from the victim, who indicated that shortly after attending an event catered at the New Canaan Historical Society the night before, the victim received an email from the bank associated with the card that there was possible fraudulent activity occurring on the victim’s account, officials said. A subsequent investigation determined that several charges and attempted charges were made in Norwalk immediately after the event concluded.

Government

Town in Talks to Create Additional Commuter Parking Spaces Through ‘Boxcar’ App

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Town officials have been in talks for one month with a Cranford, N.J.-based company that recruits private property owners to offer parking to commuters via a mobile app, according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan. Moynihan said last week that the company, called Boxcar, generally launches in towns that have train stations. “They go to the funeral homes, the churches, the supermarkets—everything in the area around the train station—and they ask them to put their excess parking spaces into a pool, which is an online app where people go and reserve those spaces,” he told members of the Technology Advisory Committee at their inaugural meeting, held May 8 at Town Hall. “And people charge $5, $6, $7 a day depending on where the space is.”

Moynihan said the board plans to meet with the company again this week and officials have already spoken with St. Aloysius Church about making 50 spaces in its Cherry Street lot available on the Boxcar app.

Government

New Technology Advisory Committee Elects Chairman, Secretary

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New Canaan’s Technology Advisory Committee, created by Board of Selectmen in February to identify and recommend technologies that would help town government run more efficiently, held its inaugural meeting Tuesday night at Town Hall to elect officers, discuss the status of information technology in the town and identify initial areas of focus. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan attended the meeting to facilitate the nominations for the committee’s chairman and secretary. The committee unanimously nominated and approved Randy Dalia, who previously served as vice president at IBM, as chairman and Paul Pureka, who previously served as regional manager for information systems at Citibank in London and Puerto Rico, as secretary. The remaining members of the committee are Mike Abbott, digital lead, Accenture Financial Services; Annamari Mikkola, freelance art director and producer; and Jeff Platt, vice president of global marketing at MasterCard. Following a brief discussion of the meeting schedule, Christopher Kaiser, the town’s director of information technology, shared the results of a survey taken of managers within municipal government about their current technological use and future needs.

Government

How Involved Should Residents Be in Deciding the Future of Public Buildings?

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Though their input is valuable, New Canaan taxpayers ultimately should rely on their elected and appointed representatives to make decisions regarding the future of town-owned buildings rather than put such questions to a public referendum, officials say. Structures such as Gores Pavilion, Vine Cottage and Irwin House “don’t exist in a vacuum” and their capital needs are part of “a very fluid process,” Board of Finance member and Town Building Evaluation & Use Committee co-chair Amy Murphy Carroll said during the recent Forum on Public Buildings. Responding to a suggestion that putting key decisions on public buildings to a ballot so that residents can determine “what they do with their tax dollars,” Murphy Carroll questioned “how that it would be all that productive to do that.”

“You elected the people on the Town Council, right?” she said during the April 26 forum, held at Town hall. “You elected your representatives.”

While Murphy Carroll and her fellow panelists—First Selectman Kevin Moynihan, Town Council Chairman John Engel, and Town Council members Cristina A. Ross and Penny Young, who also served as committee co-chair—agreed that input from the community is greatly encouraged and appreciated, she and others stressed that residents should also trust them to make the best decisions for the town. Young said that there need to be more public forums allowing residents to express their opinions about how the buildings should be used.