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Two EV Charging Stations Coming to Town Hall Parking Lot

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Nearly one year after an appointed municipal body made the recommendation, the Board of Selectmen on Tuesday approved a contract to install two more charging stations for electric vehicles at the Town Hall parking lot. The “dual pole level 2 charger” will be located in two spots alongside the former Outback Teen Center building on the south side (toward Elm Street), officials said during the selectmen’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. 

“This was in the works for some time and then there became a rebate available which will pay for basically half of this system, so we waited for that to come into play,” Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer with the New Canaan Department of Public Works, said at the meeting. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams voted 3-0 in favor of a $15,960 contract with New Canaan-based Santella Electric. “This lot is free for visitors to Town Hall,” Moynihan said. “How are we going to get reimbursed for the cost?”

Zagarenski said there are a few ways to do that, including through a mobile app or by assigning numbers to the two spaces in question and directing motorists to pay at the nearby Playhouse Lot machine.

Government

Selectmen Approve $50,000 To Plan for ‘Salt Shed’ at Transfer Station

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Town officials on Tuesday approved a $50,000 contract with a Shelton-based engineering firm to prepare for creation of a salt shed at the Transfer Station. The new structure would hold about 3,000 tons of salt, according to Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer in the Department of Public Works. “We have had problems where procuring salt, even for this year there are issues of delivery of salt, not big ones, but we’d like to be able to store enough salt that we never have to worry about not being able to get it when there’s a year like this year,” Zagarenski told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting, held in Town Hall. 

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams voted 3-0 in favor of the contract with Tighe and Bond. Public Works has been pushing for a new salt shed for more than one year. (Some in town have advocated for creation of a “swap shop” at the incinerator building.)

Currently, the Highway Department stores salt in an old incinerator building that is “not the ideal size for the storage and it’s tough to navigate with the salt trucks and the plow trucks.”

“It is desired to construct a salt shed on top of the capped landfill,” Zagarenski said.

Government

Town Approves Contract for Electrical Work at NCHS Track

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The Board of Selectmen at its most recent meeting approved a $17,000 contract with a Darien-based company to install power outlets at the finish lines at the New Canaan High School track. As it is, a generator is rolled out onto the field to power up timing devices and scoreboards for track and field events at NCHS, according to Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer with the town Department of Public Works. Under a contract with Darien Electrical Contracting Inc., power will be installed in a shed near the Waveny water tower and will also come down to the finish lines at the track. The work would “get rid of the need for bringing a generator out to the track,” Zagarenski told the selectmen at their March 9 meeting, held via videoconference. 

“So needless to say, the high school Athletic Department is very supportive of this project,” he said. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams voted 3-0 in favor of the contract. 

Williams said he was “a little befuddled as to why this wasn’t done when we redid the track in the first place, years ago.” (Williams served on the Fields Building Committee that oversaw the water tower turf field and track projects.)

Zagarenski said conduits had been put in place as part of the original project, but installation of bleachers and grandstand seating was higher priority.

Government

Town Approves Contract To Demolish Ca.-1900 Greenhouse at Nature Center

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The Board of Selectmen at its most recent meeting approved a contract to raze a ca.-1900 greenhouse that one year ago was at the center of a debate regarding public notice of its future demolition. Located on town-owned New Canaan Nature Center property, the greenhouse is located behind the director’s house and the organization “has plans to repurpose the stone foundation of the greenhouse to expand their community garden,” according to Department of Public Works Senior Engineer Joe Zagarenski. “The greenhouse has been vacant many years and is no longer safe to occupy,” he said at the selectmen’s March 9 meeting, held via videoconference. “Evergreen Environmental performed a pre-renovation inspection and identified asbestos-containing materials such as glazing compound and caulking. And the structure has lead paint.

Government

Public Works Seeks To Start West Road Bridge Replacement This Winter

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Saying it will save money and hassle, Public Works officials on Monday spoke in favor of starting a long-planned bridge replacement on West Road this winter so it’s spaced out from a separate major road project across town. 

The contractor for the West Road job has a gap in their schedule and has agreed to absorb significant winter costs such as heating concrete in order to start prep work in mid-December, according to Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer in the New Canaan Department of Public Works. That would see the work wrap up some time in June, Zagarenski said, around the time the replacement of a bridge on Route 123 that will close traffic in both directions hopefully would start. “It would be nice if we did not have two detours in town at the same time, even though they may overlap a little bit,” he told members of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure, held via videoconference. The headwall of a bridge on West Road north of Turtle Back Road failed two summers ago. Officials have estimated in the past that New Canaan is expected to pay about $921,000 toward the total $1.8 million cost to replace the bridge.