Cristina A. Ross

Town on Pace To Exceed Budget for Legal Fees for Second Straight Year

By |

The Board of Selectmen this week approved a legal bill that brings the town’s total spending in legal fees to about $200,000 halfway through this fiscal year, against a budgeted amount of $300,000 for all of fiscal year 2022. The spending in legal fees follows a year that saw New Canaan exceed its legal fees budget by more than $50,000, records show. Though the Board approved the most recent legal bill with no comment during its regular meeting Tuesday, Selectman Kathleen Corbet has voiced concerns in the past about the spending. 

She noted the high amount of taxpayer funds spent on legal fees last fiscal year during the Board’s June 15 meeting, and voiced concerns again at the Oct. 19 meeting. There, she noted that the town already had spent more than $90,000 on legal fees during the first quarter of fiscal year 2022.

Town Council Approves $2 Million in ARPA Spending

By |

The New Canaan Town Council at its most recent meeting voted 11-1 to approve a round of American Rescue Plan Act or “ARPA”-funded expenditures totaling $2.05 million. The package of one-time expenditures includes $725,050 for bonuses for town and school employees, in recognition of their work on the “front lines” during the pandemic, and another $1.33 million for various town projects, according to information shared at the Town Council’s Dec. 15 meeting at Town Hall. The Board of Selectmen had approved the expenditures earlier this month, the Board of Finance the night prior to the Town Council meeting. The suite of initiatives is part of $6 million in total ARPA funds that the town expects to receive from the federal government, to be distributed in multiple rounds.

Cristina A. Ross

Town Council Votes 8-4 To Remove 1913-Related Wording from Draft Agreement with New Canaan Library

By |

Weeks after voicing concerns about it, the Town Council during its regular meeting Wednesday night voted 8-4 to remove a clause from the municipality’s draft agreement with New Canaan Library regarding the organization’s rebuilding project that would have allowed for a decision on whether to demolish the original 1913 library building to be put off for at least two years during construction. 

Saying the fate of the 1913 building has not been and will not be decided by the inclusion or removal the clause, Councilman Steve Karl noted that the legislative body has “covered this at length during all of our meetings.”

“We’ve had legal counsel from both sides weigh in on this document,” Karl said during the meeting, held via videoconference. 

“It’s a document that we were given by both sides. We’ve talked about it long enough. And as we’ve said in our last meeting, we were elected to lead and we need to move this. That’s the way I feel about it. I will say again: This is not the end of the 1913 building.

Cristina A. Ross

Town Council Preempts Change to School Start Times in Divided Budget Vote

By |

The Town Council during an emotionally charged meeting Thursday voted 8-4 in favor of a spending plan for next fiscal year that effectively forestalls long-discussed changes to New Canaan Public Schools start times. The legislative body’s bipartisan vote in favor of an overall budget of $152.2 million represents an increase of just .19% over projected spending for the current fiscal year. Though the budget also includes a 2.5% year-over-year increase to district spending (exclusive of healthcare savings), it’s still about $1 million less than what the Board of Education had requested of the town funding bodies. The shortfall means the Board of Ed can’t pay for additional school buses and attendant staff needed to implement a proposed new start times schedule—a consequence that district leaders and some councilmen understood following discussions held in recent days, according to Town Council Chair John Engel. In voting in favor of the budget, Engel and others said they’re convinced that New Canaan adolescents should start school later, but added that the wide economic uncertainty due to COVID-19 means now is the wrong time to introduce significant new transportation costs.

News

Election 2019: Readers’ Letters of Endorsement

By |

The following letters of endorsement were submitted to NewCanaanite.com. ***

I urge the re-election of Brendan Hayes for the Board of Education. A Democrat with broad bipartisan support, Brendan was elected BOE Chairman last year by a 7-2 vote, including 4 of 6 Republicans. Brendan works hard, is a patient and thoughtful listener, and has the analytical skills one would expect of a highly successful investment banker. He’s a confident and effective advocate for New Canaan’s schools.