Around Town

Week in Review: Fundraising, Parking and Restoring

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A pair of muggy, humid days visited New Canaan this week (dog owners beware, deer ticks love that weather and won’t go away until we got our first good frost), as the undefeated varsity football team took a bye-week and we had a heavy few days of municipal meetings that featured the Police Commission and Town Council, with important updates coming in from the district and New Canaan Library. Here’s the Week in Review. Town Talker

New Canaan parking officials long have known that employees in the downtown are the primary and “chronic” violators of rules and restrictions that govern coveted spots for motorists. In recent months, ideas floated to combat a separate but related problem whereby workers (not shoppers or diners) are taking up most of the free spaces on Mail and Elm in the heart of downtown New Canaan have included a restriction where a motorist cannot park more than once per day in the central business district. The difficulty with that restriction is that non-workers (say, someone who parks once to grab a coffee in the morning and then comes back for a bit of shopping later in the day) would be caught up in it, parking enforcement officials have said.

Around Town

New Canaan Week in Review: Designing, Bubbling, Fundraising

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In one of a series of community events marking October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the downtown on Thursday hosted its first-ever Pink Stroll, a collaboration of the Chamber of Commerce, local merchants and Connecticut affiliate of Susan G. Komen. We spoke to town resident and breast cancer survivor Jacqueline Dorman about her early diagnosis through not just mammogram but also ultrasound, and her decision to participate in the inaugural Stroll. This week also saw the Board of Education postpone its decision on setting a new rate schedule for school facilities rentals, and firefighters freed a young deer that got caught in a resident’s fence on Greenley Road. One northern New Canaan property owner’s plan to erect a standalone barn that will double as a garage went through, and we caught up with some Saxe seventh-graders downtown on Friday who told us about their obsessions of the moment. Here’s the Week in Review.

Around Town

Week in Review: Streetchat, Green & Tonic, All Sports Booster Club

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With the deer hunting season in full swing, a black bear visited New Canaan in a week that saw town officials mark Domestic Violence Awareness Month—see this information from the police chief—while the venerable Garden Club (with an assist from DPW) planted some new trees right near the entrance to Irwin Park. Here’s the Week in Review. Town Talker

We reported this week on a smartphone app, Streetchat, which allows students to post photos overlayed with text, comment and vote posts up or down, all anonymously. The social media platform emerges as district officials renew a “geo fence” that blocks text-only app Yik Yak from public school campuses. With Streetchat, students are snapping photos around school—including in the cafeteria and library—targeting specific students, teachers and faculty, and writing derogatory things about them.

Around Town

New Canaan Week in Review: Plans, Cancellations and Dog Attacks

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The opening of school this year has been smooth and many have noticed the significant upgrades to facilities on all campuses. Though it’s early still, another closely followed storyline emerged in the young academic year this past week when, after New Canaan High School students petitioned to bring back the pep rally (which had been cancelled and would have been held Friday night), ticket sales for the annual Homecoming Dance were so low that administrators were forced to cancel the dance itself. This past week, a pair of bulletins also put us on notice for some important dates in October: Metro-North Railroad needs to work on the rails at the Richmond Hill Road crossing, so that street will be closed at that point Oct. 3 to 8, and DPW leaf collection will start Oct. 27.

Around Town

New Canaan Week in Review: Dunning, Playing Fields, Waveny

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New Canaanites (for the first time since late April) were treated to fall weather this past week, with crisp, cool mornings and evenings, one of which many locals spent in the stands at Dunning Stadium, to watch the varsity NCHS football team’s home opener. The parking lot outside Dunning could see some auto enthusiasts pull in next month, as officials this week approved a special trial run at Waveny of the popular Caffeine & Carburetors for Oct. 19. The playing fields at Waveny also made headlines this week, as the heretofore under-the-radar Youth Sports Committee called for more equal time for all sports in terms of practices and games, and especially for a more rigidly structured and transparent system for how the private organizations that run youth sports contribute back to the town, including through field upgrades and upkeep. Here’s the Week in Review.