Around Town

Residents Call for Safety Measures at Complicated Locust Avenue-Route 123 Intersection

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Saying ill-timed traffic signals at Locust Avenue and Route 123 are prompting motorists to speed and run red lights, residents of the area are calling for town officials to boost police enforcement and ensure pedestrian safety. An increased number of families with young kids live in the area—there are five bus stops on Locust alone between Cherry and 123—and cars at peak times back up as far as Cherry Street itself, according to third-generation New Canaanite Lauren Cerretani, of Locust Avenue. “There are more people running red lights and I can stand on the corner and see the close calls,” Cerretani on Thursday told the Traffic Calming Work Group. The administrative team includes members of the police, fire and public works departments, as well as CERT, and fields requests for traffic calming. “It is just very dangerous there,” Cerretani said.

News

New Canaan Police Honor 15 Officers, One Civilian; First-Ever Lt. Stephen W. Wood Memorial Officer of the Year Award Given

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Though he passed away nearly four years ago, Lt. Stephen W. Wood, in ways that are profound to those who worked with him, has remained with the New Canaan Police Department. Addressing a room full of New Canaan police, their families and town officials that gathered at Lapham Community Center on Thursday morning—including Pat Wood, widow of the 33-year NCPD veteran—Capt. Vincent DeMaio said “his presence is felt pretty much every day.”

“I think of him often, and I think his memory is firmly in place with every officer worked with him,” DeMaio said during a ceremony that saw 15 police officers receive awards—including a new, special award dedicated to Wood’s memory. The Lt. Stephen W. Wood Memorial Officer of the Year Award in its inaugural dedication went to the highly respected figure’s own son-in-law, NCPD Officer Aaron LaTourette. Asked at the event what she thought and felt about the award, Pat Wood said: “It’s an honor. He would be honored.”

His daughter Kim, who was on hand with her sister Kelly, as well, said: “He was a say-it-like-it-is, do-it-like-it-is kind of guy.

News

New Canaan Woman Re-Launches ‘Slow Down In Our Town’ Campaign

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Kimberly Norton remembers the first time she spotted the iconic ‘Slow Down In Our Town’ image in New Canaan—five years ago, just after she’d moved here, in the parking lot at New Canaan Library. Printed in Rams black-and-red and encircling the silhouetted tree of our official town seal, ‘Slow Down In Our Town’ for years has graced street-side signs and bumper magnets throughout New Canaan. Its message soon struck a chord with Norton, who had lived in New York City for 20 years prior to moving to Green Avenue—accustomed to walking everywhere—and she began noticing how fast people drove here and sought to teach her kids pedestrian safety. “I heard that we had seven pedestrian accidents last year, and started hearing about people not crossing in the crosswalks,” Norton said. After a close call where a motorist nearly struck her husband, a commuter, on his walk to the train station in the morning, Norton sought to educate pedestrians and urge motorists to be more mindful at the wheel.

Government

Town to Leave Newly Re-Paved Thayer Pond Road Free of Double Yellow Line

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Saying the number two complaint from homeowners with respect to road projects—after “When will you get to this road?”—is that people don’t want road striping painted back on a newly paved street, town officials are opting to forego putting a double yellow line back on Thayer Pond Road. On a recommendation the assistant director of public works and town body that oversees traffic calming—and despite one resident’s objection—the Police Commission decided to let the newly re-paved road that borders Wilton stand as it is. The 10-year accident history of Thayer Pond Road shows that has no accidents and that striping “on a small road like that is not necessary and not required, by any means,” Police Capt. John DiFfederico said at the commission’s Dec. 17 meeting. “It is a double-yellow in Wilton over the town line, so where it begins in New Canaan there is no yellow line,” DiFederico said at the meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department.

News

New Canaan Man Says 117-Year-Old Tomb on Ponus Ridge Obstructs Sightline

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Long may, on Ponus Path, this sentry standing,

The sun, the stars, the hunter’s moon, salute;

A silent figure, rugged and commanding,

Bearing its message when our tongues are mute. Yet though we raise the stone and guard it duly,

Stern time, some day shall bid the finger fall,

The only monument that serves us truly

Is the heart’s honest word, to each and all. —From “A Hymn to Ponus,” written by Charles H. Crandall of New Canaan for the Oct. 2, 1897 dedication of the “Monolith on Ponus Path”

A New Canaan man has lodged a complaint with town officials that his sightline as a motorist at Ponus Ridge and Davenport Ridge Road is obscured by a large upright stone on the traffic island there—a 117-year-old monument to a 17th Century native American chief said to be buried nearby. Officials with a working group that oversees traffic calming in New Canaan said Tuesday that a similar request to move the rock had been made about four years ago.