Hours have been extended for dropping off donations for victims of Hurricane Helene today (Tuesday), at Stop & Shop.
Items will be accepted now through 2:30 p.m.
The drive is being conducted by the Westport Rotary Club and Westport Sunrise Rotary.
The list of desperately needed items is long. It includes food and other supplies; tools and equipment; other essentials, and medical supplies. Click here for a full list.
In other Helene news, the Y’s Men of Westport/Weston have raised enough money to buy 10 generators for North Carolina.
Money continues to pour in.
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Jaden Waldman is spending his fall afternoons playing freshman soccer at Staples High School. The team is great, but they don’t attract many fans — just a few parents and friends.
Jaden will be seen by exponentially more people this fall in another role: as the younger Dr. Oliver Wolf, Zachary Quinto’s character on NBC’s new series “Brilliant Minds.”
Based on Dr. Oliver Sacks — the exceptionally gifted neurologist who suffers from a rare condition that gives him a unique perspective on care — it airs Mondays at 10 p.m., then streams the following day on Peacock.
The teenager — who goes by Jaden Myles Waldman professionally — is equally at home on the soccer pitch and the stage. He debuted in 2021 (after a pandemic delay) in “Caroline, or Change.”
His other credits include “Ne Zha,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Plot Against America,” “Give or Take,” “Confetti,” and as Peter Pinkerton in “Pinkalicious & Peterrific.”
Jaden may be best known for his voice role as TO-B1 in the Emmy-nominated “Star Wars: Visions,” and Kun in the Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated movie “Mirai.”
Next up: a guest role on “Law & Order: SVU” October 24.
Jaden Waldman, in “Brilliant Minds.”
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And on TV right now: Jeffrey Pogue.
The 2023 Staples High School graduate was featured on the premiere of the new “Scrabble” game show.
For good reason: He’s a national Scrabble champion.
Producers flew Jeffrey — now a Brown University sophomore — to London this summer, for one day of shooting.
How did he do? Click here to see for yourself.
But we will say this: His father, David Pogue — a noted TV personality himself — is proud.
Very proud.
Yesterday’s Roundup included an item about signs from Huntington Learning Center and the Patch Boys that marred Kings Highway Colonial Cemetery.
Brian Rivel, who owns Huntington with his wife, notes that he did not place or dispose of his sign there.
“I was dismayed to read that,” he says. “We would never put a sign in a cemetery.”
Huntington Learning Center on Post Road East.
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The Downtown Plan Implementation Committee will hold a public meeting this Thursday (October 10, 8:30 a.m., Town Hall Room 201/201A).
Agenda items include the Jesup Green, Imperial Avenue and police station parking lots, and the parking study and feasibility analysis.
Remote and in-person comments from the public will be received as time is available. Comments can also be emailed to DPIC-comments@westportct.gov.
The future of the police station is one key to the development of a new downtown parking plan.
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Speaking of local politics: The Board of Finance regularly votes on big appropriations — our tax dollars at work.
But they don’t just study spreadsheets and grill town officials. Sometimes, they take field trips to better understand funding requests.
This Friday (October 11, noon), BOF members head to Old Mill Beach. They’ll walk on the pedestrian bridges and examine the tidal gates. It’s part of a request for $5,580,000 from the Public Works Department director, to rehabilitate the walkway and structure.
One of the 2 Sherwood Mill Pond tidal gates. (Photo/Phil Delano)
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There are only 78 days until Christmas
And just one month — 28 days — till Election Day.
Early voting takes place Monday, October 21 through Sunday, November 3, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Town Hall auditorium.
On October 29 and 31, the hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Voting on Election Day (Tuesday, November 5), is from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., at regular polling places. Click here to view a district map.
Registrations done online, at the Department of Motor Vehicles or by mail must be completed (postmarked or received by the Westport Registrar of Voters by October 18.
All applications to register to vote after October 18 must be done in person at Town Hall, Room 107, in order to vote on November 5.
Citizens may also register and vote in person during the early voting period or on Election Day through same-day registration at Westport Town Hall, Room 107.
Meanwhile, the registrars of voters will begin memory card and tabulator testing this Thursday (October 10, 9:30 a.m., Town Hall, Room 212D. The public is welcome to observe on Thursday, or until completion
Questions about any of the above? Email the registrars of voters: Deborah Greenberg (Democrats): dgreenberg@westportct.gov, 203-341-1116; Maria Signore (Republicans): msignore@westportct.gov, 203-341-1117.
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Add this to your little kids’ Halloween activity list: a “fa-boo-lous”time at Wakeman Town Farm.
Youngsters ages 0-5 are invited — in costume — for a fun event October 25 (2 to 3 p.m.). Click here for tickets.
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Lynette Washington headlines this week’s Jazz at the Post (Thursday, October 10, VFW Joseph J. Clinton Post 399; shows at 7:30 and 8:45 p.m.; dinner begins at 7 p.m.; $20 music cover, $15 for veterans and students).
Her extensive career in jazz, R&B and gospel has taken her around the world.
Lynette will be joined by pianist Amina Figarova, bassist Will Goble, flutist Bart Platteau and drummer Vinton Hines, Jr. Click here for tickets, and more information.
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Spice — a gift shop specializing in fashion, home, entertaining, and baby and child goods — will move into the Sconset Square space recently vacated by Bespoke Designs.
This is Spice’s second location. The first is in Delray Beach, Florida.
(Photo/Sal Liccione)
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A bit of needed rain came and left yesterday morning.
The sun quickly came out. But not before Celia Campbell-Mohn captured this scene, at the Westport Weston Family YMCA, for today’s “Westport … Naturally” feature.
(Photo/Celia Campbell-Mohn)
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And finally … in honor of the arrival of Spice, Westport’s newest store (story above):
(Whether you’re scary, sporty, baby, ginger or posh, you’re part of our great online “06880” community. And we rely on you — our readers — to support our work. Please click here to help. Thanks!)
Four days later, the signs are still at the Kings Highway Colonial Cemetery. Huntington Learning and Patch Boys, come get your signs.
The Patch Boys would never put a sign in a cemetery.
From the placement of the signs, it seems reasonable to assume that the signs were placed illegally at the street corner on the cemetery property, at Kings Highway North and Wilton Road, before the two signs were stacked up just inside the cemetery wall. Perhaps by the groundskeeper who needed to mow the grass? Either way, the signs were visible from the street on Saturday when I headed down to North Carolina, and they remained on Friday morning.
Many companies disregard the state laws against placing signs on state highways (such as Wilton Road, which is Route 33). Other companies specialize in signs on utility poles, also against state law. Many companies disregard the town ordinance requiring a permit, and it’s not clear if the towns do much enforcement by removing signs. Political signs, opinion signs, and signs advertising community events for nonprofits, are exempt.
This kind of road spam makes our towns look trashy. Businesses have a hard path to make a profit, but that path needs to be built on advertising in a legal way.
A typo: I meant to write, they remained on Wednesday morning, not Friday morning. (I must be wishing that Friday would hurry up and arrive). That is, they were still there on 10/09. I snapped a photo from my car both times. Perhaps the owners of the two businesses, who are now well aware of the issue from Dan’s posting, will send out workers to collect all of their illegally placed signs, not just the ones at the cemetery.
Illegal signs from The Patch Boys and others remain around our towns, Maja. Businesses are trying to make a profit, certainly, and they need to budget for advertising legally.