News

Letter: ‘Kit for First’—Unmatched Leadership, Integrity and Judgment

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Editor:

I am writing in support of Kit Devereaux’s candidacy for first selectman. I have known Kit well for 25 of the 37 years I have lived in New Canaan, often consulting about numerous town issues while serving in different areas of government and local groups. Kit is passionately dedicated to public service and has worked tirelessly for years to improve the town she loves; her service in leadership roles in countless New Canaan government and other organizations is unmatched. With her special, personal blend of collaboration and inclusivity, she consistently strives to pull together often divergent approaches to complex issues. Reaching out to all constituencies, and actually inviting the contribution of differing views, to which she listens carefully, she then synthesizes information and builds consensus, to arrive at both pragmatic and creative resolutions and develop lasting policy.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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All but one grade involved in the New Canaan Youth Football will send a team this weekend into a championship or semifinal. The program serves third- through eighth-graders. Best of luck to our boys competing for titles:

3rd grade black team
4th grade red team
5th grade red & white teams
6th grade red & black teams
8th grade black & white teams

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We’re hearing from some local historians that New Canaan’s backing of a Democratic candidate for president this week may have been the first time since 1964 that a Democrat seeking the nation’s highest elected office carried the town (LBJ). ***

Speaking of the election, NCHS ’14 graduate and George Washington University student Chase Williams, son of New Canaan Selectman Nick Williams, appeared in images that went viral in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, after he climbed a tree outside the White House, where a combination of protesters and celebrators had gathered after Republican Donald Trump won the presidential race. Chase, a varsity soccer captain when he was at NCHS, told us that he arrived there and “it was a madhouse” with people screaming and becoming increasingly belligerent.

Government

‘Eyes for the Town’: Park & Rec Approves Slate of Citizen Liaisons To Spencer’s Run

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Parks officials on Wednesday approved a slate of 12 citizen volunteers who will act as liaisons to the town from the popular dog park at Waveny. Spencer’s Run regular Kit Devereaux, owner of a handsome white poodle named ‘Louis’ (after Louis Armstrong), told members of the Park & Recreation Commission during their regular monthly meeting that the volunteers will serve as “the eyes for the town, because once you have people with dogs it can get dicey.”

“They are not there to enforce the rules. They are there to remind people of them, and if people do not follow them, then they call Animal Control,” Devereaux said during the meeting, held in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. The volunteers are also there “to make people feel welcome and to keep the bags [dispenser] at Spencer’s full,” she added. “I would like everyone to think what would happen at the dog park if they [the bags] ran dry—it would get very interesting, very fast,” Devereaux said.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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Police have told an out-of-town man to keep his 5-year-old female golden-doodle out of the dog park at Waveny until he gets the animal spayed. The dog (her name is Amber) is in heat and on a recent weekday evening her owner upset other Spencer’s Run users when he got angry about male dogs in the park trying to mount her. We’re hearing that the man grabbed the male dogs and yanked them off of his fetching female, as though it was their fault. Officials say that if the out-of-towner returns with the dog un-spayed, he’ll be ticketed and his PIN number to enter Spencer’s Run revoked. ***

Though the property owner at the Bank of America building on Elm Street could not be reached for comment after town officials blasted the condition of the planters out front, he appears to have taken at least one major step toward addressing the problem. Within days of a meeting of the Plan of Conservation & Development Implementation Committee that saw some members refer to the area as a “non-garden,” a crew appeared in the morning to install new flowers, topsoil, gravel and plants there.

Government

Parks Officials to NC Baseball: At Season’s End, Take Down the Outfield Windscreens at Mead

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Parks officials last week approved a private group’s request to hang a windscreen on the outfield fence of the large baseball field at Mead Park, but are insisting that this time around the opaque netting come down at season’s end. That didn’t happen in the case of the little league fields at Mead that got the screens last spring, despite New Canaan Baseball’s agreeing to do so, Park & Recreation Commission Chairman Sally Campbell said during the group’s regular monthly meeting. The commission had received feedback that residents didn’t want to see the netting in the winter months, Campbell said during the meeting, held Wednesday in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. “New Canaan Baseball said they would put them up and take them down last year, and they never came back to take them down last year,” she said. “So this windscreen, too, it needs to put up by [New Canaan] Baseball and taken down by X day by [New Canaan] Baseball and we should not have to go back to you all to say to take it down.