For many years, he was an international banker. Then came his non-profit work, as CEO of Homes with Hopes and Goodwill of Western and Northern Connecticut.
Now he’s moderator of the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) — our non-partisan legislative body he has served on since 2007. That’s in addition to all his other volunteer efforts (Positive Directions, Christ & Holy Trinity Church, and much more).
It’s hard to condense that all into half an hour, but Jeff and I had an informative, intriguing conversation the other day at the Westport Library. Why does he do it? How does he do it? What’s it all mean for our town, today and tomorrow?
Click below for some fascinating insights on the RTM, and all of us who live here.
(Podcasts are just a part of “06880.” Please click here to support your hyper-local blog.)
When Jen Swetzoff told her 9-year-old son to read a story about body odor — part of a new magazine she’s launching for kids — he was grossed out.
But he checked it out.
And he was — well, engrossed.
Jen Swetzoff
Swetzoff — a Westport mom with a background at the Council of Foreign Relations, travel writing for Frommer’s and editing for a geopolitical consulting firm, and who moved here from New York during the pandemic (though she and her husband had been planning a suburban move before it hit) — hopes more 9- to 14-year-olds will be engrossed by stories about hair care, living with ADHD, young athletes and activists, divorced parents, food, celebrities, gender, and moving to a new town.
Those are some of the features in the first issue of Anyway. A new print — yes, print — magazine, its goal is to use fun, engaging stories about health, well-being and culture to help young people know that their feelings and experiences are a normal part of growing up.
COVID, lockdown drills, climate change, social media pressure — it’s not easy being a kid these days.
Jen and Keeley McNamara — a longtime friend, certified nurse midwife and health educator — realized that although puberty starts earlier now, there was no “trusted media brand” for boys and girls to access information.
Anyway magazine: coming soon!
But why print? Doesn’t it make more sense to reach this wired/wireless generation on a screen?
“Kids are on screens so much,” Jen says. “They just gloss over what they see; it doesn’t sink in.”
Meanwhile, schools are encouraging students to read any kind of printed material. Feedback from teachers has been very encouraging.
Besides, “kids like getting mail. And they like having something they can hold and look at, and go back to again and again.”
One story on hair …
A Kickstarter drive generated enough interest to print the first issue. It’s at the printer right now. In addition to the homes of young readers, Anyway will be distributed to places like kids’ stores, and doctors’ and orthodontists’ offices.
A web launch in December will draw more attraction to the magazine.
Jen thinks she and Keeley have hit the sweet spot for 9- to 14-year-olds.
Even with — or because of? — stories like the one on body odor.
(Click here for the Anyway website. Click here for the Kickstarter website (the only way now to receive copies or subscribe right now.) Click here for the Instagram.)
… and another on ADHD.
(“06880” covers all of Westport — for all ages. To help support your hyper-local blog, please click here.)
As Breast Cancer Awareness Month draws to a close, “06880” shines a light on one of our lesser known — but crucially important — local organizations.
The Breast Cancer Emergency Aid Foundation is a grassroots, volunteer-driven non profit. It was founded in 2006 by 2 breast cancer patients, one of whom lost her battle.
They wanted to make a difference for other people undergoing treatment — especially those less fortunate — by focusing on patients.
While they were glad that much funding goes to research, education and finding a cure, too little money is available for the day-to-day, non-medical, financial issues breast cancer patients experience as they go through treatment.
BCEAF provides grants of up to $500 a year for non-medical expenses, like rent, utilities, transportation, prostheses, specialty bras and babysitting.
Insurmountable bills pile up — in addition to the sickness, anxiety, depression and pain associated with treatment and surgery.
Some patients are unable to work during treatment. Others lack medical insurance. Unmanageable finances can be a barrier to beginning or continuing treatment.
Financial support for non-medical needs alleviates some of the crippling financial burden, and enables patients to continue with treatment.
