The town’s highest elected official said last week that it isn’t yet clear how New Canaan will fund a proposed survey of local taxpayers that’s designed to help set priorities for the upcoming budget season.
The survey itself will cost about $12,000, First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said during a Dec. 20 media briefing.
The town will hire a Connecticut-based company that conducts surveys nationally “assuming someone wants to fund it,” Moynihan said during the briefing, held in his Town Hall office.
“I have no money to do a survey, unless they say they want to do it and they authorize the money,” Moynihan said. “They said they want to do it.”
He referred to officials from various town bodies, including those that set municipal spending, who gathered last month for a pre-budget season workshop. One point of consensus among those in attendance was to conduct a survey that will help officials set priorities during what is expected to be a closely watched process of setting town spending for next fiscal year.
Asked about the budget, Moynihan said he expects a “very modest increase.”
“I see the town coming in very favorably compared to what the Board of Finance guidance was,” he said.
The survey itself will take about six weeks to complete, from start to finish, he said.
It will be conducted be telephone and likely will sample New Canaan taxpayers, rather than try to include all of them.
To First Selectman Moynihan: just curious that neither I nor Jim Lisher who have a combined 50+ years of experience in survey research and understand the Town very well from the New Canaan Seniors’ Needs Assessment study and survey we conducted a few years ago were not consulted at all regarding this possible project???
George – It’s no fun to be ignored & dismissed without any serious thought. Perhaps you now glimpse what the supporters of the Mead Park Barn feel? Bummer, huh? Except, unlike your pitch for Town funds for a survey — the NCPA won’t make money on the Town, they’re giving back.
Neither Jim Lisher nor i are pitching for any Town funds, especially not for ourselves … for the New Canaan Seniors’Needs Assessment study we each volunteers hundreds of hours and took not one red cent for our efforts, except for the satisfaction of helping seniors live a better life here in New Canaan.
By the way: 1) it is NOT a barn like the spin you are trying to put on it, and 2) the crumbling brick building has been just talked about for at least 20 years off and on with NO money or action.
Your time is up!
Good for you and good for the Seniors who are assisted! You are fortunate that your expertise has acceptance & is acknowledged in that arena. A full go ahead needs to be granted to the people at NCPA so they can demonstrate their expertise for the betterment of NC and prove what a worthwhile asset the Barn can be! You are ignoring that over those 20 years, the Town has neglected it and has lapsed in permitting the Barn’s salvation. I’m not saying this as condemnation, just a fact. If you can see the good in one endeavor, it shouldn’t be a stretch to see the good in other endeavors. And, no spin — it is a Barn.
Do we really want to weight input from a ‘sample’ of homeowners that actually answer their phone when the caller ID indicates ‘polling’ or ‘research’?
Missing from prior surveys (we all know most seniors want to stay in town) was the price of units and the cost of rent that seniors are willing to pay to stay in New Canaan.
To be transparent a survey can be created and uploaded onto the Town’s website where all questions/answers can be seen.
But let’s pause for a moment to see how many seniors purchase or rent in the “senior-friendly” Merritt Village.
At an earlier P+Z hearing I asked, “what is the price per square foot for the condos and how much would rent be” in Merritt Village. I still don’t have an answer.
Anyone an online poll — name– address — age — 10 to 30 question
post card and news outlets telling us were to go online