Selectmen Vote 3-0 To Recommend Capital Plan with $10 Million for Library, Police Station Projects

The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday voted unanimously to recommend a Five-Year Capital Plan that includes earmarks of $10 million for the New Canaan Library’s rebuilding project and $10 million for a long-discussed renovation of the New Canaan Police Department. 

The Capital Plan—a fluid planning document that’s required by the Town Charter—calls for four $2.5 million payments to the library starting next fiscal year, and $5 million in fiscal years 2022 and 2023 for the police station.

The selectmen’s 3-0 vote in favor of the Capital Plan does not amount to an appropriation—an allocation of taxpayer funds toward either project would require public hearings with multiple appointed and elected bodies. The document now moves to the Board of Finance. 

Officials representing the library and NCPD both have described their buildings as inefficient and limiting, with aging physical plants that haven’t undergone substantial upgrades in decades. 

The Police Department renovation “would be two-year project and we anticipate a year of planning,” First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said.

He voted in favor of recommending the Capital Plan, as did Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams.

Williams said all the selectmen agree “that the library should be fully funded.”

“Yes, it’s a lot of money, it’s $10 million over four years but it’s one for two,” Williams said. “The public-private partnership is putting in $20 million from private money, and 20 plus 10 is 30, so it’s a one for two and it’s something I am very supportive of.”

Devereaux said, “Although I do support the capital expenditure, the idea of a wrecking ball going at the facade of the old part of the library, that thought breaks my heart. I wish there was a way to figure out how to incorporate it.”

Williams said he shared some of those feelings “but maybe not to the extent of standing in front of a wrecking ball.”

Moynihan noted that the library placeholders in the Capital Plan itself are “really just for presentation purposes.”

“We have not reached understanding with the library as to how we are going to fund them,” he said. “We need to have discussions with respect to the library plan. And then the question, as I said, we are going to need our bond council, our bond advisory to talk about what the best plan is. Rates are historically low and once we have a  firm grip of the library as to what and how we are going to fund them, we will decide to come forward with a bond resolution.”

The police building expenditure could be bonded all at once at $10 million, but “for presentation purposes we are kind of spreading it out because the library is in a three-year building phase.”