Government

Town Approves Funds To Redo Crumbling Section of Cherry Street Sidewalk

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Town officials last week approved a $91,600 contract with a New Canaan-based company to install new sidewalks and pedestrian ramps along a much-needed stretch of Cherry Street downtown. The concrete sidewalks and ramps on the south side of Cherry Street—between South Avenue and Main Street (from the Gulf station to the library)—should be done by Thanksgiving, according to Tiger Mann, assistant director of the New Canaan Department of Public Works. After the partially broken and crumbling sidewalk in the heart of the business district was brought to First Selectman Rob Mallozzi’s attention, he made fixing it a priority, Mann said. “The Town Council and Board of Finance gave us our budget for the year, and—based upon how we saw fit to new installation versus taking care of what we own—we felt we should take care of what we own first,” Mann said during the Oct. 11 meeting of the Board of Selectmen, held at Town Hall.

Government

‘It Is More Grave Than That’: After Conflicting Findings, Town To Seek Impartial Expert’s View of Former Teen Center Building

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Saying the major disparities among recent findings regarding the structural integrity of the former Outback Teen Center building makes them uncomfortable, town officials on Tuesday said that they will seek an impartial third-party expert’s view. The idea originated with New Canaan’s chief building official, members of the Board of Selectmen said at their regular meeting, and could provide much-needed guidance as New Canaan takes up the question of just what to do with the structure, vacant since July. “We have got such disparity between the original analysis–which said it could fall down in a hurricane—and then the next one is ‘OK everything is hunky dory,’ ” Selectman Nick Williams said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “That is problematic, from my perspective. Clearly, it is more grave than that and I think a third party coming in, at some additional cost, is worth it.”

The new findings are expected to come through prior to next Tuesday’s Board of Finance meeting, the selectmen said, and should cost less than $5,000.

Government

‘Scary and Slippery Slope’: With Reservations, Selectmen OK New Counsel for FOI Request

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Saying they hoped it wouldn’t set a bad precedent or promote lack of transparency in town government, officials on Wednesday approved an appointed body’s request to engage a lawyer regarding an unexpected Freedom of Information Act request. The FOIA request, filed by a town resident, seeks to know just who said what to members of the Charter Revision Commission, a volunteer group that convened one year ago to study and recommend changes to New Canaan’s major governing document. As the full commission worked toward forming its Town Charter recommendations —to be put before New Canaan voters on Election Day, following approval from the Town Council—a subcommittee gathering information to inform the full commission conducted interviews with municipal employees and leaders on the boards that help govern the town. Those interviewees had been told their identities would be kept confidential—an assertion now in question. According to Town Council Chairman Bill Walbert, the Charter Revision Commission after receiving the FOIA request checked with the town attorney and others about its position and “the advice they were getting did not jibe with what they felt in their hearts—I guess is probably the best way to say it.”

“And they felt they would like to have different counsel whose thought process was more in line with that they felt their proper stance was,” Walbert told the Board of Selectmen during its regular meeting, held at Town Hall.

Government

‘It’s Like Someone Screaming ‘Fire’ in the Movie Theater When There Is No Fire’: Teen Center Found To Be Safe After Review by Its Builders

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Town officials said Tuesday that a new inspection of the former Outback Teen Center—shuttered for two months after an engineering firm had found it structurally unsound—shows that the building only needs relatively minor cosmetic work to make it usable. What that use may be remains a major, open question, after a nonprofit organization that had operated out of the 2001-built teen center failed to self-sustain and—following an aborted effort by a second group—handed it over to the town July 1. Yet the dramatic July 19 report from a Danbury-based firm—a report that Selectman Beth Jones said cost her sleep after reading it, as the study painted a picture a building that presented a danger to the New Canaan teens and others it was designed to serve—now appears to have drawn wrong conclusions. “It’s like someone screaming ‘fire’ in the movie theater when there is no fire,” Jones said at a regular meeting of the Board of Selectmen, held at Town Hall. “The engineering firm that first gave us that [report] should have said, ‘We are not qualified to do this, this is not the kind of building we do,’ or we should hold them responsible for a completely false report,” Jones said.

Government

Outback Board Unknowingly Alerted in 2007-08 To What Became ‘Potentially Disastrous’ Structural Danger at Teen Center

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A former board president of New Canaan’s defunct teen center said Tuesday morning that the organization’s directors had learned through a study conducted as early as 2007 of a “hinge effect” in the building’s second floor—a part of the Outback’s design and construction that professional engineers now describe as unsafe for the young people it had been built to serve. The danger developed over time as the flooring began to “crown,” and there’s no way the Outback’s board could have known the hazard it would create when the teen center opened in 2001, officials said during a regular meeting of the Board of Selectmen. Yet the first reaction from an engineer who entered the Outback building before it was closed to the public last week was, “ ‘You’ve got to close this building. No one should come in here,’ ” according to Bill Oestmann, buildings superintendent with the New Canaan Department of Public Works. “And when I told them what they were doing there, he explained that having a large dance up there, if you have 100 kids and people moving around, that whole weight load is bouncing going back and forth, and he just said that floor could drop down on one side because it’s just hinged up there,” Oestmann said at the meeting, held in Town Hall.