Letters to the Editor

What follows are Letters to the Editor received in the past week by NewCanaanite.com. 

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I am writing to support the Board of Education budget as proposed which includes a change for healthy school start times for all our children.

I am the mother of four children, a 15-year-old New Canaan High School freshman, an 11-year-old in 5th grade at Saxe, a 5-year-old in kindergarten at South and a 3-year-old enjoying another year at home with me. I will be in the New Canaan public school system for 14 more years.

This past fall I transitioned three children to three new schools. Like many of us, I am regularly dealing with changes to schedules; having children in quarantine, attending school in person, remotely, morning kindergarten, hybrid 2-day a week schedule, hybrid 75% schedule, every other Wednesday, half day Wednesdays, it has been quite the year for all of us. I actually say that last sentence with a big smile on my face, because, thanks to [Superintendent of Schools] Dr. [Bryan] Luizzi, my children have enjoyed a significant amount of in-person full time learning this year. Something many of my friends in other places can only wish for. My children are surviving the pandemic, and actually all are thriving at school thanks to the work of Dr. Luizzi and all the NCPS staff. The mitigation strategies in place at our schools, following CDC guidelines and best medical advice are working.

As a mother, I would never choose a favorite child, and Dr. Luizzi is also not playing favorites with his proposed change to school start times. He has proven this year, more than ever, that he cares about all our children and what is best for all of them. The change to healthy school start times included in the Board of Education budget does that. It allows our teens who are in the midst of the most important academic years and juggling sports, extra curricular activities, volunteer opportunities etc, the sleep they need when their sleep cycles trend later, making it more difficult to fall asleep until later in the evening. It enables our youngest learners to learn earlier in the day when they are most alert and gives them time after school for fresh air and exercise. This pandemic year has proven just how flexible our children are. A mid year change to healthy start times will be easier than all of the changes we have dealt with this year.

I spoke in favor of the change to healthy school start times during last year’s town budget process and was extremely disappointed that it was voted down at the last minute by Town Council. This past year has proven we need to listen to medical experts and follow their recommendations. Please do what is right for our children and thank Dr. Luizzi for his year of incredible work and approve the Board of Education budget as proposed.

Jodie Azzopardi

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Editor,

The Feb. 22 meeting of New Canaan Library, Inc. before New Canaan’s Parking Commission provided a series of revelations. It brought forward critical details, hitherto undisclosed by New Canaan Library Foundation Inc. (NCLI). Foremost among them, the NCLI announced that design constraints made its planned underground parking unfeasible. The previously designed entrances and exits to NCLI’s highly touted underground parking plan were dismissed as contrary to smooth traffic flow. The proposed solution to these parking problems was the requisition of 46% of our Town’s Center School Parking lot, spaces located nearest the new library complex ceded for the exclusive use of library visitors.

The design constraints NCLI cited as reasons to give up on its previously heralded underground parking plan all seemed to be arbitrary and self-imposed. As such, NCLI’s other parking options – those rejected – all appeared little more than ‘straw men’, set up for summary dismissal. NCLI’s restriction of all access and egress to its new library building across Maple Street appears to be self-imposed by the need retain the new lawn unencumbered driveways. Currently NCLI provides all patron parking on its existing campus, and provides access and egress onto both South Avenue and Cherry Street, in addition to Maple Street.

NCLI’s latest parking scheme, shamelessly calls for the requisition of 76 spaces at the Center School Parking Lot. It demands every new library visitor, from infants to the infirm, twice cross a narrow two way street. This brazen gambit serves to save the NCLI $10 million in project construction costs by imposing the burden of requisite parking onto the Town. This failure to provide proper parking on its own site as it currently does pales before a far more important consideration, public safety. This tortuous new parking scheme creates the serious potential for injury or loss of life. Every visitor entering or leaving the library will be required to cross, mid-block, Maple Street, a narrow two way thoroughfare. Even considering historic declines in library attendance this will amount to an average of 170 street crossings every hour of every day the library is open. This issue appeared little noted by the Parking Commission.

