Board of Selectmen

Selectmen OK $70,000 Contract for Maintenance Work on Softball and Baseball Fields

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After taking one year off of the maintenance amid the pandemic, town officials are again planning for sod and clay work at New Canaan’s heavily used softball and baseball fields. The Board of Selectmen at its Oct. 19 meeting approved an approximately $70,000 contract with Bridgeport-based Athletic Field Services to prepare fields at Waveny and Mead Parks, among other locations. 

“This work includes all the baseball fields, including the little cutouts at South School, which the baseball uses,” John Howe, parks superintendent in the Department of Public Works, told the selectmen at the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. 

“We actually skipped last year,” he said. “With the pandemic, we didn’t have much play on the fields so we were able to sweep by. So it was two years ago that we did work similar to this.

Government

Parks Officials Approve New Softball Batting Cages for Waveny

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Parks officials this month approved the installation of expanded new softball batting cages at Waveny that also will include warmup mounds for pitchers. The Parks & Recreation Commission voted 9-0 in favor of the project, to be funded almost entirely by New Canaan Softball. The cages will be installed on an approximately 70-by-45-foot concrete pad, with granite curbing, east of the “Water Tower Field,” where a single softball batting cage now sits, according to Parks Superintendent John Howe. “The girls could definitely use it,” Howe told members of the Commission during their regular meeting, held Oct. 13 via videoconference.

Government

Parks Officials Propose Children’s Playground Area at Waveny 

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Parks officials on Wednesday voted in favor of requesting funds for next fiscal year to update the fitness area at Waveny while also creating a children’s playground area. 

Located just below the main road through Waveny, next to the parking lot that serves the “Orchard Field” softball diamond, the all-abilities fitness station has equipment that will need to be replaced in a few years, according to Parks Superintendent John Howe. Many kids already use that equipment “even though it’s not age-appropriate for them,” and the area is large and flat enough to get a poured-in-place surface not only for the fitness area but also for new playgrounds for younger children, Howe told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission at their regular meeting. “We feel strongly that a playground would really round out recreation at Waveny Park,” Howe said during the meeting, held via videoconference. “We would say that we need to put a fence just so that kids would not be able to go into the roadway from there. But we could make a wooden fence similar to down at Mead Park where it would blend into the surrounding woods and everything else.”

Commission Chair Rona Siegel and members Carl Mason, Francesca Segalas, Steve Haberstroh, Hank Green, Gene Goodman, Laura Costigan, George Benington and Jack Hawkins voted unanimously in favor of a future funding request.

Government

Town Adds Pesticide Use Disclosure to Municipal Website

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Eight months after parks officials voted in support of the move as part of a larger recommendation, the town on Tuesday added a section to the municipal website disclosing its use of pesticides on several athletic fields. Though state law prohibits the use of pesticides on school grounds through grade 8, New Canaan uses the chemicals in treating athletic grounds at Waveny, Conner Field and baseball fields at Mead Park. 

Selectman Kathleen Corbet last summer questioned why pesticides are still applied to some public fields used by young kids, and in September developed a set of recommendations for the town. Her findings included that “not very many people know about the use of pesticides in our Town,” and she said in her report that “[a]t a minimum, unless a pesticide free policy is adopted for all athletic fields, public disclosure about the use of pesticides on the natural grass athletic fields is recommended.”

During this week’s regular Board of Selectmen meeting, Corbet noted that a draft disclosure still hadn’t been posted to the town’s website. “Did we forget to do that?” Corbet asked during the meeting, held via videoconference. Public Works Director Tiger Mann responded that the town did not forget.

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Selectmen Approve Funds for Upkeep of Artificial Turf Fields

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Town officials this week approved two expenditures designed to help with the upkeep of artificial turf fields in New Canaan. The Board of Selectmen during its regular meeting Tuesday voted 3-0 for a contract with Harwinton-based Championship Turf Surfaces ($13,800) for cleaning, grooming and maintaining Dunning Field and the two new playing fields by the Waveny water tower. 

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams in the same vote approved a request from the Department of Public Works to purchase 20,000 pounds of crumb rubber infill for fields maintenance work. “It makes a much safer playing surface for the users,” DPW Parks Superintendent John Howe told the selectmen during the meeting, held via videoconference. Championship Turf will “deep clean” the turf surfaces, Howe said. “They will de-compact the infill, they will rotary-brush it, vacuum it, static=brush it—which just means one that’s not moving— and use a magnetic broom which we do not have, to help in case there are some metal particles out there,” he said.