Around Town

DPW Seeks $125,000 for New Sidewalk Connecting Elm Street to Irwin Park

By |

Public works officials are seeking $125,000 next fiscal year to create a widely anticipated sidewalk connecting the top of Elm Street to Irwin Park. The sidewalk would run along the west side of Weed Street and, according to preliminary engineering plans (see PDF below), could involve removing one row of maple trees and a tree stump, and relocating a set of mailboxes at Woods End Road. The sidewalk wouldn’t run up against the roadway but would have a “grass shelf” between it and Weed Street, Department of Public Works Assistant Director Tiger Mann said Tuesday during a budget request presentation to the Board of Finance. “All we will need basically are handicapped accessible ramps on either end and across Woods End Road and some of the driveways and what have you,” Mann said at the finance board meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. “But we will not be adjacent to the roadway, so we will have grass shelf and that gets a lot easier and a lot less expensive to construct.”

The $125,000 for the new sidewalk is part of an overall $785,000 request for engineering in fiscal year 2016 (see page 29 here), along with $5 million in bonding for the town’s regular street paving program ($2.5 million per year over two years).

Government

‘It’s Pretty Sobering’: Future of Playhouse Uncertain

By |

New Canaan would need to spend some $2.1 million—with an estimated $450,000 beyond that, for abatement—in order to bring the Playhouse Theatre on Elm Street to safe, structurally sound and ADA-compliant condition, public works officials said Tuesday. The 1923 building needs parts of its roof and brick exterior replaced ($550,00), an elevator and ADA-compliant wheelchair access ($1,120,000), new gutters and drainage system ($200,000) and, perhaps most of all, a new layout for its sprinkler system—currently perched above a layer of insulation in the ceiling, according to Michael Pastore, director of the New Canaan Department of Public Works. “If the sprinklers come on, it’s going to soak that insulation, get heavy and probably bring down the ceiling,” Pastore said while presenting DPW’s budget request (see page 39 here) to the Board of Finance at a meeting held in the Sturgess Room of the New Canaan Nature Center. “That’s the situation we have.”

The figures above do not include contaminant abatement for any capital work needed—Pastore said a consultant hired to assess the structure last year put the figure at $450,000, strictly based on the Town Hall renovation. “It could be more, it could be less,” he said.

Around Town

First Selectman: New Canaan’s Commitment to Youth Evident, Regardless of Outback Funding

By |

Beyond the taxpayer funds that benefit youth through the public schools—some two-thirds of the entire budget—New Canaan supports its young people by spending some $354,000 each year on its own human services personnel and nonprofit agencies that serve youth, according to the town’s highest elected official. So the idea that spending taxpayer money on the Outback Teen Center is synonymous with supporting youth here is a “misnomer,” First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said Tuesday. “We sometimes think that the Teen Center is the building—it personifies in some people’s minds the commitment the town has [to youth], but it is a private entity,” Mallozzi said at a regular meeting of the Board of Finance, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. “The misnomer is that if you don’t support the Teen Center, you are not in the teen business,” said Mallozzi, who serves as the finance board’s chairman. “I just want to make sure that we all understand: There are a lot of great agencies out there doing some wonderful things, some with a building and some without a building—whether it’s the churches, the YMCA or the Teen Center itself.

News

Town Officials Eye $10,000 to Fix Playing Fields’ Fences

By |

Calling the beat-up fencing at sports fields near the water tower at Waveny a “bad advertisement for the town,” officials are seeking to pay $10,000 in repairs out of the General Fund. Recreation Director Steve Benko told the Board of Selectmen on Jan. 23 that baseball, soccer and lacrosse in 10 years have taken a severe toll on the safety fence fabric in front of the benches on the three softball fields at Waveny, as well as the Coppo Field backstop. “I get all kinds of comments from people—‘I went to a lacrosse thing last spring and look at this fencing,’ ” Benko said during his budget presentation, in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department. “It looks horrible.”

Benko had included the estimated $10,000 in new fencing in his capital budget requests (see page 62 here), but the selectmen said it was important to get it done sooner than July 1 if possible.

Business

Police Assigning Downtown ‘Community Impact Officer’ Back to Patrol

By |

Seeking to control overtime costs with two officers out on injury leave since last April and another since last month, Police Chief Leon Krolikowski said the department plans to hit pause on a widely praised program that’s seen an officer assigned to the downtown exclusively. Community Impact Officer Roy Adams since September has been working directly with merchants and boosting police presence in the business district. A role developed following a survey in 2013, the move has won high praise from residents, downtown workers and business leaders. Yet as the police department reduces its overtime spending, ensuring patrol shifts are fully staffed is a top priority, Krolikowski said Friday while presenting his budget to the Board of Selectmen. “We are being very careful now, especially with three officers out, we are trying to be fiscally prudent,” he said during the meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department.