Board of Selectmen

New Handheld License Plate Readers To Help with Parking Enforcement on Elm and South

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Town officials last week approved a free month-long trial and possibly longer contract with a Charlotte, N.C.-based company that will see parking enforcement officers get new handheld license plate readers or ‘LPRs.’

As it is, the enforcement officers are required to manually enter license plate numbers as they patrol the newly designated paid parking areas of Elm Street and South Avenue and “it’s getting very time-consuming,” according to Parking Manager Stacy Miltenberg. 

“If they have this handheld and they’re just scanning it as they’re walking, they’re not blocking anything—they’re not causing any kind of traffic,” Miltenberg told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting, held Nov. 18 at Town Hall and via videoconference. She added that the town’s parking enforcement officers are “finding that by the time they get to one end of the street, they have to go back to the other end because [new] people are parking and it’s just not efficient.”

First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of an amendment to the Parking Bureau’s contract with Passport Labs Inc. The company currently provides the town with its parking software program and equipment for enforcement and ticketing and permitting. After a free one-month trial, it would cost $500 per month to continue with the devices, and the selectmen vote allows the town to move into the paid plan. The selectmen asked how many license plate readers the Parking Bureau currently has (two but they’re on the vehicles), whether the contract is for $500 per handheld device or total (total), how long it will switch over (about one week), what’s the cancellation policy (cancel any time), whether the town is getting new devices or if Passport Labs is just opening up its software (both, the Parking Bureau is due for a device upgrade regardless), whether other towns are using the handheld LPRs (no but Darien is interested) and whether the handheld readers are storing data (no, it will work like the current LPRs, scrubbed every 30 days).

Government

Selectmen Approve $14,000 Contract for Bleacher Repairs Throughout Town

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The Board of Selectmen at its most recent meeting approved an approximately $14,000 contract with a North Berwick, Maine-based company to make repairs to bleachers at athletic fields throughout town. The bleachers in need of repair are located at Mead Park, Waveny, Dunning Stadium, Conner Field, Saxe Middle School and the turf fields at New Canaan High School, according to Ryan Restivo, superintendent of parks. “Hussey Seating recently inspected all of our bleachers, and upon approval, will complete all identified repairs,” he told the selectmen at their Nov. 3 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “The scope of work includes materials and labor.”

First Selectmen Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of the $13,945 contract with Hussey Seating Company.

News

Police Adding More Cameras to Downtown New Canaan

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New Canaan Police say they’re adding more cameras downtown that will capture car crashes such as the one that stopped traffic at Main and Elm Streets two weeks ago. Specifically, the department is adding more ‘pan tilt zoom’ cameras to downtown streets such as Elm “to document and capture things like what occurred yesterday [Oct. 20],” according to Police Chief John DiFederico. “They’re video camera systems that are better equipped at capturing and documenting events rather than license plate cameras,” DiFederico told members of the Board of Selectmen at their Oct. 21 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. 

The chief’s comments came during the Board’s discussion before approving a $28,000 annual service contract with an Atlanta-based company for license plate recognition hardware and software.

Around Town

Conservancy Plans ‘Merritt Parkway Trail’ Improvements in Waveny

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The nonprofit organization that works to ensure that New Canaan’s most popular park continues to thrive has a plan to improve one of its major walking trails. The southernmost trail at Waveny—running about .75 miles alongside the Merritt Parkway, from the Lapham Road overpass to the Exit 37 (now 14) southbound on/off ramps—is exposed to the state road at multiple points. For Waveny walkers, that exposure can disrupt visitors’ enjoyment of nature by spoiling the woodland view and bringing in motor vehicle noise, according to the Waveny Park Conservancy. “Let’s move it away, move the trail away from the highway, and get all this buffer from additional woodlands,” the Conservancy’s board chair, Fell Herdeg, told members of the Board of Selectmen last week. “And then put some of the design ethos back in there from the Olmsted Brothers.

News

Playhouse Lot: Work Underway for New Dumpster Enclosure; New Ramp in LPQ Allée To Start

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The new dumpster enclosure that’s going into the parking lot behind The Playhouse is progressing on time, officials said Tuesday, and it’s taking steps this week toward completion. The contractor working in the Playhouse Lot is planning to pour walls for the dumpster on Friday, and soon will start building a ramp from that lot down to the alley or ‘allée’ between the movie theater and Le Pain Quotidien, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. “I was pushing for Thursday,” Mann told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. Mann continued: “And he [the contractor] has got a little bit of forming work left to do, and then the contractor will be looking to start the excavation Thursday-Friday on the ramp going down on the allée. So at that point in time, we’ll have to take that [the current staircase] out of service since it’ll be under construction.