New Canaan s first Board of Education referendum in 30 years fails. Now what?
Grace Duffield
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Proponents of voting yes and those voting no both had tables outside New Canaan High School where residents and property owners voted on the school budget referendum Wednesday, June 2.Grace Duffield / Hearst Connecticut Media
New Canaan Schools Superintendent Bryan Luizzi promised a “positive outreach” to help the community adjust to changes in school times after a referendum initiated to disable the new school hours failed last week.
The Board of Education reaffirmed the start time Scenario A, on Monday, June 7, which was the basis for the $463,337 targeted for more buses to change start times in the $92.3 million 2021-22 budget,
Since emerging out of lockdown I have tried my hardest to shop at as many local shops as I can, and to prop up our local businesses.
I have also tried to dine in as many local restaurants as I can, as I know what a struggle the last 15 months must have been for them.
After losing two family members to COVID-19, we appreciated our strong town leadership through this crisis and our governor as well, who worked to keep us safe and well.
I am so proud to say that there are many aspects of our wonderful town that have made things easier during a very tough year.
District officials this month will review more specifics of a proposal to change school start times in New Canaan prior to formally planning for its implementation in the middle of next academic year, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi said Monday night.
The district, including Transportation Coordinator Roy Walder, will meet with the bus company and then will then “be able to share the routes and times with more specificity,” Luizzi told members of the Board of Education during their regular meeting, held via videoconference.
Citing a reference document that Town Clerk Claudia Weber prepared regarding a potential referendum vote on Board of Ed funding, Luizzi noted that the town in any case is not empowered to dictate how the schools spend funds on a line-item basis.
Claims have been made that the proposed new library could bring in $6.6M to local businesses. I just discovered the economic impact study behind that number is posted on the Town’s web site. It makes for interesting reading. One issue is that $6.6M is the high estimate; the low estimate is only $346K. A bigger issue is that there is a major flaw in the logic, making the results meaningless.
The report summarizes how they arrived at the number. Here’s the gist of it: Basically, they did a survey of library patrons in June-July 2019. Survey questions asked if they patronized other local businesses or activities while in town for their current/last trip to the library (58% said ‘yes’) and, if so, which businesses (generically; the survey provided a long list of types of businesses) and approximately how much did they spend at each of those businesses. The New Canaan Library automatically tallies the number of people entering the doors (800-1000 daily, no elimination of d