Government

Public Works: Town Workers Here To Help Those Seeking To Use New ‘Swap Shop’ Apply for Transfer Station Permit Online

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Town officials say residents seeking to use the recently launched Swap Shop at the Transfer Station can get help obtaining a permit for the facility in multiple ways. For New Canaanites unable to access or use the online system through the town’s website for a Transfer Station permit—a requirement to use the Swap Shop at the Lakeview Avenue facility—there are municipal workers ready to help. “If you can’t access it online, and perform it online, I have three people—one in my office, one in our special projects office and then Donnie Smith down at the Transfer Station—that will actually walk you through the process and help you fill it out online in front of him,” according to Tiger Mann. “We do ask that you have it only because we’re trying to make sure that the Station is used correctly and that we monitor goods coming and going,” Mann told members of the Conservation Commission at their regular meeting, held Feb. 9 at Town Hall and via videoconference. 

His comments came in response to remarks from Commissioner Ann Silvio, who said she’s seen chatter on Facebook about the “difficulty of getting a pass.”

Silvio noted that residents pay the same annual fee regardless of when during the fiscal year they purchase a pass.

Board of Selectmen

Town Seeks To Add New Trails in Waveny

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Town officials say they want to create at least two new trails within Waveny as well as a more formal pedestrian entrance to the southern portion of the park. The first new trail would cross from an existing one near the pedestrian crosswalk at the Saxe baseball field to the turf playing fields of New Canaan High School, officials said during the Board of Selectmen’s regular meeting Tuesday. A more formal pedestrian entrance to the park opposite Conrad
Road also would be installed, they said, with a new trail leading into the southeastern corner of the park and former “cornfields” area, which has been restored as a meadow. The project also would include a “maintenance upgrade of the northeast section, behind the high school and up to Farm Road,” Greg Reilly, the town’s grant writer, said during the selectmen meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. A final part of the project would provide funding to study options for a “buffer between the Merritt Parkway and the southern part of the trail, something that the [Waveny Park] Conservancy has talked about as something they’d like to achieve,” Reilly said.

Government

Town Approves $13,800 Contract for Boiler Replacement at Nature Center

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The Board of Selectmen at its most recent meeting approved a $13,800 contract with a Danbury-based company for the emergency replacement of a boiler at the New Canaan Nature Center. The selectmen during its Feb. 7 meeting voted 3-0 in favor of the contract with Eastern Mechanical Services, which installed a new “Navien Combi Boiler” in the Animal Care Center at the Oenoke Ridge organization. The boiler had failed in mid- to late-December “and we had to replace it obviously since we were in the middle of winter,” according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. 

“We changed over from an oil to a propane, so we can actually remove the oil tanks,” Mann said during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “And we had [First Selectman] Kevin [Moynihan] sign it since it was an emergency basis, and then we are bringing it here for your approval.

Government

Town Approves $12,000 Contract for Design of Wetland Boardwalk at Irwin

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Town officials this month approved a $12,000 contract with an Avon-based firm to design a proposed new boardwalk in Irwin Park. The Board of Selectmen voted 3-0 in favor of the contract with Richter & Cegan at its Feb. 7 meeting. 

The company had done “the original master plan and did the original Flexi-pave trail so they’re intimately involved or aware of the park itself,” Public Works Director Tiger Mann said at the meeting, held in Town Hall and via videoconference. He added that the boardwalk—planned for the southwest corner of the Weed Street park—had been part of the original larger plan but was removed for monetary reasons. “This was actually in the first part of the master plan that was there, and then when we did the trail work initially, we took that out as a ‘value engineering’ portion of the project,” Mann said.

Board of Selectmen

Town Approves $20,000 for New Sidewalks, Including More ‘Bump-Outs’ on Elm

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Town officials on Tuesday approved an approximately $20,000 contract to purchase the materials needed to finish the first phase of sidewalk “bump-outs” on Elm Street. As it is, the sidewalk has been widened on the north side of Elm Street from the Ralph Lauren store to Le Pain Quotidien. The project calls for that bump-out to be extended to the area out in front of The Playhouse, Public Works Director Tiger Mann said during the Board of Selectmen’s regular meeting. “We’ll finish that once The Playhouse construction is done in front and then we’re going to jump to the opposite side,” he said during the selectmen meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “And that is where the savings are in parking spaces.