News

Updated Emergency Response Vehicles, New Bulletproof Vests for the Police Department

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Town officials on Tuesday green-lighted two additions to equipment for members of the New Canaan Police Department. The first unanimous approval from the Board of Selectmen involved transportation for the officers—outfitting two new emergency response vehicles that include specialty warning systems.

Police Capt. John DiFederico urged that the selectmen during their regular meeting that vehicles are important in the business aspect of the police department. The purchase of the two vehicles can help maintain a strong fleet—which is important “in case anything ever breaks down,” DiFederico said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. The budget for updating two vehicles is $26,030.13 total, though the final cost will depend on how much equipment the department can take from older vehicles as well as how much money the older vehicles will fetch when sold. The request garnered unanimous approval from First Selectman Rob Mallozzi and Selectmen Nick WIlliams and Beth Jones.

Government

‘The Street Is Basically An Extension of Their Lot’: East Maple Street Neighbors Say Auto Shop Is Causing Traffic Problems

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A Main Street auto shop is treating a residential street next-door as its own parking lot, neighbors say, exacerbating traffic problems and safety hazards on what is already a busy, narrow road. AC Auto Body’s designated parking space on East Maple Street—a privilege enjoyed by the shop because it serves as the designated on-call wrecking service in emergencies—is problematic in that it affects sight lines and pinches the street, according to about a dozen neighbors who addressed members of the Police Commission on Wednesday. The auto shop also abuses the designated spot by parking more than one tow truck on the east side of the street and sometimes using the space for customer vehicles, according to East Maple Street resident David Shea. “The street is basically an extension of their lot,” Shea told the commissioners at their regular monthly meeting, held at the New Canaan Police Department. “This has become a complex parking and traffic situation,” he added, echoing some of the problems he expressed to the same group more than one year ago.

Around Town

Town Resists Urging from State To Remove Flashing Yellow Light at Gower and South

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The state wants New Canaan’s support in removing the flashing yellow light at South Avenue and Gower Road, though local officials say they’re reluctant to give it, particularly if the town is expected to pay to install some other traffic-calming measure as a replacement. Officials in the Connecticut Department of Transportation do not want to maintain the light on state Route 124—a responsibility made more onerous as DOT crewmen have had to respond to work orders placed by a local resident who doesn’t like the light and regularly contacts a state maintenance garage about it. Specifically, DOT officials want to know whether New Canaan would consider installing pedestrian-activated flashing beacons, such as those planned for God’s Acre, at the Gower intersection, a popular place for people to cross as they travel to and from South School. “I was hopeful from [the DOT’s] request that the state would pay for it and install it for us, but I was wrong,” Police Capt. John DiFederico said during the most recent meeting of the Traffic Calming Work Group. The project would cost about $17,000, according to Tiger Mann, assistant director of the Department of Public Works and a member of the group.

News

Repeated Parking on South Avenue Sidewalk Prompts Installation of New Signs

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Two ‘No Parking On Sidewalk’ signs have appeared on a very short stretch of sidewalk in front of the Mobil station on South Avenue, after a resident alerted town officials to the unusual habit of some motorists who parked on it. The approximately 20-foot long stretch of sidewalk between the gas station’s two entrances for cars from South Avenue is differentiated in its brickwork, but is at grade with the adjacent lot that includes fuel pumps. Members of an administrative team that field traffic requests said at a recent team that they received a formal complaint about the practice of some motorists who park there. “I don’t want to put anything in the pedestrian way,” Department of Public Works Assistant Director Tiger Mann said of the situation at a Feb. 23 meeting of the Traffic Calming Work Group.

Government

Louise’s Lane Man Seeks To Remove Apostrophe-S from Street Name, Sign

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New Canaan traffic officials said Tuesday that they received a request from a Louise’s Lane man to remove the apostrophe-S from the street’s name and sign. The resident also asked whether a more decorative sign than the standard white-lettering-on-green could be installed at the head of the short, dead-end lane that runs south off of upper Oenoke Ridge Road, according to Police Capt. John DiFederico. “He has two requests—one was to change the name to just ‘Louise Lane,’ and the other was to change the street sign itself to make it more decorative and appealing,” DiFederico said at a meeting of the Traffic Calming Work Group, an administrative team of police, public works, emergency management and fire officials that fields such requests. One of the reasons that New Canaan would be careful about pursuing any change to a street name—even one of punctuation—is that the names themselves have been carefully selected (see a full database here of the history of New Canaan street names). In the case of Louise’s Lane, according to a 1960 annual of the New Canaan Historical Society, the street “was laid out in 1950 and named for the late Louise Warren Higley.”

A look through the files at the New Canaan Historical Society shows that Higley was the wife of the ultra-prominent and influential Stuart Higley, of Brotherhood & Higley renown, and was a woman who died at a rather young age after marrying into a New Canaan family when she was 29.