Board of Selectmen

$18,000 Contract for Preparing Clay Courts at Mead Park Includes Bonus for Getting Work Done Early

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Town officials last week approved an approximately $18,000 contract with a Harwinton-based company to prepare the clay tennis courts at Mead Park for play this spring. Putnam Tennis Courts will grade and level the surfaces, as well as tape the lines of the eight courts at Mead, following a 3-0 vote by the Board of Selectmen at its Feb. 23 meeting. “One of our biggest concerns that we have recently with the clay courts is getting them open in a timely manner,” Parks Superintendent John Howe told the selectmen during the meeting, held via videoconference. The town received bids from three companies to do the work and “we’d like to go with Putnam Tennis, which has done most of the work at Mead Park over the last 25, 30 years,” he said.

Government

‘It Looks So Wonderful’: High Praise for First-Phase Work Done in Bristow Bird Sanctuary

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The completed first phase in restoring a long-neglected and little-known bird sanctuary in New Canaan—one of the nation’s oldest—is earning high praise from town officials and visitors. Described as a quiet and beautiful wooded area, the Bristow Bird Sanctuary and Wildwood Preserve—thanks to volunteers and Department of Public Works personnel—features attractive new footbridges over meandering streams, a newly dredged pond, seating areas and varied bird feeders, officials said during last week’s meeting of the Parks & Recreation Commission. Responding to a presentation from Public Works Director Tiger Mann on the work that’s been done in Bristow in the past six months, Commissioner Francesca Segalas said, “It looks so wonderful.”

“I am so happy to see this,” she said during the meeting, held Jan. 13 via videoconference. 

Mann shared a photo walkthrough that he’d captured the same morning, starting at the northern end of the 17-acre bird sanctuary—accessible through Mead Park, at the back of the little league baseball fields—and following pedestrian trails toward its other entrance along Route 106. As he walked along, Mann said he found the park “very quiet.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” he said.

Francesca Segalas

Parks & Rec Supports Use of Pesticides on Athletic Fields

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Saying it’s healthier for athletes, parks officials last week voted in favor of a recommendation to keep using pesticides on New Canaan athletic fields where it’s legal to do so. Referring to a consultant’s report that compared the surface hardness of a grass field treated with pesticides (Conner Field off of Farm Road) versus one that’s pesticide-free (Saxe Middle School’s), members of the Parks & Recreation Commission voted 7-1 during their regular meeting Dec. 9 to recommend to the Board of Selectmen that New Canaan continue a midsummer application of chemicals on fields at Conner, Mead Park and Waveny. In making the recommendation, the Commission referred to a memo from Parks Superintendent John Howe, New Canaan High School Athletic Director Jay Egan and Recreation Director Steve Benko saying fields that don’t use pesticides are harder and therefore more likely to cause concussions. The trio, identified as the “New Canaan Fields Committee,” cited a $3,000 “Core Performance Quality Standards Assessment” of Conner and Saxe fields from Tom Irwin Advisors of Burlington, Mass. 

“Based on the information provided in the [Tom Irwin Advisors] report, the data shows that the use of pesticides on Conner Field has had a positive effect on the quality and safety of that field for athletic contests,” the memo said.

Government

‘It’s Very Refreshing’: Parks Officials Praise Local Family Volunteering To Help Collect Litter at Waveny

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Parks officials last week praised a local family that’s volunteering to help spruce up at a local park. Though town officials often field complaints about trash, Parks Superintendent John Howe said New Canaan’s Sky Minckler contacted him recently to ask whether it would be OK if she and her daughters “picked up litter and debris at Waveny trails and if they could put it in the dumpsters we have there and everything else.”

“And when we always think about Mead Park and all the litter at the playground, it’s very refreshing to know that someone is out there that’s willing to help us,” Howe told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission at their regular meeting, held Dec. 9 via videoconference. “And I wanted to thank her for that.”

Minckler, a guest at the meeting, said she and her husband had grown up in New Canaan and recently moved back to town. “We are running into a lot of people who are looking to volunteer in town, because the kids have nothing to do during COVID because they can’t do the soup kitchens and their senior citizen bits and what not,” she said.

Government

Rec Director: Waveny Has Become the ‘Destination Park in Fairfield County’

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With its parking lots filled to capacity and hundreds of people walking the trails, Waveny has become a “destination park” for all of Fairfield County, according to the town’s recreation director. Waveny “has been overwhelmed with visitors on weekends to walk the trails, walk the fields,” Steve Benko told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission at their Nov. 11 meeting, held via videoconference. “We have kind of become the destination park in Fairfield County. A lot of outside people coming through.