Government

Canada Geese To Be Hazed Away from NCHS, Saxe

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New Canaan soon will see border collies chasing off the Canada geese that gather and soil playing fields at the middle and high schools. For years, the town has successfully used a Wilton-based company to rid Mead Park of the geese there, according to John Howe, New Canaan’s director of parks and recreation. “We don’t harm the geese by any means,” Howe told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting, held Tuesday at Town Hall and via videoconference. “At the high school and Saxe, they’re going to do twice a day, seven days a week, but they’re offering us to do more in the beginning because they feel that they’re going to fly from Saxe to the high school and back and forth,” he said. “So they’re planning on coming at least three times a day until they can consistently move them.”

First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 to approve a one-year $9,900 contract with Geese Relief for services at Saxe Middle School and New Canaan High School.

News

Town Approves One-Year Extension for Cloud Storage of Police Camera Videos

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Town officials on Tuesday approved an approximately $33,000 contract for cloud software storage of evidence footage recorded by New Canaan Police body and vehicle cameras. The department is required to retain video and audio recordings for various amounts of time depending on what the footage is—for example, according to Capt. Joseph Farenga, drunk-driving arrests must be stored for two years. “For our standard footage, I believe it’s 60 or 90 days that we hold onto it if there’s no incident associated with it,” he told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. 

First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of renewing NCPD’s $33,400 one-year contract with Wallingford-based Telrepco. Carlson noted that there’s “only one data storage company that all the police use in the state of Connecticut,” saying she envisions the cost of storage to rise with the proliferation of body cameras in law enforcement. She asked Farenga whether there are other providers.

Government

Town Spends $225,000 for New Lampposts in Waveny

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The Board of Selectmen during its most recent meeting approved an approximately $225,000 contract to purchase 40 lampposts for Waveny from a Norwalk-based company. The lampposts in the park now are “smaller,” “not as well made” and are manufactured by a company that’s no longer in business, according to Department of Public Works Buildings Superintendent Bill Oestmann. The purchase represents the first part of a two-phase project that will see a total of 70 new lampposts installed at the park that match those in downtown New Canaan, Oestmann told the selectmen at their regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. 

“Phase two project is for next year to finish the rest of the lights,” he said. “We did this over two years because of the cost. And the amount of work to be honest with you.

Board of Selectmen

Town To Replace Baseball Field Netting, Pole Damaged in Storm

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Town officials last week approved an approximately $13,000 contract with a Middlesex, N.J.-based company to repair damage to one of New Canaan’s little league baseball fields at Mead Park. The Aug. 18 storm that brought so much flooding throughout town also damaged the netting and pole down the third-base line at Mellick Field, according to Superintendent of Parks Todd Deklyn. “It’s a double tiered net and the lower tier got ripped by the tree that fell on it and when it fell it took down the pole and bent it,” he told members of the Board of Selectmen at their Sept. 17 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference.

Government

Town Approves $65,000 To Reconstruct Heavily Used Trail at Waveny

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The Board of Selectmen at its most recent meeting approved an approximately $65,000 contract to reconstruct a pedestrian trail at Waveny. The trail that runs near a southwestern corner of the park—from where the road that runs through Waveny meets Lapham Road, along the stone wall toward the Merritt Parkway— “doesn’t have the preferred surface that we have in certain areas,” according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. Instead, it has larger crushed stones and would serve the public better if it had the same surface as the pedestrian trails that run along the Waveny road on the South Avenue side of the park, officials said. “It’s what we’ve been utilizing on all the new trails in Waveny,” Mann told the selectmen during their Sept. 10 regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference.