Letters to the Editor

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NewCanaaanite.com recently received the following letter(s) to the editor. Please email letters to editor@newcanaanite.com for publication here. 

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From what I read about public discussions and those in your letters-to-the-editor column, there’s an understandable deficiency of public understanding about the statistical complications of radio technology.  That one person may have cell coverage where he lives does not mean that someone else may not be able to make emergency 911 calls from a radio-frequncy-shadowed place at a low dip in the road down the way.  Similarly, there are particular places in New Canaan where the fire department, police, or ambulance corps cannot speak with the 911 dispatcher at police headquarters.  The so-called “new” cell technology is an illusory solution,  technologically it could not practicably “fill in” those gaps in radio coverage produced by the local terrain in various areas of New Canaan.  While there are licensed radio engineers in New Canaan who could competently advise the Town on radio propagation, what is basically an engineering problem has been politiucized by non-engineers’ putting in their two-cents-worth above their pay grade.  I read that the Town’s moribund Utility Commission has been revived, and I think it would be the proper body by whom the political and technical issues should be resolved.

William Malone

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Letter to the Editor of the New Canaanite:

We just celebrated a very dark anniversary. I found out on June 28th at 5:30am, that The First Selectman was bringing back Homeland Towers for a presentation of a proposal for a cell tower at West School. As an abutter, one would assume that a notification would have gone out. Luckily for us, a neighbor saw the notice on the wall outside the Town Clerk’s office and warned us. We showed up as a group of very angry residents and spoke of our disapproval of the entire concept. We thought it had been laid to rest in 2017. 

The First Selectman went on to announce that they would be voting on the lease in two weeks. Fortunately, Selectman Williams and Selectman Corbet felt like more discussion was merited. We have had a year of back and forth. The Town Council did not approve this proposal or any of the others that were offered in its place. Each one to have a more dramatic impact as the heights increased. 

FOI’d email provided by Barbara Wills

We have spent a year of reacting to the First Selectman’s biased, tower-friendly service providers suggested by Homeland Towers, as discovered by our FOIA requests. We, care about the quality of life in our town, so we pushed for the re-establishment of the Utilities Commission. We felt that the talented town residents who had expertise in the Utilities Space would be better suited to consider alternatives to better our cell coverage in town as technology changes. 

The Utilities Commission was supposed to meet on June 20th for the first time, but it was changed to the 15th. The meeting was a hybrid/Zoom meeting. The first Selectman ran the meeting with no audio for the first portion during the selection of officers. The video that has been posted on the Town YouTube Channel has been edited to only begin where the sound began. The attached email shows the die was cast well in advance of the seating of the Commission. Eighty days in advance. The officers were already chosen by some of our elected officials. During the rest of the meeting, The First Selectman continued to discuss Homeland Towers, their investment in our town’s pursuit of cell towers and the need to reward them.

The attached image of the rendering displayed on June 28, 2022, shows that this drawing was created on November 30, 2016. In a search of the Documents on Demand system on the Town website, there is meager reporting in the minutes from meetings held during those years. The artistic rendering of the minutes from Town Council meetings keeps town residents in the dark as to what is happening. Covid-19 changed the way people attend meetings. They are broadcast live on TV and are recorded for re-examination when desired. The publishing of the agenda 24 hours before meetings and not making those agendas easy to find remains constant. 

The lack of transparency in Town Government is no more clearly exposed than with this somber anniversary. When the First Selectman said to the Town Council on December 14, 2022, that he had spent more than 2000 hours on cell towers, couldn’t some of those hours have been better spent elsewhere?

Barbara Wills

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Editor:

On behalf of the Family Fourth Committee, I would like to thank all who supported the 42nd Annual New Canaan Family Fireworks Event at Waveny Park by purchasing an entrance pass and attending this Independence Day celebration. Your financial support makes this great New Canaan tradition possible; whether you drove in or walked in, thank you for buying an entrance pass and supporting the event. 