Since 2007, BCEAF has provided over $950,000 in aid to 2,184 patients — thank in part to the generous support of Pink Aid, over the past 10 years.
BCEAF raises funds without a big fundraiser. For more information and to help, click here.
The other day, “06880” highlighted Staples High School graduate/former teacher/current resident Amanda Parrish Morgan’s new book. “Stroller” is — as its title suggests — a cultural, historical and memoir-infused look at an everyday object that has become suffused with symbolic importance, on way too many levels.
Great minds think alike.
The New Yorker magazine’s Peter Baker has just weighed in on “Stroller.” He likes it — and he adds his own thoughts on the subject.
Click here for the full story. (Hat tip: Wynne Bohonnon)
Amanda Parrish Morgan, her kids and a stroller in Grand Central Terminal.
Vanish Media Systems — Mark Motyl’s Westport company that designs and builds large-screen TVs that disappear when not in use — hosts viewing parties for movies, and big events like Julia Marino’s Olympic snowboard competition.
This past Sunday morning, it hosted a live event from Africa.
The live celebration of Ugandan culture — dance, music, conversation, food, humor, you name it — was done via a video link with the Tender Talents Magnet School there. Every moment — and all its colors, energy, joy and sound — was broadcast on Vanish Media’s impressively clear 10-foot, 4k-quality screen.
The Uganda event, on Vanish Media System’s 110-inch TV..
Attendees also had a chance to speak with students, and the founder of Tender Talents. Speaking in their second or third language, they took part in a moving Q-and-A session that touched on issues of race, culture, and the divisions and commonalities between people.
The event was organized by Creative Connections, a Norwalk cultural education organization celebrating its 30th year fostering communication between students around the world.
You won’t yawn through this one: On Friday (October 28, noon to 1 p.m.), Positive Directions offers a free webinar on “Sleep Routines and the Impact of Technology.”
Representatives from the Yale University Mood Disorder Research Program discuss the pros and cons of technology, and offer advice on how to help youngsters streamline their routines.
In the aftermath of last Friday’s lockdown at Staples, the Y’s Men of Westport and Weston’s podcast with Jen Tooker takes a different approach.
This week, the 1st selectwoman interviews Police Chief Foti Koskinas. He talks candidly about that day, including the importance of Staples’ school resource officer, and the emotional and psychological toll on staff, students and his officers.
Koskinas praises Staples principal Stafford Thomas and everyone at the school, while acknowledging how tough it was for all. It’s an inside look into a day that anyone who was there will not soon forget.
Tooker also asks Koskinas about Westport policing in general.
In the aftermath of this morning’s lockdown at Staples High School, and a “shelter in place” order at Bedford Middle School, superintendent of schools Thomas Scarice provided this information:
This morning the Westport Police received a phone call indicating a potential threat at Staples High School. Although we have since learned that multiple schools across the state received the same threat, at the time, the response protocol warranted a thorough onsite evaluation of Staples, including an armed room by room threat assessment.
The incident began at 9:10 a.m. Westport’s Emergency Communications Center received a call from a person reporting an active shooter inside Staples High School.
The patrol and detective divisions as well as officers in administrative rolls immediately went to the school. As officers were responding they contacted the School Resource Officer, who said there was no indication of a problem at the location.
Despite the possibility of a hoax, the high school was placed on lockdown. Police proceeded as if there was an active threat.
Because police weapons were visible to students and staff, teachers were asked to focus on the social/emotional needs of students for the rest of the day. Emotional support was available for anyone who needed it.
Scarice added, “While this evaluation was conducted, all of the other schools in Westport were supported with an onsite police presence and put into place appropriate safety protocols.
“We are grateful for the swift response of our police department and the communication between the schools and WPD in handling this matter.
Nearly an hour after Staples High School went into lockdown this morning, an ambulance and police car sat outside the building. (Photo/Jim Honeycutt)
Connecticut is not the only state targeted for fake threats.
