Government

Town Voids $35 Parking Ticket Issued to Local Woman

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Town officials last week voided a $35 ticket issued to a local woman who’d pulled into one of the permitted spots in the Park Street Lot thinking it was free. During a May 6 appeal hearing before the Parking Commission, Lilly Kong said that she understood the entire Park Street Lot to be free. 

“It’s a very consistent message saying ‘park in the Park Street Lot, it’s three hours free’ and I have that imprinted in my mind, so the day I parked there I just saw the sign,” Kong told the Commission during the hearing, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. However, the row of spaces along the northern edge of the lot are for permit-holders only — a fact that had been spelled out on signs in the lot, but not specified on a prior version of the town’s “parking map” posted online. Kong said that after she got the ticket, she went to parking officials and noted that the map didn’t account for the permitted spaces in the Park Street Lot. 

That town parking map has since been updated. Commission Chair Nancy Bemis, Secretary Kevin Karl and members Katie O’Neill and Marley Thackray voted 4-0 to void the ticket.

Government

Town Approves Contract for Re-Paving of 15 Roads

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Town officials last week approved an approximately $2.8 million contract with a Norwalk-based company to pave 15 local roads this year. First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 during the May 5 Board of Selectmen meeting to approve the $2,771,497.25 contract with FGB Construction. “We listen to residential comments, complaints, and each one gets a visit,” Public Works Director Tiger Mann told the selectmen during their regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “So if they say that they had a problem on that road, each one gets a visit. The road gets visited, we take a look at it and see, and then we adjust our list accordingly.”

The roads to be paved are: 

Brookside Road
Brushy Ridge Road (from Garibaldi to Brushy Ridge)
Buttery Road
Carter Street
Comstock Hill Road
Dabney Road
Davenport Ridge Road
Grove Street (from Pine to Richmond Hill)
Hickok Road
Jelliff Mill Road (from Ponus Ridge to Springwater)
Nursery Road
Parade Hill Road (200 feet from Oenoke Ridge)
Ponus Ridge (from Winfield to Four Winds Lane)
Rosebrook Road
Silvermine Road

Mann said that FGB is holding its unit prices to last year’s level—a fact that Murphy Carroll said was surprising given “all the price shocks with oil.”

Mann responded that there aren’t many contracts out right now.

Government

Park Street, Playhouse Lots Repaved; Town Seeks To Slow Speeding Motorists

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With the successful repaving of the Park Street and Playhouse Lots finished, town officials say they’re now looking for a way to slow down motor vehicle traffic whizzing down the access road that runs down to Main Street. The town is “going to try to tackle some of the speed now because people are shooting through the boulevard quickly,” according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. “We’re going to look to try to put some speed humps or speed bumps on the way just to calm them down a little bit as they come through Town Hall,” Mann told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting, held Tuesday at Town Hall and via videoconference. The comments came during Mann’s general update on DPW projects to the Board. The long-awaited repaving projects have seen wider car stalls painted into the parking lots.

Government

Town Approves Contract for Graffiti Removal, Repainting at Talmadge Hill Train Station 

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The Board of Selectmen last week approved a $12,000 contract with a Stamford-based company to remove graffiti and repaint parts of the Talmadge Hill Train Station. Metro-North Railroad currently has a shutdown on weekends “so we want to try to take advantage of it,” Bill Oestmann, buildings superintendent in the Department of Public Works, told the selectmen during their regular meeting, held April 21 at Town Hall and via videoconference. He continued: “They [the Connecticut Department of Transportation and Metro-North] requested that we try to do some of this work during the weekends. So our first request is going to be with Talmadge Hill. There’s graffiti.

Board of Selectmen

Town Removes ‘Undocumented’ Third Underground Tank from Irwin House Site

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Town officials last week began removing an “undocumented” underground storage tank from the site of the former Irwin House, a project that should be finished mid-May. The third tank, which municipal officials didn’t know about until a project to demolish Irwin House and its garage got underway last year, “may have been related to the bomb shelter” on the Weed Street property, according to Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer in the Department of Public Works. “it was fairly close to the bomb shelter area,” he told members of the Board of Selectmen during their regular meeting, held April 21 at Town Hall and via videoconference. “There’s a long process that you go through to take out an underground storage tank,” Zagarenski said. He added: “Stamford Wrecking has a tank subcontractor that removes all the oil from within the tank.