Board of Education

‘Politics Divide School Communities’: Board of Ed Chair Addresses Partisanship at Final Meeting

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New Canaan’s longtime Board of Education chair during her final meeting last week expressed gratitude to the district’s administration, fellow school board members, municipal officials and the wider community while also calling for an end to partisanship. Katrina Parkhill, a school board member for nearly seven years and its chair for the past four—encompassing the entire COVID-19 pandemic—said she had three messages after reflecting on her time on the elected body, starting with “stay the course.”

“I believe that the foundation of our school system’s success is predicated on how we, and so many before us, work together to lead our district forward, maintain a culture of mutual trust and respect, and put students at the center of everything we do,” Parkhill said a final Board meeting for herself and fellow BOE member Bob Naughton, held Nov. 6 in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School (the eve of Election Day). 

“These are qualities that have defined New Canaan Public Schools for years and we should never take them for granted,” she continued. “As we continue to move through this challenging and transformative period in education and in our nation, we must continue to lean into these qualities and nurture and respect how we got here. Most of our policies and Board practices have been in place for a long time, and they have served us well.

Around Town

Power Restored to All But 10 Homes After Widespread Outage Monday [UPDATED]

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Update 11:30 p.m.

Just 10 New Canaan homes were without power as of 11:30 p.m. Monday, according to Eversource. Update 2:45 p.m.

As of 2:45 p.m., just 224 New Canaan customers remained without power, according to Eversource—about 2.6% of all customers in town. Update 2:30 p.m.

As of 2:30 p.m. Monday, 7,875 of Eversource’s New Canaan customers—or 91.7% of the company’s customers here—were without power, according to the company. (Evesource officials said the elevated figure was due to a glitch with the company’s website.)

Original article

Nearly 800 New Canaan homes lost power Monday afternoon, causing some downtown businesses to close and rendering some traffic lights useless. As of 1 p.m., 765 customers of New Canaan were without power, according to Eversource.

Around Town

Podcast: Downtown New Canaan Arts Festival

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This week, on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to Hilary Wittmann, executive director of the Carriage Barn Arts Center, about the organization’s Downtown New Canaan Canaan Arts Festival. To be held 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, the festival is a kickoff to the Carriage Barn’s 15th annual Art in the Windows exhibit, presented in partnership with the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce. Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:

News

Mead Street Condo Sells for $1 Million 

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The following property transfers were recorded recently in the Town Clerk’s office. For more information about each property from the assessor, click on the street address and click on the ‘Sales’ tab. To get the history of a New Canaan street name, click here. ***

Jan. 14

22 Mead St.

Government

New Canaan Families Await Details on Limited COVID-19 ‘Home Test Kit’ Distribution

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New Canaan families that were able to sign up last week for COVID-19 at-home test kits likely will receive instructions in the coming days on a new distribution plan, according to the town’s highest elected official. 

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan originally had said the town sought to get test kits “into the hands of families prior to the coming holiday weekend to help reduce the current surge in COVID-19 cases by allowing individuals to identify COVID-19 cases quickly and take steps to isolate appropriately to curb further spread of the virus.”

“The State is allocating only enough test kits for a small percentage of the New Canaan population, so the target for these test kits are individuals and families who plan to attend holiday weekend gatherings,” Moynihan said in a town-wide email on Wednesday. “Those planning to remain at home for the weekend should not seek tests in this distribution.”

Yet the following afternoon, Thursday, Moynihan followed up with another email saying that “[b]ecause the test kits did not arrive from California by this morning, as the Governor’s office had expected, the distribution this evening at NCHS has been canceled.”

“New Canaan was to receive only enough test kits for about 500 families and the SignUpGenius app was sold out within minutes yesterday, partly because residents signed up for multiple family members rather than only one sign up per family,” he said in the Dec. 30 email. “Those families that have received time slots for pickup of test kits will be notified by email when a new delivery plan is scheduled, which will likely be next week.”

The emails came within days of an announcement that Gov. Ned Lamont made Monday, that the state would start distributing federally funded at-home rapid tests (and N95 masks) starting Dec. 30 and through this week.