According to a Washington Post article last month — sent today to “06880” by reader Tracy Porosoff — “a troubling scenario” is happening in schools across the country. The story begins:
A call comes in about a shooting at the school. Someone has a gun. Police respond, only to discover the report was a hoax.
More than a dozen schools in Minnesota were targeted with “swatting” incidents, reports of a false shooter or mass-casualty event. Threats in Denver forced the city to shut down all 25 of its public library branches, and an area high school to cancel classes Wednesday amid a surge of hoaxes reported at schools across the state. A Texas teen was arrested for calling in a fake threat to a campus as a “joke,” prompting a warning from Fort Worth police against school hoaxes.
The calls are part of a trend that is disrupting school days, prompting lockdowns and further traumatizing communities already on edge. Although these threats are fake, the menace of real violence looms just months after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at a Uvalde, Tex., elementary school…
Schools in 14 states — Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia — have reported swatting incidents since Sept. 13, according to the national group of school resource officers.
With a 6-part HBO Max series and a newly published memoir, Paul Newman has been back in the spotlight lately.
Both include plenty of details about his half century in Westport.
It’s well known that Newman and his wife, fellow actor Joanne Woodward, found our town thanks to the Nike Sites.
Proposed at the height of the Cold War as missile defense systems to protect electronics manufacturing facilities in Bridgeport — with the missiles housed underground on North Avenue, and a launch center on Bayberry Lane — they were highly controversial. (Click here for the full back story.)
Westport writer Max Shulman wrote about the Nike Sites — the town’s reaction, and how it dealt with frisky GIs — in his novel Rally Round the Flag, Boys!
In 1958, the book became a movie. Newman and Woodward played characters based on town official Ralph Sheffer and his wife Betty. They soon moved here — and never left.
The defense system was outdated from the moment it opened. In 1960, control was transferred from the US Army to the National Guard. The Nike Sites were closed 3 years later.
The Bayberry Lane barracks are now the Aspetuck Health District office; behind it is the Westport Astronomical Society’s observatory. (Now it makes sense why those structures are there, right?)
A typical Nike site — much like the North Avenue one. Missiles were buried underground.
For years the North Avenue site — just north of Staples High School — was abandoned. In 1973, the US government transferred control of the land to the town.
Neither CNN nor Newman’s memoir mention what happened next.
The Westport Astronomical Observatory — the former Nike Site launch center on Bayberry Lane — in 1975.
On October 1 of that year, a ceremony was held. Paul Newman took part.
He called it “a great day for Westport.” The Staples band played a couple of tunes, including — inexplicably — “On Wisconsin” and Chicago’s “25 or 6 to 4.”
Paul Newman (far left) at the Nike Site ceremony on October 1, 1973. From left: 2 unidentified men; 1st Selectman John Kemish. (Photo courtesy of Jim Kemish)
First Selectman John Kemish said, “The land once needed for war will now be dedicated to the pursuit of peace. The property will now be redeveloped by our Board of Education as a facility for our children.”
It took a while for that to happen.
A plan to create a “Workshop to Nike” for Staples students — with bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, storage space, dorm rooms and a dining hall for any school group to use — was never completed.
Project Adventure — a one-quarter physical education option — installed a ropes course, high wire and 30-foot balance beam there. It too was abandoned.
Generations of Staples graduates recall the Nike Site as an overgrown, unpatrolled area — perfect for teenage mischief, tantalizingly close to the school.
Finally, the town found good use for the land. Today — shorn of any trace of both the military and its then-derelict state — it is the site of Bedford Middle School.
Few people remember those days. Fewer still remember the Paul Newman connection.
The annual downtown Children’s Halloween Parade is set for next Wednesday (October 26). Kids and parents meet at the Post Road East/Main Street intersection at 3:30 p.m.
They’ll march up Main Street, turn right to Avery Place, then turn left on Myrtle Avenue to Town Hall and Veterans Green. Children may trick-or-treat along Main Street and outside Town Hall.
