Government

Town, Eversource To Ink Deal Bringing Natural Gas to New Canaan Starting Next Year

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The town’s highest elected official on Monday night said he’s poised to sign an agreement that will bring natural gas to New Canaan public buildings, businesses and some homes, signaling the introduction in earnest of a widely anticipated energy source following years of stop-and-go efforts. First Selectman Rob Mallozzi and representatives from Eversource unveiled a plan to bring a 4.7 mile “trunk line” up Route 106 from Stamford to serve New Canaan High School, South School, Saxe Middle School, the YMCA and Waveny Care Center, as well as East School, in 2018. After that, Eversource’s program manager for gas expansions, Chris Luca, told members of the Utilities Commission at their regular meeting, the company in 2019 will lay an additional five miles of lines to bring natural gas to residences along the South Avenue corridor, from Farm Road toward the downtown. Additionally, Eversource will offer natural gas to residences where it makes sense along the route to East School—the proposed route calls for a line to run down Harrison and then up Main and along Lakeview to the school. And then in 2020, the natural gas line build-out will come to the business district, Luca said.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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We’re wishing a speedy recovery for New Canaan First Selectman Rob Mallozzi, who is laid up at home this week—booked already as a vacation week—after spraining his ankle and breaking a lower leg bone (fibula) during a freak accident last weekend. Up in Newport, R.I. with New Canaanites Nick Williams, a second selectman, and Paul Foley, a police commissioner, for the 12-meter sailing races, Mallozzi—who had gone uninjured in eight years as a volunteer firefighter here in town—took a misstep between a sailboat and launch and rolled his ankle. As per Coastal Orthopaedics in Norwalk, the first selectman said he’s got to keep the leg elevated for a full week to prevent swelling and quicken the recovery process, and hopes to be back at work next Tuesday. “Everyone has reached out to me, my wife and family and friends have been wonderful, and as upset as I am, that part of this has made it a little easier,” Mallozzi said on Wednesday. The first selectman was to have taken a real vacation this week, including an Eagles concert, but had to forego it while he recovers at home.

Around Town

‘It’s All about Our Town’: New Canaan Community Foundation Helps Save Christmas

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For many New Canaanites, the high Christmas season launches with the Holiday Stroll and first Sunday of December, when firefighters deck the fire house, and runs through Christmas Eve caroling at God’s Acre and Dec. 25 church services and family dinners. Two important pieces of favorite local Christmas traditions emanate from Kiwanis Park, where the Exchange Club for some 40 years has sold wreaths and trees alongside Santa’s Workshop, where local kids meet the big man on weekends. So when it was discovered suddenly two weeks ago that the fuel oil tank which heats Santa’s Workshop (at the New Canaan Girl Scouts Merrie Bee Cabin) had deteriorated irreparably, raising the prospect of a Workshop-less holiday for scores of locals, it represented a problem not just for the Exchange Club and Girl Scouts, but the community at large. Enter the New Canaan Community Foundation, which immediately issued a $2,600 emergency or “out of cycle” grant to cover most of the cost of a replacement tank.