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Councilman Calls for New Canaan To Make Decisions on ‘Under-Utilized’ Town-Owned Buildings

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A member of New Canaan’s legislative body is calling for municipal officials to examine whether it’s time to offload town-owned structures that she described as “under-utilized.”

Town Councilman Penny Young said Monday that “it is really time to look a little more in-depth” at “some of these buildings which are under-utilized or which we should be offloading.”

“Other than the swing space for a possible need for the police, what do we do with the Irwin House?” Young said during a regular meeting of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure, held via videoconference. “Because it’s really not that great a structure. So maybe the recommendation is that after the police have use of it, it’s demolished. So I think we really need to take a good look. What is happening with Vine Cottage?

Government

Moynihan: Movie Operators, Others Interested in Playhouse

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New Canaan already has received several calls from movie operators and others interested in The Playhouse on Elm Street, the town’s highest elected official said Monday. Though there’s “a lot of sentiment because it’s good to have a movie theater in town,” according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan, “we can certainly look at other opportunities to do active performance type things there.”

He spoke during a regular meeting of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure, held via videoconference. Moynihan was responding to a suggestion from Committee member Stuart Sawabini that the group review the use of town-owned buildings. 

“The movie theater—is it good utilization to bring the theater back?” Sawabini said. “You go right around the town and there’s a long list of buildings, and I just wonder whether periodically it would be advisable for us to go back and look at building utilization and see what we can do to either improve or sell off buildings that we are not using,” he said. Moynihan disclosed last week that Bow Tie Cinemas is terminating its lease for The Playhouse, which closed mid-March amid the onset of COVID-19 virus.

Board of Education

June 15 Graduation Parade Planned for NCHS Class of 2020

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[Note: The parade will kick off from NCHS at 11 a.m.]

New Canaan High School seniors will participate in a community-wide parade to mark the milestone of their graduation in lieu of the accustomed ceremony at Dunning Field, ruled out this year due to the COVID-19 public health emergency, district officials say. To be lined with banners spotlighting each student in the Class of 2020, the June 15 parade will start at NCHS travel up South Avenue to Cherry Street, then turn back toward Main and Farm Roads and finish in Waveny, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi told members of the Board of Education during a regular meeting held June 1. “As students pull into Waveny and crest the hill, we will have our faculty and staff lined up here for a final wave goodbye,” Luizzi said during the meeting, held via videoconference. “As you know, our graduation is so special. One of the things I love about it, at the very end after receiving their diplomas, teachers recess out first and form two lines and then the kids come through they have one more chance to give them hugs, shake their hands, give them high-fives.

News

Small Women’s Locker Room at Police HQ Limits Ability To Hire More Female Officers

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The female locker room at the police station—a 1926 building that hasn’t seen a substantial renovation in nearly four decades—is so small that the department may not be able to hire more women, officials said last week. At six female officers, the New Canaan Police Department now has more women in uniform than it ever has in its history, “and it’s a good thing happening to us,” according to Police Chief Leon Krolikowski. Yet “there is a limitation in our female locker room, because we may not be able to put on any more female officers because there’s just not enough room,” he said during a Jan. 9 meeting of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure. “So that’s just another thing that nobody ever planned for.

Dr. Bryan Luizzi

Despite Opposition, First Selectman Presses Idea of New Police Station at Saxe Field

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Though fellow members of the Board of Selectmen are voicing strong opposition, New Canaan’s highest elected official this week has pushed the idea of building a new police station on a Saxe Middle School field where a baseball diamond now stands. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan during budget discussions on Thursday questioned the superintendent of schools about the demand for athletic fields at Saxe and later pressed the recreation director about the prospect of building a replacement baseball diamond at Kiwanis Park. Referring to a grass lot at the Old Norwalk Road park, Moynihan told Recreation Director Steve Benko during a budget presentation to the selectmen at Town Hall, “What I have raised is the possibility of building a ballpark there.”

Benko responded that the area “is not big enough” because it lacks the 205 feet down a right-field line and 225 feet to center field that the current diamond at Saxe has. 

“If you are trying to replicate what we have at Saxe … we do not have that distance,” Benko said. “I taped it out. And someone said to cut into the hillside there, but the problem with the hillside is there’s a rural pond back there.”

Moynihan responded that former Police Commissioner Stuart Sawabini—who brought forward the idea of building a new police headquarters on the Saxe field–also had measured it, as had the parks superintendent. 

Benko said, “I don’t think they have the right measurements.”

The first selectman mentioned Sawabini’s proposal during a press briefing last week, generating wide discussion in town.