Government

Op-Ed: New Canaan Democrat Liz Donovan Announces Candidacy for Town Council

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New Canaan is my hometown. Fortunate enough to be born and raised here, I went off to college at Princeton after graduating from NCHS in 1977, and spent the next few decades in New Jersey. There I raised my family of adopted and foster children and held various volunteer positions in my Princeton class and the Boy Scouts, all while working full time and managing a family equestrian operation for 20 years. Yet during that time I was still connected here through my family—I am the youngest daughter of Harvard Five architect Landis Gores, who settled here in 1947 with my mother Pam and four siblings. I returned to New Canaan full-time in 2014 with my husband, Professor Craig Donovan, to live with my mom in my childhood home, the first house my father designed, now on the National Historic Registry.

Government

Op-Ed: New Canaan Republican Penny Young Seeks to Retain Town Council Seat

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Community service is an integral part of my DNA, so as the municipal election season got underway, it was a natural decision for me to ask the voters to re-elect me to the Town Council. As I look at the issues facing the town today, some have had a long shelf life and really need to either be birthed or dismissed. Others are new and require deep research and creative thinking to get them out of the starting gate and on their way to approvals. Over my tenure on the Town Council I’ve dealt with a range of issues; it is this deep and broad experience and institutional knowledge that will be valuable in establishing a framework within which to germinate solutions to today’s challenges. My husband, Bob, and I are longtime members of New Canaan.

Government

Online Petition Opposing Cell Tower Proposal Garners 100-Plus Digital Signatures

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More than 100 digital signatures have been added to an online petition urging residents to oppose an early-stage proposal to improve cell service in New Canaan by installing towers in a public park and on school grounds. Posted through a Change.org account with an anonymous username, the petition describes the proposed 110-foot towers as “gigantic monopoles”—though just what type of towers they would be, if approved, is undecided—that will spoil views and property values. Though neighbors who attended a public meeting this week of the Utilities Commission—the advisory group of volunteer residents charged with proposing ways to improve cell service in New Canaan—put questions and concerns about the towers directly to its members, the petition makes the assertion that “the town will not allow the safety of these towers to be debated, believing that the government’s proclamation of their safety has laid that argument to rest.”

In truth, the Town Council is expected to hear from the Utilities Commission at its own April 20 meeting. During their meeting Wednesday night, members of the Town Council discussed the best way to sequence and accomplish the twin goals of supplying information to residents and soliciting their feedback—preferably in that order, in hopes that accomplishing one may improve the other. Unsigned by its author, the petition appears under the rather ambitious username ‘New Canaan Residents, Tax Payers and Voters.’ It had garnered 129 signatures as of early Thursday evening, and among those who commented on the petition, more than 80 percent identified themselves as New Canaan residents.

Around Town

Officials: Pushback from Neighbors on Stop Signs Planned for Elm and Weed Streets

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A plan to install stop signs for Weed Street motorists approaching the intersection at Elm is meeting with resistance from some neighborhood residents, officials said last week. Designed to make it safe for pedestrians using soon-to-be-striped crosswalks that will connect to a new sidewalk running up the west side of Weed Street to Irwin Park, the stop signs could back up traffic, neighbors fear, according to Tiger Mann, director of the Department of Public Works. “The traffic would back up all the way back to Irwin, and then gum up that intersection, especially since there is another stop sign at Frogtown Road intersection,” Mann told members of the Town Council at their March 22 meeting, held at Town Hall. “So to try and stop twice in a small span of time would affect traffic flow.”

The comments came during a discussion of the DPW’s funding request for sidewalk installations and improvements for next fiscal year. The Board of Finance approved $300,000 in spending for sidewalks in fiscal year 2018, town documents show (see page 50 here).

Around Town

New Canaan Treasurer: Former Municipal Employees Retained ‘Login Access’ To Town Bank Accounts

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A number of town workers retained login access to town bank accounts even after their employment with the municipality had ended, New Canaan’s treasurer said Wednesday night. In working to ensure that town bank accounts are properly secured, Treasurer Andrew Brooks phoned banks to understand “who are the authorized approvers to move money from those accounts” and found that “a number of former employees, some of whom were very high up in the food chain of the town,” had not been moved from the accounts, he said during a regular meeting of New Canaan’s legislative body. “So I rectified the issue and got those former employees … removed from having any access potentially to those accounts and have their names scrubbed from the account, and I just did that exercise today,” Brooks told members of the Town Council during the group’s meeting, held at Town Hall. The extent of the problem is unknown to Brooks—there are town bank accounts to which he has no access, he said.