Around Town

FieldFest ’19: New Canaan Athletic Foundation Releases Details on Sept. 7 Music Festival at Waveny

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A widely anticipated music festival to be held Sept. 7 at Waveny will feature a ‘70s rock-n-roll tribute band, field games, face painting and bouncy houses, officials announced Wednesday. FieldFest ’19, located at Waveny’s Coppo Field and running 5 to 10 p.m. on the first Saturday of September, benefits the New Canaan Athletic Foundation. The event is open to all and will feature headliner 8Track Band, as well as Funky Dawgz Brass Band and local band Bad Dog Buddy, the nonprofit organization announced in a press release. “We wanted to raise money and celebrate our accomplishments with a fun event that everyone in New Canaan, as well as friends from surrounding towns, could enjoy,” Mike Benevento, the Athletic Foundation’s chairman, said in the release.

Homepage Featured

Podcast: The Rise of the New Canaan Athletic Foundation

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This week on 0684-Radi0, our free weekly podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk New Canaan Athletic Foundation Chairman Mike Benevento about the organization’s efforts over the past several months not only to formalize a partnership with the town, but to sketch out—for the very first time—a detailed, sustainable master plan for youth and varsity sports facilities in New Canaan. Those efforts include a newly announced music festival planned for Saturday, Sept. 7. This week’s podcast is sponsored by Karl Chevrolet, a proud supporter of the full range of New Canaan Athletics. Let’s go Rams.

Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:

Around Town

New Canaan Athletic Foundation Plans Community-Wide Music Festival at Waveny

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A nonprofit organization that supports youth and high school student athletes in New Canaan announced last week that it’s planning to host a community-wide gathering in Waveny this fall as part of a new annual fundraiser. The New Canaan Athletic Foundation’s awareness and capital campaign will be an hours-long concert at Waveny in the style of the hugely popular and successful Greenwich Town Party, according to the organization’s chairman, Mike Benevento. To be held on the Saturday after Labor Day weekend, the music festival is to be held in the area of Coppo Field—behind Lapham Commuity Center, on the far side of the water towers from the new turf fields at New Canaan High School—following consultation with the first selectman, NCHS athletic director and town recreation director and parks superintendent, Benevento told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission at their June 12 meeting. In future years—unless the Coppo location works out exceptionally well—the event could be held out back of Waveny House, he said (there’s already a wedding booked for that Saturday this year). NCAF hasn’t yet settled on a formal name for the gathering.

Government

Town Officials to Committee Steering NCHS Fields Project: ‘It’s Like We Ordered a Rolls Royce and We Ended Up with a Toyota’

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A building contractor of 30 years experience who sits on the town’s legislative body said last week that he sees two major signs that spelled failure on recently disclosed cost overruns for a widely anticipated sports fields building project at New Canaan High School. According to Town Council member Joe Paladino, it’s never advantageous to be under a “tight time crunch” with respect to deadlines in a large project. “It’s not a great idea to have gun against your head and you folks truly did because you are under a time crunch, and there’s no way out of it,” Paladino told the chairman and secretary of the town-appointed committee that’s overseeing the turf fields and track project at the high school, now estimated to cost $5.8 million. “When your architect says he is ‘shocked’ by the number and your committee is ‘shocked’ by the number you are getting from your contractor, how do you know you got the right number?” Paladino told Bob Spangler and Mike Benevento of the Fields Building Committee during a meeting of the council’s Land Use and Recreation Subcommittee, held Sept. 20 at Town Hall.

Government

Meeting Minutes Detailing Decision to Change NCHS Fields Projects Filed Aug. 30, Two Months Late

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Though officials said this week that meeting minutes disclosing a controversial decision to change a taxpayer-funded project without notifying New Canaan’s funding bodies were available after that decision was made, the public record shows that those minutes weren’t filed with the Town Clerk until Aug. 30. The June 23 meeting of the Fields Building Committee was attended by four of five regular members—Chairman Bob Spangler, Secretary Mike Benevento, Scott Werneburg and Nick Williams (regular member Amy Bennett was absent)—as well as four ex officio members, Recreation Director Steve Benko, New Canaan High School Athletic Director Jay Egan, Public Works Director Tiger Mann and Parks Superintendent John Howe. First Selectman Rob Mallozzi and Public Works Senior Engineer Joe Zagarenski also were present. According to meeting minutes date-stamped Aug.