News

District Wants To Use ‘Outback’ Building for Alternative High School Program

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Officials from New Canaan Public Schools on Thursday discussed publicly for the first time a proposal that would see the long-vacant Outback building behind Town Hall used to house a new alternative special education program. During a meeting of the Town Building Evaluation and Use Committee, held at Town Hall, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi revealed that the school administration has for the past year been developing a new alternative special education program designed to bring out-placed students back in-district. The goal in developing the program, he said, is to improve special education in New Canaan and to realize potential operational savings. He told the committee—which is charged with reviewing the uses, physical condition and capital needs of more than 40 town-owned structures (not including school buildings)—that the former teen center would be an ideal location for such a program because it is the right size and centrally located in town. “[There] is the possibility of that building being used for students in the future—as a way to house a small alternative program that we are discussing at the Board of Ed, internally,” Luizzi told the committee members.

Government

‘They Need To Be Separate’: Town Officials Weigh Future of Human Services’ Vine Cottage Home

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Should their current base of operations be sold or otherwise offloaded, the municipal employees who work out of Vine Cottage on Main Street likely could not re-locate into Town Hall due to the sensitive nature of their jobs, officials say. Members of the Human Services Department “feel very strongly that they need to be separate from the Town Hall because of confidentiality issues and the clients that they are dealing with,” according to Penny Young, co-chair of the Town Building Evaluation and Use Committee. “And that is why they were not incorporated into this redesign of Town Hall,” Young said at the committee’s most recent meeting, held Sept. 28 at Town Hall. “So that needs to stay uppermost in our mind, is their function and their need for being separate from Town Hall.”

It isn’t clear just where the department, whose staff includes senior outreach and social workers, would move to if displaced from Vine Cottage.

Government

Committee: 20 Percent of Space in Town-Owned Buildings Is Currently Unused

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About 20 percent of space in town-owned, non-district buildings is now unused, and another 25 percent need major repairs, officials said last week. Just what the town should do about that empty space, and what capital maintenance it should invest in, are major questions facing New Canaan, according to Amy Murphy Carroll. “I think everything jumps out to you with just the amount of square footage that is vacant,” Carroll, a co-chair of the Town Building Evaluation & Use Committee, said during the group’s Sept. 28 special meeting. “And I will throw this out: I mean if things are not needed—and ‘need’ is a relative thing—sometimes it costs money to own more and the cost to tear down is not going to go down,” she added at the meeting, held in Town Hall.

Government

‘I Have To Say It’s Disgusting’: Town Committee Member Slams Waveny Pool Locker Rooms

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The locker rooms at Waveny Pool are dirty, smelly and stuffy, and some of those who use the popular facility end up elsewhere as a result, a member of a town-appointed committee said Thursday. Their poor condition “has been brought up before,” according to Christa Kenin, a member of the Town Building Evaluation & Use Committee. “I have tons – having spent the last six summers there, pretty much every single day—have a lot of knowledge on this matter, and there is a general great dissatisfaction with the locker rooms,” Kenin said during the public meeting—the committee’s first in three months—held at Town Hall. “I have to say it’s disgusting,” she said during the two-hour meeting. “I hate to use that word.

Government

Town-Appointed Committee Advised That Summer Meetings Were Unlawful

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Though the state has yet to issue a formal decision on the matter, town officials on Thursday said they’ve been advised that subcommittee meetings held out of the public eye this summer were illegal. The Town Building Evaluation & Use Committee is charged with studying the uses, physical condition and capital needs of some 44 town-owned structures in New Canaan, excluding school buildings. Appointed in February, the seven-member committee is expected this fall to produce a report with wide consequences for the town, shaping the future of buildings such as the former Outback Teen Center, Waveny House, Playhouse and Vine Cottage by offering options that may include using them in new ways or even selling or razing them. Though the committee has not met as a whole group since June 28, its members continued their work through the summer—specifically, conducting site visits to public buildings in smaller “teams” to meet with municipal officials and gather information for the final report. None of those meetings were noticed as such and so they were not open to the public.