Government

Commission Rejects ‘Pollinator Garden’ at Mead Park

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The Parks & Recreation Commission on Wednesday night denied a request from local volunteers seeking permission to install pollinating plants on a traffic island at Mead Park. The “pollinator garden,” proposed for the traffic island near the little fields and entrance to the Mead Park Playground, was designed as part of a larger “pathway” serving butterflies, birds, bees and other insects and animals that move pollen from one plant to another. Several New Canaan organizations have been at work for more than one year to increase pollinator-friendly habitat here. Yet members of the appointed Parks & Rec Commission said they feared planting pollinator-friendly species at the traffic island would bring additional bee stings and motor vehicle traffic to a largely pedestrian area. 

“That’s just such a busy place in terms of automobile traffic,” Commissioner Hank Green said at the meeting, held via videoconference. “A lot of big SUVs, a lot of these cars are being driven by teens.

Carl Mason

Waveny Pool: Family Passes To Be Sold Only to New Canaan Residents This Summer

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Given high demand from locals and new restrictions that limit capacity, the town will not sell Waveny Pool passes to nonresidents this summer, officials said Wednesday. On the first day of pool sales, the town sold 219 family passes online to New Canaanites, as well as 21 individual passes, 15 nanny and 20 senior passes, according to Recreation Director Steve Benko. 

Under new state orders, given the size of Waveny Pool itself and approximately 11,500 square feet of lawn around it, the facility is allowed to have a total of 320 people at one time and no more than 240 in the main pool, as well as 40 more in the kiddie pool area, Benko told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission at their regular meeting, held via videoconference. No one will be allowed to linger on the concrete decks around the pool itself, and six feet of social distancing must be kept both in and out of the pool, Benko said. “At this point, I think we have to give preference for use of the pool to our residents, as much as I’d like to offer some spots to nonresidents,” Benko said. “Let’s see where our sign-up goes.

Carl Mason

Parks & Rec Seeks To Improve Platform Tennis Reservation System

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Saying improvements could be made to reservation and waitlist systems, parks officials say they’re trying to figure out how to ensure the platform tennis courts at Waveny are getting full use. As it is, those reserving the “paddle tennis” courts may cancel up to four hours before their scheduled slot—a deadline the town changed from 12 hours at the request of the players themselves, according to Recreation Director Steve Benko. Yet even if an auto-notification system alerted others on a waitlist about a newly available court, it’s difficult to pull together four players on a few hours’ notice, Benko told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission at their most recent meeting. 

“The hardest thing is that paddle is a doubles game, not a singles game,” Benko said during the April 10 meeting, held at Town Hall. “Very few people play singles paddle.”

Commissioner Francesca Segalas said that with the online reservation system now in place, “cancellations and waitlist were two issues that really are not working well,” and that those players who have demonstrated “a cancellation habit” cannot be tracked. 

Commissioner Carl Mason asked what Parks & Rec would seek to do in terms of its policy if it was able to identify “repeat offenders” who tend to cancel at the last minute. Benko said the town’s policy has been that a warning is issued the first time, a three-day penalty (where players cannot make a reservation) is imposed after a second, a week-long penalty after a third offense and “then you are done” if it happens a fourth time.

Government

With Interest in Tennis Waning, Town Officials Pursue New Uses for Mead Park Courts, Racquet Club Partnership 

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Town officials are looking to forge a new partnership with the New Canaan Racquet Club and also find some new uses for the under-utilized tennis courts at Mead Park in order to boost attendance there. 

In 2018, New Canaan sold 112 season passes for the clay courts, bringing in about $10,000 in revenues against $14,000 just to open the facility and thousands for more attendants, according to the Parks & Recreation Commission. 

“There is a considerable shortfall on tennis that the town has to make up,” Commissioner Carl Mason said during the appointed body’s Feb. 13 meeting at Town Hall. “Even if we were to look at some of our better years, looking back at 2015 or so, we have a shortfall.”

Though tennis instruction clinics bring in some money, they effectively just “cover their costs” and it’s hard to justify redoing the clay courts for an estimated $140,000 “without any real hard data on usage,” Mason said. 

“We are really not finding any champions for tennis in New Canaan at this point in time,” Mason said while presenting the full Commission with an update on the eight Mead Park courts. 

The Commission should consider whether all of those courts must be dedicated to tennis, given the low demand, or whether “we can convert those courts for other sports,” Mason said. 

“One thing that has been discussed is pickle ball. The hard court is maybe a venue for pickle ball. Or maybe even volleyball, basketball or a flexible field on one of the Har-Tru courts.”

Recreation officials also have met with the New Canaan Racquet Club to talk about a new partnership.

Government

Dramatic Drop in Tennis Pass Sales at Mead Opens Questions of Courts’ Future Use

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New Canaan has seen a dramatic decline in the number of residents purchasing passes for the tennis courts at Mead Park, according to officials who now want to consider alternate uses for some of them. Members of the Parks & Recreation Commission said Wednesday night that while residents purchased some 400 passes a dozen years ago to play on the clay courts at Mead, that number declined to about 300 from 2012 to 2015, then 147 last year and just 112 this season, whose opening was delayed due to a contractor’s failure. “They have dropped by two-thirds almost,” Commission Chair Sally Campbell said during the group’s regular meeting, held at Latham Community Center. “So it appears there is not real heavy usage of the courts anymore. So we were thinking we have a little group some committee members who are going to look at what would be best thing to do with those courts.