The fireworks show was spectacular.  It was another memorable Independence Day celebration….an outstanding evening of family fun, wonderful music, great food and a fantastic fireworks display. 

We offer a big thank you to the New Canaan Family Fourth volunteer Committee (George Bennington, Jordan Cerbone, Scott Cluett, Chris Cody, Sven Englund, Wendy Dixon Fog, Win Goodrich, Sue Holland, John Howe, Russ Kimes, Suzanne Jonker, Tucker Murphy, Andrew Walsh, Maria Weingarten and Pat Wood) as well as all of the following; the show could not have gone on without their endless energy, hard work and commitment:

  • Fire Department and Fire Marshal
  • Police Department and Community Emergency Response Team (CERT)
  • New Canaan EMS
  • Town Parking, Parks, Public Works, Recreation, Emergency Management and Information Technology Departments
  • Master of Ceremonies Dan Taylor
  • Town Band and Mind the Gap Band
  • The gourmet food trucks and vendors
  • The Exchange Club of New Canaan
  • Our special benefactors
  • All of the volunteers who worked from early morning, to very late at night, to set up and take down the necessary infrastructure and equipment.

As usual, the Police and CERT volunteers did a wonderful job handling the traffic flow; the parking area was empty about 40 minutes after the fireworks ended.  And I offer special kudos, as always, to our Recreation Staff, led by John Howe, for their tireless efforts in creating a quintessential 4th of July celebration and to Public Works and Parks Departments for the preparation of Waveny Park and clean-up afterwards.

A special thank you to Walter Stewart’s Market, Recreation Department and the Town Clerk for selling entrance passes, and to the local print and on-line papers for getting the word out about the event. 

Please send any comments, thoughts and suggestions for next year to me at Town Hall.

Tom Stadler, Chairman – New Canaan Family Fourth (tom.stadler@newcanaanct.gov)

16 thoughts on “Letters to the Editor”

  1. Officials and political parties act in secrecy when they know their ideas will wither under scrutiny. Please have a look at the email from Penny Young to the First Selectman that Ms. Wills shows here. “Transparency” indeed.

  2. I’m fascinated by the ferosity of the attacks on our current 1st Selectman. It’s as if he and his administration have done nothing constructive for these past years to move our town forward.- LOOK AROUND – The town is thriving.
    The roads and streets are clean, the few roads in town that aren’t repaved are either State roads or roads torn up to lay water or gas lines and soon will be repaved. Sidewalks have been either redone or extended. Our children are safe and back in school after two terrible years of Covid, and a mini market crash that we have been successfully shepherded thru. Lapham Center is thriving, our parks are fabulous, most vendors seem to be happy, our Police dept, Fire dept and EMS are all staffed and working smoothly, we have no vagrants or homeless or obvious druggies wandering about – and I don’t see anyone picketing on our new town hall steps. Oh yes, I forgot, during the past couple of years there have been 3 huge building projects that have proceeded with a minimum of physical discomfort to us and that is only a partial list of accomplishments that has happened under the stewardship of our present 1st Selectman. I see only from the outside. It’s really quite remarkable that the complaints seem to be focused on, 1. wanting more transparency, 2. the affordable housing issue that is being fought by every administration and every elected republican official in every town in Connecticut and 3. the cell tower placement that everyone agrees, including the 1st Selectman, we’d rather not need to have to put anywhere !
    As Mr Malone explained once again today in his letter, we have to have emergency communications available everywhere !!
    I suggest that we all stop complaining and look around us. We’re pretty lucky.
    Do you remember when you couldn’t have a menu board on the sidewalks – now we’re an alfresco eating destination – (and blame the state for most of the reduced parking on Elm St, please …)
    I wonder if it would be a better idea for those hoping to unseat 1st Selectman Moynahan, this time, to sit on our town council 1st, get a good dose of contending with town problems, then run for the top job next time.

    Joby Gray

    • This seems to be in the category of the “…don’t complain with your mouth full” variety.

