The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday voted unanimously to extend the contract of New Canaan’s interim town planner by nine months.
Keisha Fink, New Canaan’s interim town planner. Credit: Michael Dinan
The 3-0 vote means Keisha Fink will work in the key land use role, advising the Planning & Zoning Commission and reviewing applications that come in both to P&Z and the Zoning Board of Appeals, through October.
“Keisha is doing an excellent job as interim and acting and she is a necessary part of our process and we would like to continue her for nine months,” First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said at the board’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall.
He voted in favor of the extension, as did Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams.
A former land use coordinator in Westport who hold a master’s certificate in urban and regional planning, Fink succeeded Steve Palmer in the role of town planner—he worked here for less than one year—and has been at Town Hall on an interim basis since September.
New Canaan launched its search for a full-time, permanent town planner at that time.
Devereaux asked Human Resources Director Cheryl Pickering-Jones whether Fink is an applicant for the full-time job.
Pickering-Jones said: “She would be yes absolutely and so the nine months will make a year that she will have been with us.” She added that the employment contract had been reviewed by legal.
Though Fink came to the New Canaan role after some of the more divisive applications had been processed by P&Z—for Merritt Village, for example, as well as the sober house and Roger Sherman Inn—the Grace Farms application recently was reopened after Town Attorney Ira Bloom essentially conceded that mistakes had been made in formal filings.
At a public hearing last week, neighbors critical of the Lukes Wood Road organization pointed to “ongoing enforcement issues” on the town’s part, saying that Grace Farms has filed to comply with the conditions of P&Z’s approval from September.
In the past, the town planner in New Canaan has doubled as senior zoning enforcement officer—a role that certainly will involve interceding in complaints connected to Grace Farms.
As attorney Amy Souchuns of Milford-based Hurwitz, Sagarin, Slossberg & Knuff—representing some neighbors of Grace Farms—noted at the Jan. 16 P&Z hearing: “My clients should not be responsible for ensuring that Grace Farms comply with the terms of their permit. There is no obligation for that. The requirement that my clients contact Grace Farms, contact the town planner every time there is a violation makes them a de facto zoning enforcement officer. And part of the issue and why we continue to be here, and I think it’s true of all the neighbors, is that they do not want to do that and we have no legal obligation to do that. It is unreasonable to expect that the neighbors are going to enforce the conditions.”