Not enough signatures for vote on $10M for new library project
NEW CANAAN — There are too few signatures to prompt a referendum, which were collected in an effort to upend a vote taken by Town Council to appropriate $10 million toward the new library, according to Town Clerk Claudia Weber Monday.
The number of signatures “did not meet the number of signatures required to call for a referendum. Although there were more than 528 signatures of support, it fell short of the required 689,” Weber told Hearst.
The petitioners would have needed to file the required signatures by the end of the day to prompt a referendum that, if successful, would have stopped allocated town funds from being given to the New Canaan Library for the $38 million library project.
Town Council approved the $10 million grant in August, as well as a line of credit, or loan, and a Memorandum of Understanding.
Supporters of the petition filed 50 qualifying signatures in September to start the process, as mandated by the Town Charter.
Plans for the new building call for a teaching kitchen, co-working areas, a maker space, larger reading areas for young members, transitional meeting rooms, a large living room with a fireplace and a business center. It will also have a lab to be used for robotics, circuitry and 3D printing.
Though the New Canaan Preservation Alliance has been disappointed by the plans not to preserve the 1913 library in situ, the group did not support this petition for referendum, according to New Canaan Preservation Alliance President NeeleBanks Stichnoth.
The alliance “took a vote on it a while ago and determined we are not interested in stopping the construction of the new project,” Stichnoth said when the intent for referendum was first filed.
The alliance currently has an appeal filed on the Planning and Zoning Department’s decision on the extent of the library’s preservation of the 1913 Library on its campus. The new library plans currently call for a green space where the disputed portion of the building currently stands.