Amy Murphy Carroll

Cell Coverage: Town Approves Contract for Updated ‘Street Test’

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Town officials on Tuesday approved a contract with a Seattle-based company for a long-awaited “street test” to understand cellular coverage in New Canaan. The Board of Selectmen voted 3-0 at its regular meeting to approve the $32,500 contract with Ookla. The vendor is the Utilities Commission’s preferred option for the test, the first step in obtaining clean, up-to-date, real-time data before decisions are made on the best ways to address coverage gaps. Commission member Christa Kenin, who presented to the selectmen with Chair Rich Townsend, said the appointed body was attracted to Ookla because “they are able to truly mimic the consumer experience.”

“Other vendors that came forward to us, if you could imagine—I’m oversimplifying it— they would just have an antenna on their car and drive around, but that is just catching a signal,” Kenin said at the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. 

She continued: “What Ookla does is it is able to measure, is there a signal so can you initiate a call? And also voice and data will be tested in this.

Amy Murphy Carroll

ARPA Funds: Town Weighs $500,000 in ‘Premium Pay’ Stipends to ‘Essential Workers’ During COVID

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Town officials say they could direct $500,000-plus of an approximately $6 million windfall in federal funds for New Canaan to municipal employees who have worked long hours due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Board of Finance “has been talking about a premium pay element for some employees after COVID and that will probably be for a half-million dollars or more,” according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan. 

“One of the purposes of these funds are to give premium pay to employees who, because of COVID, may have worked extra hard,” Moynihan said during the Oct. 5 meeting of the Board of Selectmen. “That is something that has been discussed and I think the Board of Finance will talk about that,” Moynihan said during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. 

The comments came during a general discussion of how the town should spend the first tranche of about $6 million granted to New Canaan through the American Rescue Plan Act. 

Town officials disclosed the windfall mid-summer, and since then elected and appointed bodies including the selectmen, Board of Finance and Town Council have weighed in on how to spend the money, including outlining a process for such decisions. The town has until 2024 to spend the money.

Cristina A. Ross

Town Council Votes 8-4 To Remove 1913-Related Wording from Draft Agreement with New Canaan Library

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Weeks after voicing concerns about it, the Town Council during its regular meeting Wednesday night voted 8-4 to remove a clause from the municipality’s draft agreement with New Canaan Library regarding the organization’s rebuilding project that would have allowed for a decision on whether to demolish the original 1913 library building to be put off for at least two years during construction. 

Saying the fate of the 1913 building has not been and will not be decided by the inclusion or removal the clause, Councilman Steve Karl noted that the legislative body has “covered this at length during all of our meetings.”

“We’ve had legal counsel from both sides weigh in on this document,” Karl said during the meeting, held via videoconference. 

“It’s a document that we were given by both sides. We’ve talked about it long enough. And as we’ve said in our last meeting, we were elected to lead and we need to move this. That’s the way I feel about it. I will say again: This is not the end of the 1913 building.

Bill Oestmann

Officials: Local Dance Studio Lined Up for Outback; Finance Board Pushes for Sale of Vine Cottage

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A local dance studio is lined up to rent the upper level of the former Outback Teen Center on a part-time basis, town officials said Wednesday night. With the studio operating from about 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. on weekdays, and restricted from putting on performances there, the town could rent out the space for the balance of the day, generating revenue that—combined with an estimated $35,000 that the studio would pay annually in rent—would help New Canaan cover its maintenance costs for the long-vacant structure, according to Bill Oestmann, superintendent of buildings with the Department of Public Works. (Oestmann declined to name the specific studio, though some of what he said indicated it could be the New England Academy of Dance—see below.)

As long discussed, the lower level of the Outback could be configured into office space for the Department of Human Services, an agency that would leave its current home in Vine Cottage so that that building could be sold, Oestmann told members of the Town Council at their regular meeting. Oestmann said he could foresee parents dropping off their kids and then visiting local businesses. “My hope would be if they are waiting, they can park here and shop downtown, so with an hour or two that their children are there, they can hopefully visit the restaurants and shops in town and spend some money,” he said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. 

By the time the dance studio would start up around 4:30 or 5 p.m., he said, Town Hall workers would be finished for the day and the parking lot there empty. 

“There is a little breathing room in that timeframe,” he said.

Government

Town Council Mulls Development of Long-Term Plan for Budgeting

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To aid in the budget process moving forward, the town government may soon be adopting a long-term financial plan (LTFP) which will essentially serve as a forecasting tool. Following the unanimous vote on the final, $151 million fiscal 2018-2019 town budget on Thursday at town hall, the New Canaan Town Council discussed a preliminary document outlining what the proposed five-year plan would include, which was drafted by vice chairman Rich Townsend. The purpose of the plan, as per the draft document, is to “provide all the town funded units the opportunity to participate in setting the financial assumptions and goals for the town” over a five year period. Basically, it would require all town departments and the Board of Education to furnish a five-year forecast including future costs, revenues, goals and needs to the Board of Finance before the budget process commences. “When we went through the budget, there were a lot of things that everybody wanted to do that would help us save money and help us work better with all the other organizations [in town],” Townsend explained after introducing the draft document.