Saying some portable public toilets in New Canaan need to be cleaned more than once per week, the town on Tuesday approved an approximately $20,000 contract with a Monroe-based company.
The town had been using the same company for the cleaning for “many, many years,” according to Parks & Recreation Director John Howe.
However, “we need a second cleaning of them during the week, during busy times, like this time a year with the fall sports programs,” Howe told the Board of Selectmen during its regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “So when they [the prior contractor] gave us pricing for that, it was rather high. So we went out looking at other companies. So we looked at three different companies and GI Johns by far gives the best service. Some of the sports groups have used them. We actually used them as a trial last year at the Fall Fair to see how they’d work out. They’re very responsive. We think this will work out well and the town will save a little bit of money.”
First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of the $20,350 contract with GI Johns.
The selectmen asked how many porta-potties the town currently has (eight), whether the town owns any of them (no they’re rentals) and what the town paid last year (just under $20,000 for a single weekly cleaning).
There are two “units” at Dunning Stadium, Howe said, and there are several special events that call for porta potties. Some of them are for seasonal use, such as at the Waveny platform tennis courts, he said.
“For whatever reason, we don’t have a problem with Irwin and Kiwanis, the ones we have there,” Howe said. “They’re fine being cleaned once a week. We’ll also be using this same company, GI Johns, for the fireworks, Dunning Stadium, of course, cross country events, anything like that. My hope would be Caffeine and Carburetors will be able to use them for their events.”
The porta potties will be cleaned on either a Monday-and-Thursday or Tuesday-and-Friday schedule, Howe said.
“It’s going to help a lot,” he said.
It is a great process to have competitive bids in the private and public sectors to improve service and reduce costs. It seems to have worked on our $20,000 project described above.
However, I was wondering if public taxpayers and the other branches of New Canaan government know that the BOE has Policy 3300 that exempts “professional services” from competitive bidding. As a result, a $125,000 contract was signed with a vendor who advocated the Clark Property for a school location and Town Hall has a 25-page legal and environmental document that refutes any development on that property. A transparent competitive process may have uncovered this document and saved time and money. BOE Policy 3300 must be rewritten to avoid this problem in the future.
Info from FOI North School has started to come in
There was a meeting April 24 2025 were the data given MP Planning and SLAM shows that in their presentation at that meeting confirms in the slide
that there are 28 empty classrooms in K-4 sorry there is no way to show you the slide on this posting-it says
East 35 classrooms using 30
South 37 using 26
west 36 using 24
total empty 28
We see who at this meeting Bryan Hugo Julie Penny Eric and Phill 6 people
Note the information must have been classified because it never gets to the BOE website under Board material — never given to the rest of the board ?
Now maybe Bryan and Hugo can tell us why it wasn’t made public
this data is also not in the July presentation to the whole board
that MP Planning and SLAM gave
28 classrooms x 19 students = 532 students
but get this Saxe they say will only reach a high 86% capacity
and only average 81% over the next 10 yrs
Again
Don’t let the Truth get in the Way of what you Want
More later
the documents that I referred to were sent to the Editor
and I would forward them to anyone who wants to see them