Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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New Canaan Fire Company #1 recognized members of the volunteer company as well as career staff for excellence in service to their community at the 135th Annual Dinner, held Friday night at Waveny House. Scroll through the gallery above for photos of award recipients, and other photos, in this week’s DYH gallery. ***

In opinions published this week in the Connecticut Law Journal, the state Supreme Court reinstated a second-degree breach of peace charge against Teri Buhl, a New Canaan woman who had been convicted of the misdemeanor offense (as well as a second-degree harassment charge), and later had it overturned in a state appellate court. Briefly, police arrested Buhl after determining that she had harassed a New Canaan teen—the daughter of a man she was dating at the time—in part through use of a fake Facebook account. An Appellate Court in initially overturning the breach of peace conviction “concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support her breach of the peace conviction because the state had not proven that the Facebook posts were publicly exhibited.” Yet the state Supreme Court disagreed with that assessment. Its opinion states: “We further conclude that the breach of the peace conviction must be reinstated because the trial court reasonably could have found that the state had met its burden of proving the other elements of the crime at trial, namely, that: (1) the defendant was the person who posted M’s diary entries on Facebook; and (2) the defendant intended to ‘inconvenience, [annoy] or alarm’ [the teenage girl] by posting her diary entries on Facebook.” See PDF below for the court’s full decision.

Government

P&Z To Cyclists Group Proposing Donated Road Safety Signs: No Thank You

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Calling the design of a proposed sign urging motorists to give cyclists a 3-foot berth ineffective and overly promotional, town officials say they’ll pass on a private group’s offer to supply the signs for free. The Planning & Zoning Commission at its most recent meeting voted 6-0 to forego the offer from the Sound Cyclists Bicycle Club. Commissioner Elizabeth DeLuca, head of the group’s sign subcommittee, told officials from the club that “we are not OK with your sign because it is not effective, it is not visible” and that Town Attorney Ira Bloom had advised against posting publicly a sign that includes the name of a private group. “Ira recommended that there be no group name on the sign,” DeLuca said at the July 28 meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at New Canaan Nature Center. Technically speaking, P&Z’s “No” vote is a sense of the commission rather than a hard denial to the cycling group, which includes some 40 New Canaanites, its officials say.

Government

Planning Officials Raise Questions about Proposed Motorist-Bicyclist Signs

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Asked to weigh in on whether New Canaan should place signs around town instructing motorists to give a legally required 3-foot berth to cyclists, planning officials on Tuesday raised questions about the proposed sign itself, how it’s mounted, just what streets would get one and the timing of its possible installment. Planning & Zoning Commissioner Claire Tiscornia said she’s all for safety but that the specific sign developed by the Sound Cyclists Bicycle Club could confuse passing motorists. “To me that looks like a school bus sign—the sign with the bus and the little light,” Tiscornia said at P&Z’s regular meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. “For me, if I was driving down the road, I would think, ‘Why is that school bus sign there?’ And I think it’s a little small. I’m not sure if I was driving by that I would think ‘Share the road.’ I would look at the bike sign and then either it’s too small for me to read or I would just go right past it.