Government
Beautification League Offers $50,000 for Town Hall Landscaping Plan; Tree for Ben Olmstead Proposed
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A nonprofit organization dedicated to making New Canaan beautiful is offering to fund $50,000 in plantings to the grounds around the newly renovated Town Hall, and wants separately to help plan for a prominently placed sugar maple dedicated to the memory of a beloved man and municipal employee who died following an accident last summer. The New Canaan Beautification League feels that “this is a special opportunity to make a large contribution not only financially but also visually to the town,” one of its members, landscape architect Keith Simpson, said at Monday’s meeting of the Town Hall Building Committee. Part of the landscaping plan that Simpson unveiled (it already has been shown to the DPW chief and first selectman, among others) involves the planting of a tree that would be dedicated to Ben Olmstead. A well-loved town DPW worker for 37 years who possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of the town, Olmstead died July 24 at age 71 after he was struck by a car near the intersection of East Avenue at 123. (Olmstead knew so much about the town that the DPW in making its fiscal year 2016 budget request put in for a full-time person to try and fill his part-time shoes.)
In reviewing landscaping plans from a colleague for whom he has great respect, Norwalk-based Eric Rains, Simpson said it was difficult to find a tree location that would indicate it was planted for a specific, special reason.