News

Tourism Committee: Mid-Century Moderns Association, Consistent Messaging Among Focus Areas

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New Canaan’s cultural heritage should be spotlighted and promoted, according to a volunteer committee of the town. 

The focus of the Tourism and Economic Development Advisory Committee, known as ‘TEDAC,’ includes increasing resident usage of New Canaan’s downtown area and other attractions, and developing communication strategies using existing platforms in order to bring more visibility to what the town can offer, according to members of the committee. 

Addressing the Board of Selectmen at its July 9 meeting, TEDAC Interim Chair Tucker Murphy described some of the research the committee has undertaken. She said the group has taken up a survey of people who have recently moved to New Canaan as well as an economic study of the downtown area. One of the things Murphy said the committee has discovered is that locals “may not fully take advantage of all we have to offer.” 

“If just the people of New Canaan used all the services and all the businesses that were here, we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion,” TEDAC member Robert Doran said at the meeting, held at Town Hall. The question, he added, is “How do we leverage what we have amongst the people who live in town already?”

“And then reach out to other communities to join us,” he said. Murphy referenced a presentation sent to the selectmen prior to the meeting.

Board of Selectmen

Glass House Consultant To Advise New Economic Development Committee

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A consultant who’s been working with a prominent local organization will help advise a new committee focused on boosting tourism and economic development in New Canaan, the town’s highest elected official said this week. An area resident who volunteers with the National Executive Service Corps and is “already up to speed on New Canaan” through work done recently with the Philip Johnson Glass House will advise the town’s Tourism and Economic Development Advisory Committee, or ‘TEDAC,’ First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said. 

“We will agree to pay them $6,000, which in the consulting world is really peanuts, to work for the first year with the group to facilitate their meetings, so we can make it easier on the Committee to focus on what they are trying to establish,” Moynihan said during the Board of Selectmen’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall. The Board voted 3-0 to form TEDAC as a 15-member Committee with members appointed for three years. Its mission is “to study and analyze New Canaan’s local economy and commercial and tourism businesses, and to advise and make recommendations and issue reports to the First Selectman, the Board of Selectman and other town officials, boards and commissions regarding measures the town or such bodies might undertake to promote and develop the local economy and the local business community, including tourism.”

Moyinhan and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams voted in favor of establishing the Committee. Its members are to be appointed at the Board’s Jan.

Board of Selectmen

First Selectman: Town To Create New Canaan ‘Tourism and Economic Development Commission’

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New Canaan’s highest elected official on Tuesday said the town is close to creating a new appointed body that’s responsible for promoting local tourism and economic development. The Tourism and Economic Development Commission could include 10 to 12 people, according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan. “Other towns have this kind of effort,” Moynihan told NewCanaanite.com during an interview moments after a Board of Selectmen meeting at Town Hall. “Ridgefield has an Economic Commission, and also in talking to the Glass House and others, we really need more of a tourism effort.”

The future commission first was mentioned during the selectmen meeting, as the Board voted 3-0 in favor of a $12,347 contract with a company—Revize Software, which describes itself as a government website specialist—to redesign and host the municipal website. 

Christopher Kaiser, the town’s IT director, said during the meeting that Revize had been chosen from among four or five vendors with “extensive municipal website design” experience and that the company seemed like a good fit. He added that it’s been a pleasure and a help to work with the recently appointed Technology Advisory Committee as well as consulting with the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce. 

Randy Dalia, chairman of the Technology Advisory Committee, said a newly designed municipal website is a “technical tool.”

“We still need better marketing, economic development, public relations,” Dalia said, voicing an assertion that the Committee has made before.