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Podcast: New Canaan’s Meghan and Molly Cioffi

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This week on 0684-Radi0, our free weekly podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to Meghan and Molly Cioffi, a mother-daughter duo from New Canaan, about their involvement with STAR, a local nonprofit organization that serves more than 600 individuals with disabilities and their families. Meghan Cioffi is president of the organization’s board, while Molly Cioffi, a 2018 New Canaan High School graduate, is a lifelong client who is now a college sophomore in Lesley University’s Threshold Program in Cambridge, Mass. Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:

 

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Letter: New Canaan Loses Veterans’ Leader and Hero with Passing of Peter Langenus

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On behalf of our town, I want to note with great sadness the passing of Peter Langenus on January 17th due to cancer. Peter was a U.S. Army combat veteran of the Vietnam War serving there in 1970 and he also was activated to service in Desert Storm in 1991.  He retired from the Army as a Colonel and during his career was awarded the Legion of Merit, 3 Bronze Stars, 12 meritorious service medals and 12 other individual medals. As Commander of local VFW Lodge 653, Peter for many years organized the Town’s annual Memorial Day Parade and Lakeview Cemetery Ceremony honoring New Canaan’s war dead and also organized and led the Town’s annual Veteran’s Day Ceremony at God’s Acre. Peter also led the annual placing of flags on veterans’ graves for Memorial Day and wreaths at Christmas time. He organized and led the effort to memorialize New Canaan veterans’ names on plaques hanging in the entry hall at Town Hall, and assisted an Eagle Scout candidate’s project in November 2019 to display photos of New Canaan veterans on lamp posts downtown.

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Letter: Ensure Model of the Proposed Oenoke Facility Is ‘True to Scale’

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I first saw the model of the proposed Oenoke facility on the New Canaanite’s website. I wrote a letter to the New Canaanite expressing relief that a model of the Oenoke Facilty had finally been provided at the December 17th P & Z meeting. I did not go to that meeting because I am a senior and was concerned about the ice. My letter said the model was much needed but it did not go far enough to illustrate the drainage problems and excessive height from the perspective of the 165 Oenoke condos that lie directly beneath it. I propose the newly created model should be expanded to extend down the slope through the condos to the drainage pond/marsh at its foot on Heritage Hill Road.

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Letter: Bristow Bird Sanctuary a ‘Most Treasured’ Hidden Gem

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We in New Canaan are truly blessed with Waveny, Irwin, and Mead Public Parks as well as our many Land Trust Preserves, but one of our most treasured hidden gems must be The Helen and Alice Bristow Bird Sanctuary and Wildwood Preserve. Yet, in spite of this, I suspect many of you might rightly ask – where is it, I’ve never even heard of it? Answer: Bristow Park is located right next to Mead Park. A little history lesson: Way back in 1918 the Migratory Bird Treaty Act made hunting migratory birds illegal – a practice mostly done to harvest brilliantly colored feathers to adorn women’s hats. Thanks to a group of far sighted New Canaan conservationists seeking to encourage interest in bird-life and protect native birds, the Bristow land was acquired in 1924 creating the third oldest private bird sanctuary in the nation.