The Board of Selectmen this month approved a series of contracts for the newly renovated Police Department building on South Avenue, which officials say is on track for an early-June move-in.
One $35,000 contract with a Shelton-based company, CDW-G, is for “monitors, smart TVs, brackets, cables, cameras” and other related equipment for the Police Department, according to Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer in the New Canaan Department of Public Works.
“We’re not hiring a vendor, we’re just going to purchase everything directly so we don’t have to pay any additional markups on it,” Zagarenski told the selectmen at their April 15 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference.
He continued: “So this includes all the wall-mounted monitors, TVs—there are about 26 in total—[it] covers training rooms, meeting rooms, conference rooms, dispatch, roll call, break rooms, detective bureaus offices, and a couple other miscellaneous ones.”
Funds for the hardware are available in the PD project budget, he said.
First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted in favor of the contract. The selectmen also approved two approximately $24,000 contracts—one for designing and installing irrigation systems for the new plantings outside the police station, and another to uninstall the emergency generator at the temporary police HQ downtown.
Town officials discussed the need to renovate the Police Department at 167 South Ave. for many years. The widely anticipated $20 million project—about $29 million with soft costs such as insurance and creating a temporary police HQ at Forest Street and Locust Avenue—launched about 18 months ago. Originally, it had been targeted to finish around Thanksgiving 2025, but has been ahead of schedule and on budget. It includes a complete gut and renovation of the existing 1927-built police station—the original New Canaan High School—with the addition of a new sallyport at the southeastern corner of the building.
Regarding the CDW-G contract, the selectmen asked whether the renovated police station’s gym is getting TVs (yes, two) and what those cost (about $450 each).
Karl asked whether the brackets are included so that the town can simply plug the TVs in. Zagarenski said yes, adding: “But all the back boxes and all the power, the Cat5 cables are all there ready to go, and most of them will be smart TV technology.”