Beth Jones

Officials Approve Contract To Convert Town-Owned Oil-Fired Burners To Gas

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Town officials last week approved a $52,800 contract with a Scotts Corners, N.Y.-based engineering firm to convert seven oil-fired burners in town-owned buildings to run on natural gas. 

Approved 3-0 by First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams during the Board of Selectmen’s July 9 regular meeting, the contract with Marchetti Consulting Engineers will cover the conversion of the burners in the Parks Department Garage, Police Department, Schoolhouse Apartments and New Canaan Day Care, Highway Garage, Wastewater Treatment Plant, and former Outback Teen Center buildings. Devereaux asked whether converted oil-fired burners are as efficient as purpose-built gas-fired ones. Department of Public Works Building Superintendent Bill Oestmann said that they are not, but that as technology improves this could change. “We’ll get efficiencies going to gas, and cleanliness,” Oestmann said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “It should be a little better over time and that’s what the engineer’s going to help us understand.”

0684-Radi0

0684-Radi0: The Future of The Playhouse

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In this week’s installment of our free weekly podcast, 0684-Radi0 (subscribe here in iTunes) we take a closer look at the Town Council’s decision last week to remove funding for a $225,000 roof replacement at The Playhouse. We interview Beth Jones, a fire commissioner and former selectman who sat on the town-appointed Playhouse Committee and also helped organize a League of Women Voters forum on the Elm Street building’s future four years ago, when public works officials let it be known that the structure had $2.5 million in capital needs. This week’s podcast is sponsored by STAR Inc., Lighting the Way, serving our neighbors in New Canaan and surrounding towns who have intellectual disabilities and their families since 1952. STAR invites the whole community to join them at their annual “Family Fun Day Walk and 5K Run” at Sherwood Island on Sunday, May 5. Sign up here.

Beth Jones

‘A Historic Moment for New Canaan’: Beth Jones Appointed to Fire Commission, First Woman To Serve in Role

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Beth Jones, lifelong New Canaanite and former selectman, has been appointed as a member of the Fire Commission. She is the first woman to serve in the role. “This is a historic moment for New Canaan,” Selectman Nick Williams said moments before he and fellow Board of Selectmen members Kevin Moynihan and Kit Devereaux voted 3-0 to appoint Jones. “I look forward to seeing more females on commissions that historically have not been populated with females. Beth Jones, I had the pleasure of serving with her for six years.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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The state Superior Court on April 27 authorized the eviction of a Millport Avenue woman and two men from a New Canaan Housing Authority unit. ***

Buckle up: From May 21 to June 3, New Canaan Police will join a statewide a “Click It or Ticket” seatbelt enforcement campaign. ***

A locally owned company called Sports Media Properties LLC purchased the 2,000-square-foot, red barn-looking office building at 191 Elm St. downtown, behind the DEANE showroom, for $1.3 million, according to a property transfer recorded May 1 in the Town Clerk’s office. ***

The town on April 25 issued an after-the-fact permit to demolish a pool at 53 Alan Lane.

Around Town

‘No One Is Forgotten’: Officials Unveil Plaques Honoring Korean, Vietnam, Gulf Wars and War on Terror Veterans at Town Hall

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During the Vietnam War, Peter Langenus had what he recalled on Saturday morning as “the honor and privilege” of commanding a rifle company. The Third Battalion, Seventh Infantry, 199th Light Infantry Brigade was, the New Canaan man said, “200 18- and 19-year-old kids with rifles, machine guns and grenades.”

“They are the soldiers that carry the burden,” Langenus, commander of VFW Post 653, told about 100 residents gathered in the new northern entrance to Town Hall for a special dedication following New Canaan’s annual Veterans Day ceremony at God’s Acre. “The grunts. The war fighters. The gunslingers.