Entertainment, refreshments and a small gift will be provided on Veterans Green across from Town Hall at 4 p.m.
The Parks and Recreation Department, Westport Downtown Association and Westport P.A.L. are sponsoring the event. It’s for all children — “especially those 8 and under.”
NOTE: There is no parkin on Main Street between 2 and 4 p.m. during the parade.
The Westport Education Association is raising funds to honor one of its own.
Beloved Staples High School technology education teacher Mike Sansur was killed Saturday, when his vehicle was rear-ended on I-95. His 21-year-old son — who is studying to be a teacher too — is hospitalized with serious injuries.
A GoFundMe page will help defray medical costs for Mike’s son, and help with future college costs for his 2 high school daughters.
The WEA says, “Mike touched the hearts of all students who walked through his door. A former student said was the “the only class where I felt like I belonged. He opened up a world of possibilities, and a desire to learn more. He taught the importance of attention to detail, design, and craftsmanship, which influenced me to pursue architecture. As I write this, the lamp he helped me build is still on my desk. Its light will not go out.”
Click here to contribute, and for more information.
In the wake of “The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man” — Paul Newman’s new memoir — it’s hard to keep up with media mentions.
But a story in the current issue of The New Yorker caught my eye.
Twice, writer Louis Menand references the book’s genesis: over 100 interviews with and about the actor, conducted by his screenwriter friend Stewart Stern.
But in 1991, Newman asked Stern to stop. In 1998, Newman “took the cassettes to the dump and burned them all.”
Later, Menand mentions the incident again: “the auto-da-fé at the town dump seems a pretty clear indication that Newman did not want a memoir.”
The New Yorker is well known for its rigorous fact-checking.
It seems pretty clear that “the town dump” is our town dump. After all, this is where Newman lived. It’s where he kept the tapes.
But wait! We don’t have a “town dump.” It’s a “transfer station.”
And there’s no place there to burn anything.
So … maybe Paul Newman did not burn those hundreds of tapes here, but somewhere else?
One of the major themes of “From the Mississippi Delta” — the current Westport Country Playhouse production — is civil rights.
That’s inextricably tied in with voting rights. So — with an election looming next month — Westport’s League of Women Voters is offering political information in the Playhouse lobby through the show’s run. It ends on October 30.
For over 70 years, the LWV has been a non-partisan Westport institution. They do not support individual candidates; instead they advocate for voter education and enfranchisement. They actively register voters, and organize candidate debates.
Before each performance of “From the Mississippi Delta,” LWV volunteers will offer information on times, locations and requirements for voting in the November 8 mid-term election, including how to get an absentee ballot and online registration.
They will conduct in-person voter registration for people with valid identification (driver’s license, passport, or Social Security card).
The LWV will also explain the ballot referendum about adding days to voting in Connecticut. Right now, we are one of only one 4 states that limits voting to one day.
Before Halloween and Election Day, there’s another holiday.
United Nations Day is not a big one. Except for the people who believe in things like, um, world peace.
To celebrate, the United Nations Association of Southwestern Connecticut is sponsoring a talk and Q-and-A at the Westport Library (October 24, 7 p.m.).
Dr. Mary Evelyn Tucker, co-founder of the Yale Forum on Religion & Ecology, will speak on “Reimagining Our Environmental Future Together.” Her goal is to inspire people to “preserve, protect and restore the earth community.”
After nearly 3 COVID years away from cabaret, Leslie Orofino is back. And “Laughing at Life.”
This Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Lecture honors the founder of the UNASC. She was a longtime Westporter, and advocate for all things UN-related.
Speaking of world peace: World-famous photojournalist (and 1991 Staples High School graduate) Lynsey Addario has spent more than 2 decades reporting in the face of conflict, corruption and censorship. She’s done it in the Middle East and Africa; now she capturing the horrors of war in Ukraine.
