Update on Last Week

A Recap of the Week’s Water Issues in Darien

At the Board of Selectmen meeting on Monday night Bob Steeger from Public Works presented a DRAFT Flood Mitigation Strategy: 17 projects over 5 years at a cost of $10 mil. After a meeting that was closed to the public on Wednesday morning, the cost of the DRAFT plan is $14 mil. It’s a DRAFT. D-R-A-F-T. There is no explanation of what the projects entail, no comments of whether the Town needs easements to carry out the projects, what are the projects (they are itemized on a spreadsheet with titles like “La Forge Road Drainage.” No money has been approved for construction, Darien’s various commissions and boards have not approved the proposal and probably won’t without hearings.

Telling moments of the Board of Selectmen meeting showed how politicized this board is. Ok, it’s an election year, but members are using their position to take barrbed digs at eachother rather than move to either disagree or agree on the issues and move the agenda along. This is not one political party or another. No one is working well together. There’s a lot of whining going on.

If you have almost 5 hours to spare you can catch replays of the EPC meeting on Channel 79. The foremost issuse of the evening was the hearing on a country club in Darien who removed trees without EPC permission. Residents downstream of this facility are complaining of fine sand in their ponds and yards and a shift in the amount of water around their properties. We understand from someone who managed to stay awake that no final ruling was made on the country club case.  The meeting was rescheduled for October 17 to address the other issues that were on the agenda.