Government

Town Approves Less Costly Contract for Emergency Outcall Services

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The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday approved a yearlong contract with a Washington, D.C.-based company that provides outcall services used by local emergency response officials. The contract with Blackboard Connect had risen to a cost of about $17,500 per year and municipal officials after getting quotes from different vendors were able to negotiate it down to half that rate, according to Chris Kaiser, director of Information Technology for the town. “We kind of realized and recognized that it was a little overpayment for services,” Kaiser told the selectmen at their regular meeting, held in Town Hall. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams voted 3-0 in favor of the $8,750 contract. 

At the moment, police, firefighters, EMTs and the New Canaan Office of Emergency Management have used the system to issue calls to those who have volunteered their contact information. The technology can be used in more ways and various types of outreach, Kaiser said, including for surveys or in reaching employees at times when Town Hall may be closed.

Christopher Kaiser

Officials: Town Website on Track for May Relaunch

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Town officials said this week that the re-launched municipal website is on track to go live in May. Designed to be more useful and interactive than what New Canaan currently has, the new site will live at the same Web address, newcanaan.info, and its features will include increased online bill pay functionality, a more robust “news” section, sign-ups for various kinds of alerts and tie-ins with town-operated social media accounts. Those in municipal government helping to design and train on the site are “engaged” and “excited,” New Canaan’s director of information technology, Chris Kaiser, said during Wednesday’s meeting of the Technology Advisory Committee. 

Discussions about the look and navigation of the site, as well as its color palette and featured photos are ongoing, Kaiser said during the meeting, held at Town Hall. And while all the data that lives on the town site’s thousands of Web pages is “migrated” over to the new one, “we are in a stopgap where anything going to the old newcanaan.info site is held” and will be part of the re-launch. Appointed in February 2018, the five-member Committee—Chairman Randy Dalia, Secretary Jeff Platt, Michael Abbott, Paul Pureka and Annamari Mikkola—has been studying the use of technology generally by the town government, with an eye on making it more efficient, cost-effective and convenient for residents.

Board of Selectmen

First Selectman: Town To Create New Canaan ‘Tourism and Economic Development Commission’

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New Canaan’s highest elected official on Tuesday said the town is close to creating a new appointed body that’s responsible for promoting local tourism and economic development. The Tourism and Economic Development Commission could include 10 to 12 people, according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan. “Other towns have this kind of effort,” Moynihan told NewCanaanite.com during an interview moments after a Board of Selectmen meeting at Town Hall. “Ridgefield has an Economic Commission, and also in talking to the Glass House and others, we really need more of a tourism effort.”

The future commission first was mentioned during the selectmen meeting, as the Board voted 3-0 in favor of a $12,347 contract with a company—Revize Software, which describes itself as a government website specialist—to redesign and host the municipal website. 

Christopher Kaiser, the town’s IT director, said during the meeting that Revize had been chosen from among four or five vendors with “extensive municipal website design” experience and that the company seemed like a good fit. He added that it’s been a pleasure and a help to work with the recently appointed Technology Advisory Committee as well as consulting with the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce. 

Randy Dalia, chairman of the Technology Advisory Committee, said a newly designed municipal website is a “technical tool.”

“We still need better marketing, economic development, public relations,” Dalia said, voicing an assertion that the Committee has made before.