On November 9, she’ll receive a “Courage in Journalism” award from the International Women’s Media Foundation.
The virtual ceremony is set for November 9 (5:30 p.m.). CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell will host. Click here for free registration, and more information. (Hat tip: Naree Viner)
Westport’s prized vocalist joins director (and fellow townie) Louis Pietig in 2 performances at New York City’s Don’t Tell Mama.
“Laughing at Life” — that’s the show’s name — is a “foot-stomping, life-affirming journey of love.” It includes songs by Alberta Hunter, Fats Waller, Cole Porter, Bob Dylan and many others.
The first show is this Saturday (October 22); the next is Sunday, October 30. Both are at 4 p.m. There’s a $20 cover, with a 2-drink minimum. Click here for reservations.
Leslie Orofino
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Not much gets by Bob Weingarten.
He spotted frost yesterday morning on a Morningside Drive South roof.
Autumn continues to awe. Jonathan Alloy sends along today’s spectacular “Westport … Naturally” foliage. It’s at Long Lots Elementary School. Similar scenes can be found all over town.
Westport is many things to many people. For those with disabilities — physical or intellectual — it’s a place with possibilities and opportunities.
And challenges.
Stacie Curran and Sharuna Mahesh have been active in the local disabilities community — and the larger Westport community — for years. They are strong advocates for the educational, recreational and social needs of people of all ages.
The other day at the Westport Library, we talked about their work, and our town. What do we do well here, for people with mobility or cognitive differences? What needs work? What are the resources? What else is needed? What are the success stories, and what are the misconceptions and myths?
Click below for our conversation. It’s insightful, fascinating — and very important.
(“06880” covers all aspects of local life. Please click here to help us continue our work.)
Right now, there are no fenced dog parks in Westport. (Winslow Park is enclosed, but there are many gaps and areas without walls or fences.)
Andrew Colabella wants to change that.
The Representative Town Meeting member worked with Karen Kramer and Matthew Mandell to create a petition. The goal is to gauge support, to show town officials the need. Click here to see.
There are gates, and some new fences, at Winslow Park. But it is not a fully enclosed dog run. (Photo/Nell Waters Bernegger)
The Westport Police Department is participating in the Connecticut Department of Transportation’s high visibility distracted driving enforcement campaign. The campaign — beginning today, and running through October 31 — will increase efforts to enforce distracted-driving laws.
Connecticut law prohibits the use of any hand-held mobile device while operating a motor vehicle. Drivers who are 16 or 17 years old are prohibited from using a cell phone or mobile device at any time — even hands free.
The fine for the first offense is $200. It’s $375 for the second ticket, and $625 for the third and subsequent offenses.
Who knew so many “06880” readers also read the New York Post?
I’d need an entire haberdashery to hand out hat tips to everyone who sent me the tabloid story noting Shonda Rhimes’ purchase of Doug and Melissa Bernstein’s 11-bedroom home. The 7.5-acre property also includes a basketball court, bowling alleys, arcade, home theater, playroom, billiards room, 8 fireplaces, kitchen with a pizza oven, tennis court, pool, playground, and outdoor seating and dining areas.
Karen Scott was the KMS Partners at Compass broker who sold the property to the producer/screenwriter/author/global media company CEO/Television Academy Hall of Fame inductee’s agent. Rhimes will move from elsewhere in Westport; the Bernsteins have bought another home here.
Meanwhile, another New York newspaper — the Times — this week ran a Critic’s Notebook piece headlined: “Has War Changed, or Only War Photography?”
It begins by citing a 1991 Staples High School graduate and Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist:
Lynsey Addario began taking war pictures when the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Only two-thirds of a century had elapsed since Robert Capa documented the Spanish Civil War. But to go from the exhibition of Capa’s Spain photos at the International Center of Photography to the Addario show at the SVA Chelsea Gallery is to traverse not just time and geography but a profound shift in sensibility. Capa’s pictures express his belief in war as a conflict between good and evil. In our time, which is to say in Addario’s, unwavering faith in the justice of one side has perished, a casualty of too many brutal, pointless, reciprocally corrupt wars.
