Government

‘It Looks So Wonderful’: High Praise for First-Phase Work Done in Bristow Bird Sanctuary

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The completed first phase in restoring a long-neglected and little-known bird sanctuary in New Canaan—one of the nation’s oldest—is earning high praise from town officials and visitors. Described as a quiet and beautiful wooded area, the Bristow Bird Sanctuary and Wildwood Preserve—thanks to volunteers and Department of Public Works personnel—features attractive new footbridges over meandering streams, a newly dredged pond, seating areas and varied bird feeders, officials said during last week’s meeting of the Parks & Recreation Commission. Responding to a presentation from Public Works Director Tiger Mann on the work that’s been done in Bristow in the past six months, Commissioner Francesca Segalas said, “It looks so wonderful.”

“I am so happy to see this,” she said during the meeting, held Jan. 13 via videoconference. 

Mann shared a photo walkthrough that he’d captured the same morning, starting at the northern end of the 17-acre bird sanctuary—accessible through Mead Park, at the back of the little league baseball fields—and following pedestrian trails toward its other entrance along Route 106. As he walked along, Mann said he found the park “very quiet.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” he said.

Board of Education

Officials Approve $152,000 for Grass Treatment Products on Town Parks, Athletic Fields

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Town officials on Tuesday approved two contracts worth a total of approximately $152,000 for grass treatment at New Canaan’s parks and school athletic fields. The Board of Selectmen voted 3-0 in favor of contracts that will see grass treatments including the application of pesticides and fertilizers in some cases, according to John Howe, superintendent of parks with the New Canaan Department of Public Works. 

Exactly how chemicals are applied depends on factors such as how much use a field gets (for instance, Irwin Park has “very little use”), and whether it’s a school field, Howe told the selectmen at their regular meeting, held in Town Hall. “We don’t apply any pesticides to the school athletic fields, but we do have one application on park fields for grubs, broad-leaf weeds and crabgrass,” Howe said. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan, and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams voted in favor of a $131,200 contract with Burlington, Mass.-based Tom Irwin Inc. for the purchase of grass treatment products and a $21,016 contract with Harwinton-based Championship Turf for the application of the products. Asked by Williams whether the Board of Education prohibits the use of pesticides on school fields, Howe said that there is a state law banning the use of “turf grass pesticides” in schools serving children through eighth grade.

Beth Jones

Officials Approve Contract To Convert Town-Owned Oil-Fired Burners To Gas

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Town officials last week approved a $52,800 contract with a Scotts Corners, N.Y.-based engineering firm to convert seven oil-fired burners in town-owned buildings to run on natural gas. 

Approved 3-0 by First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams during the Board of Selectmen’s July 9 regular meeting, the contract with Marchetti Consulting Engineers will cover the conversion of the burners in the Parks Department Garage, Police Department, Schoolhouse Apartments and New Canaan Day Care, Highway Garage, Wastewater Treatment Plant, and former Outback Teen Center buildings. Devereaux asked whether converted oil-fired burners are as efficient as purpose-built gas-fired ones. Department of Public Works Building Superintendent Bill Oestmann said that they are not, but that as technology improves this could change. “We’ll get efficiencies going to gas, and cleanliness,” Oestmann said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “It should be a little better over time and that’s what the engineer’s going to help us understand.”

Allyson Halm

‘A Green Way to Manage Weeds’: Goats Arrive at Irwin Park

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A popular local park last week gained five new caprine residents, who are doing their part to eradicate invasive plants from the town’s green spaces. The goats—Chalupa, Beau, Stewie, Miss Bo Peep and Bella—arrived at a half-acre paddock in Irwin Park on Wednesday, where they “started to eat immediately,” according to Director of Public Works Tiger Mann. Their arrival went very smoothly, Mann said. Park staff erected fencing around the paddock on Tuesday and Wednesday, with assistance from local Boy Scouts, New Canaan Garden Club volunteers and staff of Green Goats, the Rhinebeck, N.Y.-based company contracted by the town to provide the goats, Mann said. The DPW and the Garden Club have been “battling it out” against Japanese knotweed, a particularly pernicious invasive plant, in Irwin Park, located on Weed Street, for several years, Mann said.

Bill Oestmann

Selectmen Vote 3-0 To Keep Nature Center Animals Cool

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Municipal officials on Tuesday approved an approximately $9,000 contract with a Shelton-based company to install equipment designed to keep cool several animals who live in a town-owned building operated by a venerable nonprofit organization on Oenoke Ridge Road. The Board of Selectmen voted 3-0 in favor of the $9,430 contract with M.A. Garamella, a figure that includes $1,230 in contingency funds. 

The new system at the New Canaan Nature Center Animal Care Building will replace a 20-year-old existing air conditioning unit that had failed, according to Bill Oestmann, the buildings superintendent with the New Canaan Department of Public Works. The project was on DPW’s “list to replace this year,” he said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. The DPW intends to replace the old unit with an air conditioning heat pump which Oestmann said will provide a number of benefits—for example, if the building’s boiler fails, “the heat pump can keep enough heat going to protect the building,” he said. “[It will] also help with the reptiles—when you lose heat in the building you’ve got to move all the animals out,” Oestmann said. 

First Selectman Kevin Moyinhan and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams voted in favor of the contract.