Around Town

Dump Truck Operator Sues Town, Housing Authority 

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Saying he was injured two summers ago while working on an affordable housing project in New Canaan, a Brookfield man is suing the town and several municipal agencies and companies. According to a lawsuit filed this week in state Superior Court, Karl Nelson had been working for Newtown Mulch and Outdoor when, around midday on July 10, 2017, the dump truck he was driving began to pitch forward and ultimately tipped over as he tried to dump fill at the base of a retaining wall on the Millport Avenue Apartments site. That happened in part because the tri-axle dump truck was overfilled and also because the filled area where Nelson backed up was itself soft from heavy rains, the lawsuit said. “The accident was caused by the defendants,” according to the lawsuit, filed by attorney John A. Keyes of Branford. Those defendants include the New Canaan Housing Authority, Sweeney Excavation Inc. of Hamden, Enterprise Builders Inc. of Newington and Jonathan Rose Companies of Milford. 

The New Canaan Town Clerk received the complaint Thursday.

Chris Dewey

Letters of Commendation for New Canaan Police

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Police Chief Leon Krolikowski made public the following letters of commendation for officers in the department during Wednesday’s meeting of the Police Commission. ***

Officer Tom Callinan

“This email is to recognize the great job by Ofc. Callinan as our West School Liaison Officer during the rating period of 2018. Throughout the 2017-18 school year Ofc. Callinan called out as often as possible to maintain a presence at the school and to build up a good rapport with the students and staff.

Around Town

0684-Radi0: Mobilizing New Canaan’s Volunteers and Donor Dollars

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In this installment of 0684-Radi0—free and downloadable here in iTunes—we talk to New Canaan Community Foundation President and CEO Lauren Patterson about the organization’s unique process of involving dozens of residents in reviewing local needs and prioritizing grant funding to address them. This week’s podcast is sponsored by the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce, connecting community with commerce. The Chamber hopes to see you at the Sidewalk Sale, coming up July 12 and 13. Here’s more from 0684-Radi0:

Around Town

Small Claims Court: New Canaan Woman Seeks $1,595 Refund from Travel Softball Organization 

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Saying the head of a Connecticut softball league refused to refund fees after dismissing her daughter’s travel team, a New Canaan woman is seeking $1,595 in Small Claims Court. 

According to a claim filed April 9, the president of the Connecticut Seahawks refused to refund fees after an on-field argument during a game held in Trumbull in February led to angry exchanges with the coach of the league’s U16 and, ultimately, a decision to dismiss the team. Instead of reimbursing parents on the team, according to the claim filed in Stamford by Nancy Welch, the league president “said the girls could try out for one of the other Seahawks teams.”

“This is not customary,” the plaintiff said in an electronic filing. “When a player joins a travel team, they are offered a spot by a specific coach for a specific team. The player does not expect that her team will be dissolved and the girls split up onto three or four different teams with a coach and teammates they don’t know.”

Furthermore, those other teams “already had full rosters,” the plaintiff said, so the league president effectively had “badgered” U16 team’s coach, “then kicked the team out, then confiscated everyone’s money.”

“There was no oversight to this decision by any other Seahawks officials,” the complaint said. “There was no organizational process.”

In addition to the Monroe-based Seahawks, league president Paul Crisci of Branford is named as a defendant.

Around Town

New Playground, Rubber Surface at Mead Park on Track for Late-May Completion

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The widely anticipated installation of a new playground and rubber surface at Mead Park—a project nearly two years in development—is expected to be completed next month, officials say. A collaboration between the town and Friends of Mead Park Playground, the project will see preparation work for the new play structures and a “Poured-In-Place” surface commence during the last week in April with a target completion date of late-May, according to Recreation Director Steve Benko. The 20-year-old playground structure that had been there was recently removed (it’s going to be refurbished and sent for use in an underdeveloped country) after the New Canaan Department of Public Works’ Highway Department helped disassemble it in a single day, Benko told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission at their most recent meeting. “The first step to is to grade the area, level it off and then we will install the playground, put the stone in and the concrete borders and then the last step is to put the Poured-In-Place surface in,” he said at the meeting, held April 10 at Town Hall. “And that is probably going to be in mid- to late-May to put that in, because the temperatures should be in the 50s to do that.