      The reality has been how disruptive and Undemocratic the construction, gasline installations, etc. have been and autocratic. We were told that many of the public projects would not be that expensive or disruptive but that was patently untrue. And let’s not forget the blatantly outlandish projects that were scuttled such as moving the police station to the Junior High School field. Those who voted for Moynihan believed his rhetoric, that he’d be better than Rob Mallozi but the opposite proved to be the case. If it hadn’t been for opposition from a Democratic selectperson things would have been a lot worse. One party rule is deadly for representative government, plus many of us are independents.

      Most of the projects and construction in New Canaan have been very disruptive and change has been dramatic especially under cover of the pandemic. We just don’t see this much over the line in Westchester County as well as many other Connecticut towns.

    • Kim Norton is a Town Council member. She has gotten a good dose of contending with Town problems and now she is running for First Selectman.

  3. “If there’s a movement against you, play your cards to your advantage” by stacking the Utilities Commission with friendly nominees. That’s what Penny Young wrote to the First Selectman.

  4. Our current first selectman wishes to play Monopoly with New Canaan’s land and money in executive session with no minutes, in effective secrecy. He bought an unusable $6.1MM building, tried to force the police station to move to the Saxe ball fields, attempted the cloak-and-dagger West School cell tower play, and as long as I may live, I will never wrap my head around how he let the 8-30g moratorium application slide, opening the door for Karp’s opportunistic large-scale developments disguised as affordable housing. All the while, he was installing listening devices throughout Town Hall to spy on our town’s employees. Nobody should be surprised that the guy’s got so few fans.

    • I agree with much of your commentary, however it’s not clear how the three recent 8-30g applications are “disguised” as affordable housing. Affordable housing is clearly and objectively defined by the State of CT, and these applications include 30% of those units as affordable. The actual individual affordable units are even identified in the plans.

      • I believe you and others on the team proposing the 3 large development projects in town were large contributors to the 2017 First Selectman race (if I read the records at town hall right). For the sake of transparency could you let the community know who you all are supporting in the municipal election this year with political contributions.

        • Giacomo,
          Each candidate is required to file paperwork with the Town Clerk periodically that includes lists of all expenses and revenue, including individual donations. It’s public record.

          • We have a strange, some behind and some in front of the curtain, real estate dance going on in New Canaan between elected / municipal officials and mostly out of town developers where large financial sums are at stake (municipal assets – private homes – and campaign contributions). When out of town developers, who are also self-proclaimed the largest taxpayers in town, publicly knock our First Selectman in election season, a person who they previously supported financially, and I presume are trying to negotiate with on a myriad of issues including acquiring town assets and rezoning their properties, we as residents should be asking ourselves what is really going on. As for the forms you mention Mike, agree I just filed my first this week for the BOE.

  5. I have some ideas how to “wrap your head” around how he let the 8-30g moratorium application slide.

  7. Are you all conspiracy theorists? So were we also behind JFK’s assassination in Dallas, the death of Princess Diana, the moon landing being filmed in Arizona and the aliens living at Area 51? We have acquired no town assets —in spite being the high bidder of the public RFP for Vine Cottage. Our applications are all public record – there was/is nothing nefarious in any of our applications. We can also state that whoever the town elects as first selectman we would hope she/he have a better understanding of the state law of 8-30g than the current administration who has spent in excess of $500,000 of tax payers’ money fighting a state law.

    • When we look at legal costs for the town lets understand the issue of the town (via the New Canaaan Housing Authority of which you are on the board of its joint venture partner at Canaan Parish and the lawyer you are using on the various 8-30g projects in town also acted as agent for the town on both major projects in town) getting zero credit for 31 affordable units New Canaan has actually constructed due to an administrative interpretation of the 8-30g statute by the CT Department of Housing https://newcanaanite.com/affordable-housing-state-issues-declaratory-ruling-against-the-town-in-moratorium-application-7934946. If we are using an affordable unit cost of ~$500,000 per home paid for by this project that is an investment of $15.5m in affordable housing in New Canaan that the town is getting literally zero credit for. It is clear the law is not working properly. This is not a conspiracy – this is just a fact.