Almost in passing, NCLI mentioned that its latest re-design will reduce the size of its proposed new building almost 17%. Remarkably, the new plan calls for the library complex to be less than 1,000 square feet larger than its current size. While NCLI off-loaded the almost $10 million cost of underground on the Town, it has also cut 8,000 square feet of new space it had cried out for while at the same time bumping up the total project cost by $2 million from $36 million to $38 million. (Independent architects consulted roughly estimate the actual all-in cost of NCLI’s proposed new library complex at between $45 million and $50 million. Alas, a more accurate estimate is not at the moment possible as NCLI does not make available to its public/private partners – the taxpayers – construction estimates and detailed design and floor plans.)

When one steps back to view the entirety of the this “public/private partnership” a startling picture emerges. NCLI’s imposing new structure and grandly terraced, presentational lawn, comprise a vanity confection that is yearned for by none so much as NCLI’s directors and some capital campaign pledgers. NCLI expects we taxpaying citizens of New Canaan to provide a $10 million capital grant, an effective payment guarantee of and debt service on a $15 million private construction loan (at nearly double the going bond rate), and then, whatever additional millions in funding or additional bond issuance will be required to complete this likely $45 million to $50 million project. All of this should be viewed against a 58% drop in visits to the New Canaan Library over the past decade.

It is time to re-cast this perverse, so-called “public/private partnership” project – one that is privately designed, badly communicated and obsessively controlled, while at the same time being substantially publicly funded. It is for Town government to provide for public buildings.  New Canaan is being asked to provide tens of millions of dollars in cash and kind to fund a private project, for which it has no planning or design authority, no control and no equity.

Let’s reimagine this public/private so-called partnership, privately designed and publicly funded. It is for Town government to provide for public buildings. Let the New Canaan Library Foundation concentrate on providing library services and let municipal government provide town planning and new facilities with the transparent advice and consent of its taxpaying citizens who will bear the burden as well as the benefit of a new library.

Ken Klenk
New Canaan Preservation Alliance
Finance Committee

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Editor, NewCanaanite:

I have been a New Canaan resident for more than 20 years. I love everything about this town: our sense of community, the quintessential New England feel, our downtown shopping area, our parks and superior schools. For my family, our beloved New Canaan library has made our living experience here complete, full of happy memories of creativity, exploration and networking.

It is well known our library is in desperate need of improvement. Despite the excellent programming, we are hindered by the current library’s physical limitations and deteriorated state. Most of us flock to neighboring Westport or Greenwich to book a decent meeting room. Thanks to our amazing library leadership, there is a plan for a new library that meets most, if not all of New Canaan residents’ needs. With careful consideration of every square foot, the new library will be a place of quiet reflection, learning, collaboration, refuge and inspiration. After (hopefully soon) the end of COVID, we need this inspiration for the future more than ever.

The public/private partnership will require $10 million of town financing. Library leadership has taken great pains to limit the public burden, even though most public libraries are fully publicly funded. Operating costs are projected to be relatively flat despite a bigger footprint, due to newer building efficiencies. If we look at other town investments in the recent past (Irwin Park, $20 million 2004), (Town Hall, $18 million 2015), this investment will have the most immediate return and will benefit residents each and every day. And unlike Town Hall and Irwin, the Library will double function as a place of refuge during town emergencies.

The new library’s mid century modern design is both forward looking and a nod to our past. Incorporating the existing 1913 building would alter the aesthetic and will not reduce operating costs. Let’s solve for the greatest number of citizens, not just for the loudest voices. The time for town leadership to approve financing for our new library is now.

Janet Fonss

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The citizens of New Canaan hear that everyone is excited about the new library and cannot wait to see it built. Apparently, they have not asked everyone because, although I am a long-time user, supporter and even previously a volunteer at our library, I do not fall into that category – sorry. I wonder if you, the reader has been asked. Do you have all the info on this project? If not, here are some lists:

At a Board of Finance meeting on January 14, 2020, the taxpayers were shown a flashy video of the “homage to modern” new New Canaan Library. We were told:

