Footer Featured Widget

‘The Change in Our Community’: Facing Criticism of Sewer Fee Proposal, Finance Board Postpones Vote

By |

Russ Barksdale, president and CEO of Waveny LifeCare Network, received notification this week about $8,5000 in annual sewer usage fees that the nonprofit organization would be expected to pay for the fiscal year starting July 1. A proposal from Town Hall that’s designed to more fairly distribute sewer-related costs among residential and commercial property owners, the fee ultimately would see both for-profit and nonprofit businesses—including churches, charitable organizations and municipal buildings—taxed for water usage for the first time. 

Barksdale in addressing the Board of Finance on Tuesday night during a public hearing on the proposal said he found that his organization, which includes both the Waveny Care Center on Farm Road and The Inn on Oenoke Ridge, would be “hit more than any other nonprofit in our area, sizably more than any other nonprofit.”

“I went to then think of the pebble effect, the pebble effect that it would have for that usage fee to be placed on us as a nonprofit, to be placed upon the other churches and other nonprofits that enrich the culture of this great community that we have in New Canaan,” Barksdale said during the well-attended hearing, held at Town Hall. 

Noting that Waveny has provided some $10 million in charity care in the past two years in ways that saves government spending, Barksdale added, “We have a very fragile, very large group of seniors that come to us who cannot afford or find themselves at the end of being able to afford the highest level of care that we provide. And so I applaud our charity care to provide that. Who do we bill that usage fee to?”

Medicare and Medicaid are not options, he said, and there’s “really no place to pass that fee on to others to be able to incorporate, so we have to as a nonprofit be able to absorb that expense.”

“We would just ask that, similarly to the $15 minimum wage, that you give us an opportunity and all the nonprofits that are here the opportunity to build it within our budget. Right?

Amy Murphy Carroll

First Selectman: Work To ‘Begin Shortly’ on Former Outback Teen Center

By |

Work soon will start on long-vacant public building located behind Town Hall that is to be be made ready for a paying tenant, New Canaan’s highest elected official said last week. The former Outback Teen Center “will begin shortly so that the building will be available for July 1,” First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said during the April 9 Board of Finance meeting. The main floor of the building is to be rented to a local dance studio, while the New Canaan Department of Human Services is to move into the ground floor of the building. 

The town has been approved for a state Capital Improvement Program grant covering more than $400,000 for the project, officials said. Finance board member Amy Murphy Carroll noted that although the town had approved funds for engineering and other studies needed ahead of a renovation of the Outback, funding the physical work was to wait until New Canaan knew better just what it would do with Vine Cottage (where Human Services currently is located). Yet given the news about the state grant, Murphy Carroll said, “it’s different now.”

Building officials in the past had pegged the cost of renovating the Outback at about $300,000.

Amy Murphy Carroll

Board of Finance Approves Bonding for Estimated $2 Million Roof Replacement at South School

By |

The Board of Finance on Tuesday voted unanimously in support of nearly $2.2 in bonding for the replacement of the roof at South School—a project that’s expected to take place this summer and to be completed by the start of next academic year. As Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi had outlined during the budget season just passed, the 20-year-old roof has reached the end of its useful life and has started to fail, with water coming in through the ceiling in places following heavy rain. The project, which is expected to come in at about $2 million, went out to bid in January and will be completed by North Haven-based Greenwood Industries Inc., New Canaan Public Schools Director of Finance and Operations Dr. Jo-Ann Keating said. The overall $2,046,000 figure is less than the nearly $2.2 million that town funding bodies approved in the capital budget for fiscal year 2020—it represents $1.6 million with a 20% contingency and $100,000 in soft costs, according to Keating. The town will only bond what is spent, officials said.

Board of Finance

Finance Board: Wait Until Summer To Fund Town-Wide Survey

By |

Town finance officials said this week that since there’s no money in the current budget for a proposed survey of residents regarding spending priorities in the town—a survey estimated to cost $16,000 to $19,000—that it must wait for the fiscal year starting July 1 to get underway. Though there is “wide support to do the survey,” Board of Finance Chairman Todd Lavieri said during the group’s regular meeting Tuesday night, funding it would require a special appropriation. “We just do not have money in this budget, so it has got to be the next one,” Lavieri said during the meeting, held at Town Hall. Lavieri added that there are also open questions such as what firm to use and how the survey would be conducted. Ultimately, no one on the Board proposed a special appropriation to fund the survey now.

First Selectman: New Proposal for Using Irwin House Has Emerged

By |

The town’s highest elected official said this week that a new suitor has come forward with a proposal to use the main house in Irwin Park, a public building that’s been vacant since municipal offices moved back downtown more than three years ago. Though New Canaan has already obtained an estimate to demolish Irwin House, “a party came forward and wanted to talk to us about a new proposal,” First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said during the Board of Finance’s regular meeting Tuesday at Town Hall. “So we are evaluating that proposal and that is why I talked to John Irwin to see if he is willing to modify his deed restrictions to accommodate it,” Moynihan said, referring to the past owner or Irwin House. “So we will come back with a more concrete proposal for you to consider. Demolition is always the alternative.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what party has an interest in using Irwin House or for what purpose.