Board of Selectmen

Town To Replace Southwood Drive Sidewalks

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The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday approved a contract with a Rocky Hill-based company to replace the sidewalk on Southwood Drive. Together with Southwood, neighborhoods scheduled for new sidewalks include Heritage Hill, East Avenue and South Avenue, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. “We’ll be looking for a grant on East Avenue,” Mann told the selectmen during their meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “That’s really where we’re dialing it in.”
The sidewalks will be fully concrete, apart from the downtown area, and won’t require granite curbing, he said. Selectman Amy Murphy Carroll said, “Sidewalks are expensive.

Government

Town Hires 103 Part-Time Summer Workers

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The Board of Selectmen at its most recent meeting voted in favor of hiring more than 100 part-time employees for the 2026 summer recreation season. Parks & Recreation Director John Howe told the elected body at its May 19 meeting that he is seeking to hire 103 this summer, as the town does each year, to help operate a wide range of municipal facilities, including revenue-generating ventures such as the pool at Waveny and camps. “103 kids,” Howe said at the Board of Selectmen meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “This is anything from lifeguards for the Steve Benko Pool to supervisors to summer camp counselors and even umpires. It’s all our seasonal help for the summer.”

First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted in favor of the request.

Business

‘Serving with Dignity’: New Canaan Woman Launches ‘God’s Acre Concierge’

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A longtime New Canaan resident has launched a new business designed to help local families in need of home healthcare services. Katarina Tchakorov, a registered nurse and private-duty and post-surgical care specialist, said she launched God’s Acre Concierge to cover “care for seniors, end-of-life responsibilities and also recovery after aesthetic surgeries.” 

“So many times people don’t want to go or stay in the hospitals when they are recovering after aesthetic surgeries—they go home, but they need the support of a registered nurse,” she said. “We provide the support and match the client with a registered nurse.”

Known to scores of local families as the former director at The Inn assisted living facility, Tchakarov said that care “is not just about physical assistance to people, but it’s also about serving with dignity.”

“We try to make people independent and bring peace of mind for loved ones,” she said. The company offers several levels of service, including daily care, memory care, hospital-to-home recovery and end-of-life care. One service, called “Total Care,” is for clients who are “bedbound or significantly mobility-limited,” according to the God’s Acre Concierge website.

Around Town

Waveny LifeCare Network ‘Breaks Ground’ on New Rehab Center

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Waveny LifeCare Network—a venerable nonprofit that provides a continuum of care for seniors—this week “broke ground” on a widely anticipated new facility in New Canaan. Announced at a ceremony held Wednesday at the organization’s Farm Road headquarters, the inpatient rehabilitation center is expected to address what officials called the growing challenge of increased demand for local post-acute care. The approximately 41,000-square-foot facility will serve 400 additional patients annually and give patients access to high-quality services, according to Waveny President and CEO Russell Barksdale Jr.

“We felt that we owed it to the community to expand our five-star quality,” Barksdale said at a ground-breaking ceremony launching the new facility. “This means more people can come in and actually rehab and take part in the short-term program.”

Barksdale said he believed the new rehabilitation center was necessary to accommodate the growing number of patients in need of a home. “We can only accept a very small percentage of people that get sent to us, and returning that many people down is impactful,” he said.

Arianne Kolb

‘Preserving This Treasure’: Merritt Parkway Exhibition on at New Canaan Library

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A new exhibition based on a historic local roadway has opened at New Canaan Library. Featuring artistic pieces inspired by the Merritt Parkway that emphasize its features and construction, the historical and architectural exhibition was created by the Merritt Parkway Conservancy. The nonprofit organization’s executive director, New Canaan’s Arianna Kolb, said she came up with the idea of “The Merritt: Masterwork of Design and Planning” after the library “was looking for an exhibition to honor America’s 250 birthday and celebrate this special year.”

Kolb said she believed the 27-and-a-half mile Merritt Parkway would be “perfect” for that because of its iconic reputation. 

“It’s on the National Register of Historic Places, a National Scenic Highway,” she said. “It really is one of Connecticut’s architectural treasures, in addition to being one of the country’s most impressive achievements in 20th century public architecture, engineering and landscape design.”

On display in the Lightburn Gallery through August, the exhibition includes the “history of the construction and design of the parkway and what went into it,” Kolb said. “The first part of the exhibition is mainly historical photographs.”

She added: “There was also an artist, Howard Heath, who documented the construction of the parkway in watercolors, and I was able to track down two remaining watercolors.