1. The price tag was $30,000,000
2. The building was to be almost 11,000 square feet larger (49,000 +/- s.f.) than the existing building (39,475 s.f.)
3. The existing building was “crumbling” – the BOF asked for documentation of this assertion. No actual physical conditions assessment of the building by qualified professionals was ever presented to the public by the Library.
4. The Library’s architects were unable to incorporate the original 1913 building into the new design. No documentation of this struggle was ever produced.
5. The Library was asking New Canaan taxpayers for ONLY $10,000,000, doubling an initial $5,000.000 ask.
6. Parking was not addressed although the video clearly showed parking underneath the building.
7. No actual plans nor itemized budget was presented although the Library was asked for a detailed budget breakdown.
8. The Library had raised $15,000,000 in pledges and donations.
9. When asked by the BOF if the Town could be given the proposed “Green” in exchange for its $10,000,000 contribution of taxpayer money, the Library responded that it would probably not be willing to do so.

So where are we now? Based upon public statements, here is the breakdown.

1. Over the course of the year, the price tag for the new library building went up from $30,000,000 to $38,000,000 (per current draft MOU).
2. During the same year, the size of the new library building shrank from the original 49,000 +/- s.f. down to 40,461 square feet, less than 1000 square feet larger than the existing building, but the price has gone up.
3. The Library has raised $16,000,000 in pledges and donations (similar figure to one year ago – per current draft MOU).
4. The Town recently made public a Draft Memorandum of Understanding detailing the arrangement between the Town and the Library. In this MOU, the following four items were deemed the “Basic Elements of the Building Project” (With the exception of inclusion of the “resolution of …. the 1913 building”, these are all offerings initiated by the Library, not requests put forth by the Town):

1. A modern building
2. Meet LEED standards
3. Adequate parking
4. A Green Space – subject to the resolution of the 1913 building.

5. The Library, after 8 or 9 attempts at providing parking on their site announced that their architects could not come up with a way to provide parking for the new building on site. So, our Parking Commission gave the Library 76 parking spaces in the Center School Lot, based on the current number of spaces at the library, not on the promised increased programming of the new library building. This means everyone including the handicapped and families with small children, will park in a pay lot and cross Maple Street to go to the library. In spite of the reduction in expense of constructing underground parking (estimated around $9,000,000 +/-), reduction in size, and this additional parking offer from the Town, there was no reduction in the ask from the taxpayers toward the new library project.

Why am I, one who professes to value and support our town library, putting forth this information. Because I am a taxpayer, a voter and a rule follower. It is up to the citizens, taxpayers and voters to pay attention and ask questions.

Here are a few questions each citizen, taxpayer and voter need to ask themselves and our town leadership – those we elected to represent us, to appoint commission and board members, and to make sure our tax dollars are appropriately allocated:

1. Why, if the library project has decreased in size and no longer accommodates parking, has the cost gone up from the initial $30,000,000 presented last year to $38,000.000?
2. What other promised amenities, such as on-site parking, have been removed from the now reduced new building?
3. How is our town and the library funding this project? Will the stated cost to the taxpayer be only $10,000,000 in the end?
4. Is it ok for a new building to not provide parking on site, including for handicapped and families with small children?
5. Why did the Library not maintain its building to the supposed point of no return? Where is the documentation supporting this premise and specifically the estimated cost to repair these deficiencies as requested by the BOF in January of 2020?
6. Why for over a year has the public never seen actual developed plans or a detailed budget for the new project. Why has the architect never made a presentation and appeared to answer questions – an architect that could not figure out how to incorporate a landmark building nor provide on-site parking for a new building?
7. Who is in the driver’s seat? Is it the Library? Is it our elected and appointed officials? Is it us, the citizens, taxpayers and voters who will be contributing at least a third of the initially stated cost of this project? 
8. Why is the Library and the Town so insistent on rushing this approval through when the Library just submitted their plans to the Building Department for review?

If the new building is less than 1000 square feet larger than the existing, and the library truly needs more space for programming and community services, couldn’t an addition have been built to accommodate these needs for the $16,000.000 that the Library has raised? For that amount of money, they could have repaired their existing building and the addition could have been located at the honorific corner of South and Maple. It could even have been the flashy modern “Glass Box” that supposedly everyone craves. Existing library parking could be accommodated on site as it is now. I’ll bet even the Library’s architects could have figured that one out.

Rose Scott Long Rothbart
Presented as a Private Citizen, Taxpayer and Voter, not representing any group or other entity