Board of Selectmen

Longtime Resident, Selectman Kit Devereaux To Move Out of State 

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Kit Devereaux, a resident of New Canaan for 28 years who has served since 2017 on the Board of Selectmen, is moving to Maryland next month. The Democrat is moving to Annapolis to be near her daughter, grandson and brother as well as her husband Robert Geitz’s best friend, she said. Asked how she felt about leaving her longtime home, Devereaux said she was “filled with nostalgia and sadness.”

“New Canaan has been such an important place to me,” she told NewCanaanite.com. “It’s the place I’ve lived longest in my lifetime. I have so many friends here and I’ve been so involved in the community that the concept of leaving it is very sad.”

Devereaux said she’s moving mid-August. 

Under Chapter Three of the Town Charter, Devereaux is to notify her fellow selectman and the Town Council chair of her resignation by certified mail, and those three shall meet within 15 days to vote in a replacement to fill her term.

Government

Selectmen Approve Mosquito Larvicide Contract 3-0

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The Board of Selectmen at its regular meeting Tuesday unanimously approved a $9,960 contract with a Branford-based ecological management firm to put mosquito larvicide in New Canaan’s storm drains. Representatives from All Habitat Services LLC dump a product called Vectolex into catch basins in town, Public Works Director Tiger Mann told the Board. The method is designed to control the spread of West Nile Virus. “You will see a couple of guys on scooters, driving from basin to basin and putting the Vectolex in the basins themselves,” Mann said during the meeting, held via videoconference. 

“We had a fourth application for last year for [Eastern Equine Encephalitis], but we reduced that since we were asked to reduce our budget, we reduced it down to the standard three that we have had. If conditions arise whereby we have a concern with EEE, we will find a way to find that additional [funding] to do a fourth application.

Board of Selectmen

Selectmen Approve $38,000 To Address Drainage Problems at ‘Farm Road Fields’

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Town officials on Tuesday approved a contract with a Norwalk-based company to improve drainage on playing fields heavily used by youth sports teams.

The approximately $38,000 contract with Hussey Bros. Excavating, LLC will address longstanding problems with the Farm Road playing fields, located just north of the track at New Canaan High School. The area in the past “has been modified with the addition of subsurface under drains which helped in providing enhanced drainage,” according to Town Engineer Maria Coplit. “The subsurface under drains are no longer operating sufficiently and the field remains wet after rain events,” Coplit told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting, held via videoconference. “The town of New Canaan solicited proposals to perform playing field drainage improvements including the maintenance of the existing under drain system and the installation of five additional rows of new under drains.”

The “Farm Road fields,” as they’re known, get especially heavy use by youth sports groups such as the New Canaan Football Club, formerly known as the Soccer Association. 

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams voted 3-0 in favor of the contract. 

Williams said, “Those fields have been wet for years,” and asked when the original drains went in.

Government

First Selectman: New Local COVID-19 Cases Include Two at Party, Family of Four

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New Canaan’s top elected official said the town learned last Monday of a party where a resident who had traveled to South Carolina ended up bringing COVID-19 virus back here and, at the gathering, infected one other local person. The two new cases account for some of the seven reflected in state Department of Public Health figures that appeared Monday in the agency’s statistics, according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan. Other new cases include a New Canaan woman who tested positive at a hospital where she’d gone in for a heart procedure, an employee of the New Canaan YMCA, a woman who had a wedding at her house on Ponus Ridge where out-of-state relatives were invited, and a local family of four that is hosting a Stamford teen, Moynihan said during a regular meeting of the Board of Selectmen. “That is a rather unusual case,” Moynihan said of the last, “but another indication that COVID is coming from outside rather than local transmission.”

“All of these cases are people under 50 and primarily teenagers, younger people,” he added during the meeting, held via videoconference. 

The comments came after Selectman Nick Williams said during a discussion of general matters before the town that he had thought Moynihan might do a town-wide outcall Monday night to address the DPH data on new cases in New Canaan. “You indicated over the weekend that you were collecting data and maybe didn’t have a chance to get the data that you wanted for purposes of the outcall,” Williams told the first selectman.

Board of Selectmen

‘It’s An Attitude’: Selectmen Puzzle Over Lack of Mask-Wearing Compliance

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Saying she sees many people not wearing masks downtown, Selectman Kit Devereaux on Tuesday suggested New Canaan appoint a municipal worker to remind people to cover up. Groups of downtown visitors can be seen not wearing masks and “I don’t think it would be out of the realm have somebody walking around saying, ‘Would you please put a mask on?’ ” Devereaux said during a regular Board of Selectmen meeting, held via videoconference. “And do it routinely rather than sporadic signs or sporadic reminders,” she said. While First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectman Nick Williams did not embrace the idea, they conceded that New Canaanites have been lax about masks in some situations and puzzled on how improve it. “We are trying to do as much as we can to remind people to wear masks,” Moynihan said, adding that he just received word that New Canaan has a new positive case of COVID-19 virus. 

“I was disappointed to see the high school parade without masks,” he said.