Addario over the last two decades has taken her camera to some of the most dangerous places on earth. A MacArthur fellow, she is a freelance photographer who shared a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting awarded to The New York Times in 2009 for its coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Like Capa, she calls herself a photojournalist, not an artist. She has said that she is dedicated to “using images to undo preconceptions and to show a reality often misunderstood or misrepresented.” She has also named Capa as one of her main influences, even though many of the preconceptions she seeks to undermine are those he enshrined.
Click here to read the full story. (Hat tip: Kathie Motes Bennewitz)
In one of Lynsey Addario’s most famous photos, Ukrainian soldiers try to save the father of a family of four — the only one at that moment who still had a pulse — moments after being hit by a mortar while trying to flee Irpin, near Kyiv. (Photo/Lynsey Addario for the New York Times)
The Jewish Federation of Greater Fairfield County has received a $5,000 grant from Fairfield County’s Community Foundation.
It’s for their Dignity Grows chapter, part of a national network to fight period poverty among nearly 30% of menstruators in the U.S. Donors and volunteers fund and pack monthly totes of hygiene and period essentials. They’re delivered free of charge to partner agencies, who then provide them to their clients.
From last September through June, the Federation organized 10 packing events — many in Westport — and delivered 800 totes. The grant will help them expand their reach, to meet a growing need.
A packing event hosted by Sharon Navarro (top right, 3rd from right) and Jen Frank (bottom row, 2nd from right). All participants are Westport residents — except the lone male, Ofek Moscovich. He’s the Federation Israel emissary spending a year here. The group packed 100 totes for LifeBridge Community Services in Bridgeport.
On Thursday (October 20), you can meet one. DeTapas restaurant hosts one. He’ll serve a “world-class jamon,” paired with special Spanish wines.
The carver will go from table to table, from 5:30 p.m. on. The cost is $45 per person. Guests can stay and enjoy dinner afterward. To RSVP, use Open Table, or contact the restaurant: hola@detapasrestaurant.com; 203-557-0257.
Owner Carlos Pia in his handsomely decorated De Tapas restaurant.
After a successful summer, La Plage pivots to fall. Highlights include “Mussels Wednesday” (Pemaquid Maine mussels with non-stop fries service, paired with a special Pilsner from Spacecat Brewing in Norwalk); “Lobster Bake Thursday” (with head-on shrimp, mussels, clams and andouille), and “Paella Sunday” (clams, mussels, calamari, shrimp, chicken, chorizo).
La Plage also offers a “Halloween Bash” (Sunday, October 30). The winning costume earns 2 tickets to the restaurant’s New Year’s Eve dinner and gala.
The Joggers Club is not running out of great ideas.
Besides Fun Runs every Saturday beginning at 8 a.m. at Compo Beach, and Track Night every Wednesday at 6:q5 p.m. (Staples High School), they’re taking part in races throughout the state. Among them:
Pumpkin Run: October 30 (costumes encouraged)
Jamie’s Run for Children: November 6 (DJ Party after)
Hot Coco 5K: November 12 (“Hottest Race in November”)
Branford Thanksgiving 5K: Thanksgiving
Christmas Run for Children: December 4 (free beer and live music).
The Joggers Club offers a free race bib to each of those races to one member — and discounted coupons for everyone else.
Club membership is $50 a year (new members get a free Endurance Brooks racing shirt. Click here or on Instagram or Facebook for more information.
$50 a year (And new members get a free Endurance Brooks racing shirt)
We’ve featured wasp nests before, in our “Westport … Naturally” series.
But I don’t think I’ve seen any as large — and scary-looking — as this. Pete Powell spotted it on the Longshore golf course, opposite the green at hole 13.
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