Memorial Field Receiving a Summer Fixup

Refurbishment of the G. Carl Veith Memorial Field basketball court off Broadway is scheduled to begin the first week of June, as a strong schedule of public works' projects adds to the department’s normal warm-weather activities.

“We’ve got so many things going on at this point.  There is a bunch of detailed stuff,” said Victor Palma, the ’ director of field operations.  “We’ve got to spruce up the fields . . . and the town green—spiff it up, putting down mulch and weeding.  It’s quite complex, keeping up with the fields and normal activities. Just a number . . . a number of things.”

At a cost of $9,000, the DPW will fix the cracks and also repaint and reline the surface on the G. Carl Veith Memorial Field basketball court, which is lit for public use, according to the Department of Parks & Recreation, until 9 p.m.

Palma acknowledged the DPW had heard from North Haven citizens concerning the condition of the court that abuts the soccer field in the shadow of I-91.  “We received several complaints from the public,” Palma said of the impetus for the project, which the DPW expects to complete over the course of two weeks.

He acknowledged that rainy weather was a condition at odds with much of its agenda, such as the paving in July and August of eight miles of North Haven roads whose list the town has yet to determine.  Still, he said the wet weather has put at least one ongoing DPW project to the test—this, the drainage project on Stoddard Avenue by Elm Street.   

There, the crews had finished installing a drainage pipe by mid-May. “We beat the weather there nicely,” Palma said.  He said DPW crews would return to the street to put a binding course down in the next couple of weeks and, he hoped, pave the top by the end of June.   “We haven’t had any floods,” he said of the area’s condition during the recent storms, even though a “Road Floods” sign still lingered near the intersection over Memorial Day weekend.  “That is working good.”

Garage Overhaul

Another project the DPW must tackle is the relocation of the sanitation garage to 110 Elm St.  Palma said staff needs the structure by August 1 because the new owner of the structure the town has leased at its current location had given North Haven until August to move out.  Palma said the department has met with the contractor for the new garage and is “moving forward with it at this point.” 

The garage is the first of a for which the town approved bonding in a referendum earlier this year.

Assistance from the state in the form of a Small Town Economic Assistance Program or STEAP grant in the amount of roughly $95,000 will, according to Lynn Sadosky, DPW director, fund the on Skiff Street from Van Rose Drive to Whitney Avenue.

Sadusky said the project, which will place sidewalks on both sides of the street, is scheduled for completion by the end of July. 

Also on the DPW’s summer to-do list is dredging Todd’s Pond off Maple Avenue, although that project, Sadusky said, still awaits permitting from the Inland Wetlands Commission. 

And what if wet weather persists just as the DPW enters an ambitious season of work?  “We’ll deal with it,” Field Operations Director Palma said.