Government

New Canaan Employs Director of Health

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The Board of Selectmen last month voted unanimously to employ an established and well-regarded municipal worker as New Canaan’s director of health. 

Jennifer Eielson, whose past positions in the New Canaan Health Department include chief sanitarian and director of environmental health, moved into the new position following the selectmen’s 3-0 vote at its Sept. meeting. According to Cheryl Pickering-Jones, the town’s human resources director, municipal officials in April had met with the state and found that New Canaan is eligible to have a full-time health department because Eielson has a master’s degree. “We are meeting all of the credentials fo the state and they recommended that we take that step,” Pickering-Jones said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “It makes us more eligible for grants and it also keeps us away from possibly being put into a district.”

Though no funds for the promotion had been approved in the current fiscal year’s operating budget, there’s money in the chief building official’s budget to cover it, she said.

News

South School Windows Project On Time, Budget

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The first phase of the closely watched $2.75 million windows project at South School—removing part of the original 1955 glass block, long porous and out-of-code, with caulk that has PCBs—has been completed on time and budget, district officials say. The work wrapped up Aug. 8, leaving the gym, “café-torium” and some inner courtyard spaces such as the library for the second phase (to be completed next summer), according to Nancy Harris, interim secretary of the South School Building Committee and interim director of finance and operations for New Canaan Public Schools. “At this point in time, I have to tell you that from a personal perspective, as you look at where the glass block was, it’s covered in plywood, covered by Tyvek, covered by a rubber membrane and boards so that it’s weather-tight, it actually looks neater and less jarring than the original glass block, and now you can see the comparison between the gymnasium and the Tyvek covered space so it was really a success,” Harris said at Monday’s Board of Education meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. The glass block system and original windows at the school need to be replaced, and building expansion joints and caulking and trim in the windows repaired, Shelton-based engineering and environmental consulting firm Tighe & Bond and SLAM Construction Services of Glastonbury have found.