New Bocce Courts at Mead Park Receive First Town Approval

A citizen-led campaign to create public bocce courts in New Canaan received its first formal approval this week, as parks officials green-lighted a plan to install two of them in a largely unused area past the little league fields and kids’ playgrounds at Mead Park. The Park & Recreation Commission voted unanimously to approve the plan first proposed last fall by New Canaanites John Buzzeo and Len Paglialunga, anchors of the morning crew at Dunkin Donuts. “In general it’s a nice social gathering,” John Howe, superintendent of parks for the New Canaan Department of Public Works, told members of the Park & Recreation Commission at their regular meeting Wednesday. The 76-by-13-foot courts are “a good size bocce court for recreational use,” Howe said at the meeting, held in the Lapham Community Center. “They’ll put two of them in, with a five-foot walkway between them and they’d be raised up some.”

The area in question, roughly beyond the left-field fence of Mellick Field and the right-field fence of Gamble Field—formerly site of the horseshoe pits, New Canaanites will recall—slopes somewhat and by raising the courts six inches or so, “we wouldn’t have any drainage issues,” Howe said.

‘That Experiment Doesn’t Seem To Work Very Well in This Town’: Selectmen Flag Lack of Trash Receptacles at Parks

New Canaan should look again at an ineffective, money-saving change that saw the town adopt a “carry-in, carry-out” policy in lieu of more garbage cans at public parks, officials said Tuesday. Residents are asking why there aren’t more receptacles at places such as Waveny and litter has become increasingly commonplace as a result, according to Selectman Nick Williams.

“I get a lot of complaints on this and I think maybe it’s something we may want to look at,” Williams said during the Board of Selectmen’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall. “And I want to know historically how this came about, and what the cost-savings was projected. We have the [PFA] Beautification Committee at New Canaan High School doing great things, now we should continue that trend.”

The comments came as the selectmen approved 3-0 a $7,500 contract with a Wilton-based refuse company to take on year-round garbage and recycling services at Lapham Community Center, Waveny Pool, Mead Park and Kiwanis Park. Recreation Director Steve Benko said the Town Council about six or seven years ago switched to a carry-in, carry-out policy with the Department of Public Works providing four dumpsters at Waveny including the water tower turf field, two at Mead, one at Irwin and two at NCHS by the athletic fields.

Officials Approve Funds To Complete Three Sidewalks That Connect To Mead Park

Town officials on Tuesday approved contracts totaling $23,900 for a Bridgeport-based engineering firm to design three short sidewalks near Mead Park that are expected to bolster pedestrian safety. The Board of Selectmen at its regular meeting approved the funds 3-0 for three contracts with Cabezas-DeAngelis Engineers. The work includes mostly surveying work for sidewalks that will complete the final several feet of a sidewalk at Mead Street near Park Street, completing the sidewalk on the south side of Richmond Hill Road so that it goes to Park Street, and completing the sidewalk on the east side of Grove Street so that it runs all the way to Richmond Hill Road, Department of Public Works Director Michael Pastore said at the meeting, held in a Town Hall board room. The sidewalks “are along properties and we want to make sure we are not on private properties when we put in a sidewalk,” he said, as “some of the smaller pieces are on property lines [which are] not well-defined.”

Construction for the three sidewalks would cost about $75,000, Pastore said. “These little segments are some of the oldest pieces that never got completed,” Pastore said.

‘We Are In a Great Position’: Mild Winter Means Timely Opening of New Canaan’s Sports Playing Fields

What a difference a year makes. Twelve months after a harsh, late winter made New Canaan’s grass fields unplayable well into April, the town’s parks superintendent said “the prognosis is good” for timely openings of the popular sports fields this spring. “We are in a great position,” said John Howe, parks superintendent in the Department of Public Works. “What helps me is that there’s no frost in the ground. Last year, when there was frost in the ground, it could only dry by evaporating, instead of working its way through the soil.”

New Canaan High School’s baseball and softball teams got a day of practice in already last weekend, and soccer teams are on track to start next week, he said.

Officials Support Proposed ‘Twin Bridges’ Design for WWII Memorial Walk at Mead Park

When funds are in hand to repair a failing footbridge at Mead Park—whether that money comes from the town or is raised privately—the structure itself should mirror a proposed new footbridge, so that together they help form a cohesive World War II memorial walk there, parks officials say. The “Gold Star Walk”—a footpath along the northern and eastern edges of Mead Pond that’s dedicated to the 38 New Canaan men who died during Second World War—requires two bridges to traverse the underground streams that supply the pond’s water. Though its foundation is secure, the decking and handrails on one of those bridges, already in place, are in dire need of replacement—an approximately $15,000 to $17,000 job. A private group led by  1947 New Canaan High School graduate Jim Bach has secured nearly all of the $37,000 needed to build the second footbridge, but the two structures aesthetically must look exactly alike, according to local landscape architect Keith Simpson, who is helping him. “What I am afraid of is that we will get the funds to do this [new bridge] and it will look really good, and then this [existing bridge] will be band-aided by the town with a way that goes about doing things ‘financially’ and the two bridges will actually never look alike,” Simpson told members of the Park & Recreation Commission during their regular meeting Wednesday.