Government

Parks Officials Envision New Uses for ‘Colonnade’ at Mead

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With its vantage point overlooking the pond and tennis courts, and enclosed by the columns that recall ancient Greece or Rome, the colonnade at Mead Park could be developed in some way to better serve New Canaanites, parks officials said Wednesday night. It’s a “nice area, and if you start to fix it up, it could be utilized,” Recreation Director Steve Benko said during a regular meeting of the Park & Recreation Commission, held at Lapham Community Center. The town could consider putting “either a paver patio or a flagstone patio, and you could put a couple of Adirondack chairs and round picnic tables with umbrellas, and a lot of people go down to the snack bar and it gets very busy with noise with kids. And it might offer the tennis players a place to go up, grab an iced tea, and sit and chat with their friends. Or somebody brings their lunch up there.

News

New Canaan Baseball Unveils Dramatic Plan To Upgrade Little League Fields at Mead Park

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Officials with the nonprofit organization that oversees youth baseball in New Canaan on Wednesday unveiled a dramatic plan to improve the little league baseball fields at Mead Park with larger dimensions and new fences, light poles, bleacher areas and scoreboard. New Canaan Baseball also is seeking to reorient Gamble Field so that home plate is located where left field currently sits and the diamond fans out in the same general direction as Mellick, according to the organization’s president, Jim Higgins. “Our overall guiding principle in terms of what it is we wanted to accomplish was we wanted to stay generally within the footprint of what is there,” Higgins told members of the Park & Recreation Commission at their regular monthly meeting, held at Lapham Community Center. “We are sensitive to reorganizing anything or disrupting any other part of the park, so the plan that we have come up with is substantially within the existing boundaries of the two fields. A couple of the key goals were drainage, trying to get state-of-the-art drainage and the right materials underneath the grass, because we lose a lot of game days due to rain—and not just on the days it rains, but the drainage is not as good as it could be.

Government

‘This Is a Significant Issue’: Parks Officials Pursue Signage, Regulations at Waveny To Control Drone Use

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Parks officials are ramping up their efforts to rein in the currently unregulated use of drones at Waveny, and may piggyback on an established and vigilant group of aircraft operators there to do so. The prevalence and apparent misuse of drones at the park are posing immediate threats, according to members of the Park & Recreation Commission. Commissioner Matt Konspore said he was at Waveny Pool on Sunday “and it was drone central.”

“They were flying low over the pool,” Konspore said at the group’s regular monthly meeting, held in Lapham Community Center. “It was crazy.”

And police have no real way to address that craziness without conspicuous signage at Waveny instructing drone operators to fly only at specific times and in designated areas, according to Commissioner Kit Devereaux. The group decided to approach the New Canaan Radio Control Society about folding drone operators under its organization.

Around Town

New Canaan YMCA Eyes Waveny for April 2017 Gala; Parks Officials Flag Impact on Lawn

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The town’s decision regarding the New Canaan YMCA’s bid to host a gala at Waveny House next spring will depend, largely, on minimizing the number of days that large canopy tents are standing on the lawn out back, officials said last week. A local organization held a big party there in 2001 and the seven tents needed for check-in, cocktails, dining and food service stayed up for about one week, “so we ended up with seven big yellow squares on the lawn at Waveny,” according to Recreation Director Steve Benko. “It’s feasible,” Benko said at the Park & Recreation Commission’s regular meeting Wednesday, held at Lapham Community Center. “It can work.”

Led by Y member and gala co-chair Kelly DeFrancesco, the South Avenue organization told Park & Rec that the event would mark the end of its five-year capital campaign and renovation and expansion project. Calling Waveny the “perfect” venue for the late-April 2017 gala, DeFrancesco said the evening would include 350 to 400 guests and feature a cocktail hour on the terrace, weather-permitting, a seated dinner, live auction and DJ and dancing.

Government

‘It Is Going To Hurt Us’: Parks Officials Seek Youth Sports’ ‘Fields Usage’ Funds To Fertilize Playing Fields

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New Canaan’s playing fields will suffer this fall if funding doesn’t come through soon to fertilize them, parks officials say. The fields at New Canaan High School and parks such as Waveny and Mead need two applications of fertilizer by the end of June, according to John Howe, parks superintendent in the Department of Public Works. But this year, access to the funds typically available for the work has changed, under a new system whereby the nonprofit organizations that operate each youth sport pay a $20 per-player “fields usage fee” into the town’s General Fund, for re-allocation back to parks, officials said during a meeting last week of the Youth Sports Committee. “If we are not going to see that money for a month, that means I am two months away,” Howe said during the volunteer group’s April 18 meeting, held at Lapham Community Center. “That money is going to come in at the end of the budget year.