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Five Property Owners Appeal Tax Assessments

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Five more property owners are seeking reductions to tax assessments following a revaluation that saw New Canaan’s Grand List increase 23.6%. The New Canaan Field Club on Smith Ridge Road and commercial property owners on Elm Street, Main Street and South Avenue in downtown New Canaan filed appeals this month in state Superior Court. An attorney representing the Field Club in an April 18 filing that the $4,226,110 assessment is “grossly excessive, disproportionate and unlawful.”

The Field Club appealed to the New Canaan Board of Assessment Appeals but “the Board elected not to conduct an appeal hearing relating to this commercial, industrial, utility or apartment property with assessed value in excessive of one million dollars,” attorney Michael D. Reiner of Farmington-based Greene Law, P.C. said in the complaint. “A tax was laid on the aforesaid property/properties which tax has been or will be computed on an assessment which, under all circumstances, is manifestly excessive, unlawful and could not have been arrived at except by disregarding the statutes for determining the taxation and valuation of the Premises,” the complaint said. The other appealing parties are (owner—address—assessment):

Cherry Street West LLC — 156 Cherry St.

Government

Town To Knock Down Gazebo Behind Lapham

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The Board of Selectmen last week voted 3-0 in favor of a contract with a Norwalk-based company to remove a gazebo behind the Lapham Community Center. Located near a planned baseball stadium, the structure is “past its useful life,” according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. “The benches on the inside are rotted out,” Mann told the selectmen during their regular meeting, held April 16 at Town Hall and via videoconference. “We’ve got some other issues working on it. And it’ll either require some additional work to maintain or we should necessarily remove it.”

He added, “It is quite close to the work at Coppo Field and will probably be impacted by that work.

Around Town

‘A Better Chance for Me’: ABC Marks 50 Years in New Canaan

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Terry Trusty came to New Canaan late in the summer of 1974, a 15-year-old from Freeman, Va.—a small town in the segregated South dotted with tobacco farms.

He’d grown up proud that his father and grandfather purchased the family home using the G.I. Bill. “That was a wonderful thing,” he told NewCanaanite.com on a recent morning. “They had a 26-acre farm there. We had a nice house. Didn’t have any running water.

Around Town

‘Lost’ New Canaan Landmark: The Lone Tree

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“Some say that the original Lone Tree has died and been replaced by a new tree. Others indignantly claim that they have been looking at it for 50-60, even 80 years and that it is the same old tree. It is not a large tree, but apparently size is not necessarily an indication of the age of a sugar maple. At any rate, all agree that it has been a favorite trysting place for lovers ‘time out of mind’ and it bears many hopefully entwined initials.” —from “Lone Tree Hill” by Elizabeth P. McGhie, Feb. 26, 1948 (“Landmarks of New Canaan”)

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With few exceptions, the landmarks that New Canaanites associate with their town’s rich history are manmade.

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Former New Canaan Cop Sues Over Disability Pension

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A former New Canaan Police Department K-9 officer, placed on leave and ultimately dismissed two years ago following his arrest on animal cruelty and other charges, is suing the town in connection with his claim for disability retirement, records show. 

David Rivera faces two years in prison after pleading guilty this month to gun and explosives charges. He also was charged with cruelty to animals—and, specifically, multiple counts for violating a law against intentionally maiming, mutilating, torturing, wounding or killing an animal. On April 10, the Town Clerk’s office received a complaint filed on Rivera’s behalf by attorney John Bochanis of Bridgeport-based Daly, Weihing & Bochanis LLC, saying that Rivera on May 22, 2022—weeks after the initial arrest— “filed an application with the Defendant [Town of New Canaan and Funded Retirement Plan] for a disability retirement.”

“In response to the Plaintiff’s disability retirement, the Defendant requested that the Plaintiff be examined by a medical doctor to determine whether the Plaintiff suffered a service connected disability,” the complaint said. “The medical examination of the Plaintiff confirmed that the Plaintiff sustained a service connected disability and therefore the Plaintiff should be granted a service connected disability pension. The Defendant has failed to grant the Plaintiff’s service connected disability application, continuing to ‘hold’ the Plaintiff’s disability pension application wrongfully using as a basis to ‘hold’ the application, section 16.5 of the Pension Plan.”

He is seeking monetary damages and “such other and further relief as in law and equity may pertain.”

The general manager and other workers at Rivera’s former Naugatuck-based canine training business shot and killed at least 10 dogs there, according to police.