Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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Congratulations to the Pauley family on the birth of baby girl Peyton Ann Elaine Joyner. The daughter of Michael Joyner and Lauren Pauley—and granddaughter of recently retired New Canaan Tree Warden Bruce Pauley and his wife, Elaine—Peyton was born at 10:04 p.m. on July 14 at Norwalk Hospital. Lauren Pauley is a 2000 Trinity Catholic High School graduate. The Joyner family resides in Stamford. ***

New Canaan High School 2015 graduate and football standout Zach Allen will wear No.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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New Canaan on Thursday put a lien on the Forest Street property cited for violating the town’s blight ordinance. Signed by Blight Officer Brian Platz, the town’s chief building official, the 1829-built multi-family home at 74 Forest St. is deteriorating and its .3-acre property is unkempt. The “Blight Lien and Certification of Continuing Lien” notice in the Town Clerk’s office says that $9,800 was owed as of May 22 and $100 per day additional is to be assessed as of that date (bringing the total to $11,500 as of Monday, June 8). ***

More than 40 residents attended NewCanaanite.com’s inaugural Community Coffee on Friday, and the sole topic of discussion for the hour-long talk was the Pop Up Park downtown, suspended by the committee that created and managed it after some merchants raised concerns about traffic and the makeshift plaza’s effect on business.

Around Town

Rotary Club of New Canaan Announces 2015 Grant Opportunities

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The Rotary Club of New Canaan is accepting applications from New Canaan and area nonprofit organizations for grants to fund special projects, capital improvements, new initiatives, as well as, in some cases, operating funds. Applicants are requested to provide the following information:

Name of the nonprofit
Contact name with email address and phone number. A brief history of the applying organization, its mission, and major accomplishments within the last year
The specific dollar amount requested and a description of the purpose for which funding is sought
State if grant funds will cover the whole project or a portion of it
A demographic description of the population who will benefit
Please indicate how your program participants will benefit from this funding
A statement as to whether or not there are service project opportunities for Rotarians
Evidence of the organization’s 501c(3) status

The deadline for applications is April 10, 2015. Please send grant applications to:

Ms. Amy Wilkinson, Allocations Chair

Grant Distributions 2015
Rotary Club of New Canaan
PO Box 62
New Canaan, CT 06840

Please also submit your application electronically to the following email address: allocations@newcanaanrotary.org. If you have any questions regarding this process, please contact Amy via this email address.

News

Smoke, CO Detector and Batteries Giveaway Saturday at New Canaan Fire Department

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Fire officials are urging New Canaan residents turning back their clocks this weekend to swap out the batteries in their smoke and carbon monoxide detectors at the same time. Free batteries (three per household) will be made available at the Fire Department’s Main Street headquarters from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, according to Fire Marshal Fred Baker. The giveaway, part of a nationwide “Change Your Clocks—Change Your Batteries” campaign (daylight savings ends at 2 a.m. Sunday), is the result of a generous donation from the department as well as the Rotary Club of New Canaan, he said. “Additionally, Kidde Corporation has donated smoke detectors and CO detectors, which are available to residents who need them—also free of charge,” he said (again, a limit of three per household). The detectors often prevent tragedies involving loss of life and property, Baker said—earlier this month, residents at a home that experienced a basement fire were alerted to it by an alarm.

Board of Selectmen

Five Years On: New Canaan Chamber’s Tucker Murphy Shepherds Community, Commerce with ‘Positive High Energy’

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Here’s a word that lifelong New Canaanite Beth Jones—a 1974 New Canaan High School graduate who serves on the Board of Selectmen and belongs to the Kiwanis Club of New Canaan and League of Women Voters—used Friday to describe the positive changes brought to our community by the Chamber of Commerce these past five years: “Unbelievable.”

Splintered at the time Tucker Murphy took over as executive director, with a business-led group that called itself the “New Canaan Village Association” breaking off to create the now-annual Holiday Stroll and push for more activity, the chamber today is credited not only with mending the rift and boosting the visibility of local businesses through new events, but also with creating something that’s difficult to describe—a kind of inclusiveness, feeling of shared mission and connection among not just businesses but also nonprofit groups, community organizations, individuals and the town itself. Thursday marked exactly five years since Murphy took over as executive director at the chamber—bringing in marketing associate Laura Soper Budd along the way. Asked to describe what they’ve seen happen in that time, business and town leaders credit Murphy’s enthusiasm, vitality, creativity and sense of community in forging an enviably active, mutually supportive membership. “She’s just a fabulous spokesperson for the businesses, the community, the town itself,” Jones said. “She just loves New Canaan.”

Asked about the change herself, Murphy said one touchstone for what’s happening is the fact that one new business here, Mrs. Green’s, contacted the chamber itself (and joined) entirely on its own.