Government

Town Eyes Plan to Screen, Sell Dredged Material from Mill, Mead Ponds

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Town officials are looking into whether the organic material dredged from Mead and Mill Ponds—long piled near the southeast corner of Waveny, in an open area known as the “corn field”—could be treated and sold at a profit for municipal coffers. It isn’t clear just how much of the approximately 30,000 total yards of material could be screened and sold—say, upwards of $15 per cubic yard—because some of it may be too “bony” (too many rocks) or too organic, said Tiger Mann, assistant director of the New Canaan Department of Public Works and senior engineer for the town. The DPW is putting together a proposal that will include a cost-benefit analysis—how much would it cost to screen the dredged material (mostly decomposed leaves) and then how much could New Canaan fetch for it, Mann said. When developed, the proposal would need backing from the Park & Recreation Commission and Board of Selectmen (approving the contract for the screener and revised cost of selling the material). Park & Recreation Commissioner Doug Richardson at the group’s monthly meeting on Thursday said one contractor has been paying about $8 per yard for 4,000 yards of unscreened material.

Around Town

Q&A: As World Cup Begins, Plans Unfold for Pop Up Park Next Weekend

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USA: “I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN!” (ESPN 2014 FIFA World Cup Commercial)
The World Cup opens at 4 p.m. (New Canaan time—complete schedule here) Thursday when host Brazil takes on Croatia in Sao Paulo. The United States opens at 6 p.m. Monday versus Ghana. The following weekend, June 21 and 22, will see the United States take on mighty Portugal in what’s being called a pivotal match for this very tough bracket—it’s 6 p.m. on Sunday the 22nd—and for that entire weekend, the Pop-Up Park at South Avenue (between Morse Court and Elm) will feature World Cup play on three large-screen TVs. (Additionally on Saturday, after the 6 p.m. match, say 8 p.m., “Air Bud: World Pup” will be screened “drive-in movie” style at the park.)

The weekend’s activities—which are all weather-safe, thanks to a huge tent that on site—is a collaborative effort of the New Canaan Soccer Association with support from the Local First Fund of the New Canaan Community Foundation, Town of New Canaan, New Canaan Chamber of Commerce, Realty Guild and ESPN.

Around Town

Local Preservationists Seek Historic Designation for Waveny House

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A nonprofit group’s effort to place one of New Canaan’s most treasured public buildings on the National Register of Historic Places took a step forward this month by gaining support from the Park and Recreation Commission. The head of the New Canaan Preservation Alliance said at the commission’s May meeting that the town will qualify for grants and matching funding on the state and federal levels for upkeep and improvements at Waveny House if the group’s application for registry succeeds. After raising funds through a 2012 event marking Waveny House’s 100th birthday, the alliance formed a committee that includes an architect, preservation architect, engineer and a former owner of a major New York City-based construction firm to focus on the town building, Rose Scott Long, current president of the NCPA, said during the commission’s May 14 meeting. “This team has been working with the town of New Canaan on a number of potential projects for Waveny House,” she said during the meeting, held at Lapham Community Center. “Together we’ve developed documents for the restoration of the veneer wood flooring and the limestone fireplace in the Great Hall.”

Designed by Greenwich’s W.B. Tubbs and built in 1912 under the Laphams, Waveny House is named for the River ‘Waveney’—part of the Norfolk Broads, an area of eastern England from which the Lapham family hails, historians say.

Government

Parks Officials: Most Nonresidents at Waveny Pool Are from Darien

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Most of the 100 nonresident passes for Waveny Pool this summer will be sold to Darien families, parks officials said. Faced with a potential shortfall in revenue to keep the self-sustaining facility in the black, officials opted to sell family passes at $1,000 each to out-of-towners for this season (New Canaan families pay $475). Park and Recreation Commission member Matt Konspore at Wednesday’s regular monthly meeting for the group raised the question of just where nonresident permit applicants are coming from—some 250 signed up for a waiting list and 100 were selected by lottery. “I’d be curious on the lottery winners how many are from Darien?” Konspore said during the meeting, held at Lapham Community Center. Answer: The majority.

Government

100 Waveny Pool Passes to Be Sold to Nonresidents This Summer

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Faced with the expensive prospect of re-plastering Waveny Pool’s surface, the volunteer municipal group that oversees the self-sustaining town facility plans to sell 100 passes to nonresidents this season in order to cover costs. Though 350 New Canaan families have signed up for passes and another 370 are expected to do so prior to the pool’s Memorial Day weekend opening, that won’t be enough to cover capital and operating costs for this year, according to the Park and Recreation Commission. “By agreement when first constructed, operations and capital costs were to be attained from pool revenues, not from the tax base,” the commission said Monday in an email to pool pass purchasers. “For several recent years, the pool operated at a loss and the capital reserve fell below requirements. Specifically, as a result of the recession after 2008, the pool saw a decline of over 200 family passes sold. Because of this, the Park and Recreation Commission and town officials have taken considerable time and effort to place the swimming pool back on a stable financial trajectory.”

What happened in 2008 with the downturn, recreation officials have said, was many New Canaanites were forced to give up memberships to private clubs in town.