News

Taking a Knee: Protest in NFL Comes to New Canaan at St. Luke’s Homecoming Football Game

By |

The protest whereby professional athletes kneel during the national anthem came to New Canaan recently, as a handful of St. Luke’s School students knelt on the field during a homecoming football game, officials confirmed. Mark Davis, head of school at the North Wilton Road private school, said he had been approached by a female student in the choir about 10 days prior to the Oct. 21 football game. The student told him she was thinking about kneeling because she felt its original purpose, starting last season with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick—bringing awareness to and protesting police brutality— had been lost.

Around Town

Eversource: New Canaan Residents Can Influence Natural Gas Expansion Plan In Out Years

By |

Following an initial roll-out of natural gas in New Canaan through 2020—a three-phase project starting next year that will see a trunk line come into town from Stamford, up South Avenue to the business district and then out to East School, with nearby residences along the way—property owners themselves can influence just where the utility brings natural gas, officials say. For Eversource—at least through 2024, under a state-backed expansion plan—the question of where in New Canaan the gas lines will go is in some ways a math equation, according to John Ferrelli, the company’s Waterbury-based supervisor of business account services: The cost of installation must be offset by the load delivered. “Customer demand will dictate the path of opportunity beyond the initial outline, as well as new construction and conversions,” Ferrelli told members of the Town Council at their regular meeting. “Future growth potential will be driven by customer interest, customer demand,” Ferrelli said at the July 19 meeting, held at Town Hall. “And that’s where the company will look to expand [starting in 2020].

Around Town

Meet Charlie Hobbs, NewCanaanite.com Summer Intern

By |

What follows is a short question-and-answer session with our summer intern, Charlie Hobbs. A fourth-generation New Canaanite, Charlie graduated this year from St. Luke’s School and is headed in the fall to Vassar College. He earned the NewCanaanite.com internship from among a competitive pool of outstanding applicants following an interview and test assignment. Charlie’s articles have already started appearing on the site and he will contribute to the site through the summer.

Government

P&Z Denies Grace Farms’ Bid To Host Other Organizations’ Sports Programs

By |

Saying it would be a slap in the faces of concerned neighbors and citing the awkward timing of the request, officials on Monday night turned down Grace Farms’ bid to host other organizations’ multiple youth and adult sports activities in its own gymnasium over the next six months. Grace Farms already had applied to amend its operating permit in order to allow for wide-ranging activities that have been taking place on its Lukes Wood Road campus, and OK’ing the use of its gym by other organizations—in this case, the New Canaan YMCA and St. Luke’s School—would be very bad timing because that application is pending, according to members of the Planning & Zoning Commission. Though P&Z may, under Grace Farms’ current permit, make special allowances for such a use, “if there was ever a time you would not want to do it, it is now, while we are considering altering a special permit for Grace Farms,” P&Z commissioner Jack Flinn said during the group’s special meeting, held at Town Hall. “I think it is not incidental.

News

St. Luke’s Plans New Turf Field for Baseball, Soccer

By |

St Luke’s School is seeking to install a synthetic turf field for baseball and soccer where a grass playing field now lays, according to an application that’s scheduled to come before the Planning & Zoning Commission Thursday. The turf field is not designed to expand athletic programs, will include no lighting or loudspeakers and “will not result in any significant increase in surface runoff from the site,” the school said. “The inclusion of a large, porous stone reservoir beneath the field will effectively capture and detain rainfall entering the turf field, promoting groundwater recharge and attenuating peak discharge to the piped system from this area,” according a report from Andover, Mass.-based SMRT. “The runoff and routing calculations demonstrate that the development will not result in any significant increase in the peak runoff from the site during design storm events of 2-year, 10-year, 25-year and 100-year return periods; therefore the project will have no significant impacts to downstream resources or receiving waters.”

St. Luke’s is seeking a Special Permit, as required under section 6.4.G of the New Canaan Zoning Regulations (page 115 here), to excavate more than 1,000 cubic yards of cubic earth and disturb more than 10,000 square feet of soil. In addition to the field, plans call for a new fenced backstop, first-base dugout, expanded concrete area for portable bleachers and relocation of the existing scoreboard to the would-be centerfield.