COVID-19 New Canaan

Letter to Town Council: Postpone New Canaan Budget Vote

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Please delay your current budget that was created before the pandemic. Can’t we just focus on the essentials for getting through this period? Who knows how much money we may need by the end of this unprecedented time.  

Regarding the Memorandum of Understanding and the taxpayers’ commitment to fund $10 million, we have no guaranty that the library costs will not rise for the new building, the high school costs certainly did. Who knows how much the library will cost at the end of the day—they have already spent  $5,875,000 and haven’t broken ground. 

Just last week we read that the Waveny House costs are going from $1 million to $2.8 million to renovate two bathrooms and install an elevator in order to make it ADA compliant. So things change. But a change we really don’t need is for our taxes go up at a time with such financial uncertainty. Finally, please allow those of us who care about saving the 1913 library landmark building the time to do fundraising, and educate people on the issue.

Adam Jacobson

Local Businesses and COVID-19: Pet Pantry Warehouse

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In today’s Q&A with a local business owner, we hear from Adam Jacobson, executive vice president of Pet Pantry Warehouse on Grove Street. Here’s our exchange. New Canaanite: How is Pet Pantry Warehouse faring at this time? Adam Jacobson: Thankfully, both the state of New York and the state of Connecticut have officially designated pet stores, such as Pet Pantry Warehouse, as ‘essential businesses.’ This means that we are allowed to remain open in order to service the needs of pets in your home and in the greater community at large. These are certainly uncertain times and business is not ‘as usual’ right now.

COVID-19 New Canaan

First Selectman Closes New Canaan Public Parks; Fourth Resident Succumbs to COVID-19 [UPDATED]

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New Canaan’s highest elected official on Monday ordered the closing of all local public parks, according to the town’s emergency management director. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan’s Emergency Order includes the closure of public school fields, as well, Emergency Management Director Mike Handler said. “This order is effective immediately through April 30th,” Handler said in a town-wide voice call and email. “These actions are being taken to ensure that our message is absolutely clear—there should be zero social gathering. This may be received poorly by some; unfortunately, it is necessary to save lives.”

The Order comes less than one week after Moynihan expressed a desire to keep the parks open so that people could get out. Yet by then Norwalk, Stamford and Wilton were among the towns that already had closed their own public parks, and Darien is following suit.

COVID-19 New Canaan

Letter: Time To Plan for Summer School in New Canaan

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First a huge debt of thanks to the entire school district for getting us ready and launching e-learning. Well done. Second kudos to the team for keeping up the spirit—absolutely vital—again fantastic. 

We now, however, need to start talking about how we can minimize the long-term effects of this situation on our kids and community. The governor recently floated the idea of kids not coming back to school until the fall—i.e. they would be out of school from March 11 to Aug. 31. I am not sure if people suggesting this were serious, or if they have outlined why this would be a prudent course of action, in my view this would be terrible for just about everybody. The kids don’t need more time away from educators and friends, they don’t need to graduate on a pass-fail basis, and they don’t need to be promoted or held back a year based on vague guidelines and crisis thinking. What kids need is an education (and society needs educated kids). We can accomplish this, also in these times. My proposal is very simple. For each day of e-learning we add back half a day of school (if we think e-learning is the same as real school—we should have a larger discussion about how we educate our kids and the investments we are making going forward). If we stick with the April 20 return we should be able to get out around July 1—not too bad considering. If we go longer in closure, we just go longer into July and August (this will be very simple to administer, and for people to understand).

Business

Local Restaurants and COVID-19: Joe’s Pizza

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In this installment of our daily Q&A this week with a local restaurant owner dealing with restrictions during the COVID-19 emergency, we hear from Lorenzo Colella of Joe’s Pizza on Locust Avenue. Here’s our exchange. 

New Canaanite: What has this past week been like for you? 

It’s been pretty hectic. The new system of doing everything works well when they can’t come in but it takes planning. I had to hire two new kids, a high school kid and college kid. It’s just the logistics of it all when it’s busy.