There’s no such thing as a free lunch — at least, if you’re eating in or taking out downtown.
Downtown parking though, has always been free — for 1 or 2 hours.
During the pandemic, enforcement of parking limits was suspended.
Tickets may soon return — but only after those parking limits are extended.
The second agenda item on Wednesday’s Board of Selectwomen meeting (August 16, 9 a.m., Town Hall auditorium) reads:
Acting in its capacity as the Local Traffic Authority, to re-establish the enforcement of timed parking limits previously suspended by the Board of Selectmen at its public meeting of June 10, 2020, and further, to establish uniform parking limits and times of enforcement throughout the town-managed and owned downtown parking lots known as Parker Harding Plaza, Sigrid Shultz Plaza, Baldwin, Bay Street, Jesup Road, and Taylor, and the Town roadways known as Main Street, Church Lane, Bay Street, and Taylor Place, by changing FROM the currently posted “1- and 2- hour parking” limits TO “3-hour parking” limits and enforcement times TO “8:00 AM to 6:00 PM.” And further, to request permission from the CT DOT to change the current parking term limits posted on Post Road East FROM “1- and 2-hour parking” TO “3-hour parking.”
Click here for the livestream of the Board of Selectwomen session, or watch on Optimum Channel 79. Comments may be sent to selectwoman@westportct.gov prior to the meeting.
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The 3rd agenda item for Wednesday’s Board of Selectwomen’s meeting is also of interest: a request from the Remarkable Theater to use the Imperial Avenue parking lot from August 28 through November 3 for a 4th season of drive-in movies.
From 2020 through ’22, the Remarkable’s season began in the spring.
Paul and Melissa Levy, at the Remarkable Theater.
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Jacqui O’Brien was one of several readers who sent photos of a strange object seen over Westport skies last night.
Susan Leone was the first to identify them as SpaceX Starlink satellites.
They were launched yesterday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It was the 9th flight for the first stage booster supporting the mission.
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As first noted on “06880” over a year ago — but denied vociferously by Organic Krush — Sweetgreens is indeed moving in to Compo Shopping Center.
Organic Krush has already moved out.
No date has been announced for opening. But the fast-casual salad-based chain — which emphasizes healthy eating and sustainability, and has 158 outlets in 13 states — already has Westporters excited.
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The recent food drive for Homes with Hope’s Gillespie Center and food pantry — which included a special, fill-my-shopping-cart trip by a mother and 2 children — was celebrated yesterday, at the Sunrise Rotary Club’s weekly meeting.
The sponsors — including also the Westport Rotary Club, Westport Police Department and Saugatuck Rowing Club — presented a check for $1,105.62 to Homes with Hope.
Those cash donations were in addition to the hundreds of bags of groceries that were dropped off, as shoppers entered and exited the store.
From left: Liz Wong, Sunrise Rotary president; Rob Hauck, Rotary member; Helen McAlinden, Homes with Hope president; Paris Looney, HWH vice president, and Sunrise Rotary members Bruce Paul and Bruce Fritz. (Photo/James Wong)
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The link provided yesterday by Wakeman Town Farm for their September 9 Harvest Fest fundraiser was incorrect. Click here for tickets, and more information.
Wakeman Town Farm’s Harvest Fest is coming soon.
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Many Westporters love pickleball. Some hate it.
But all can agree: the Smart Shots Pickleball Social is great.
The September 30 event (6:30 to 9:30 p.m., Milford Indoor Tennis) is a fundraiser for A Better Chance of Westport.
Level-designated courts will ensure exciting matches. Vendors will offer pickleball services and products. A raffle includes special prizes. The Porch @ Christie’s is providing food (available for pre-purchase).
The event is sponsored by ATP (Alan & Tina Pickleball). Click here to register. Questions? Call 203-984-1949.
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We like to think of Long Island Sound as “ours.”
But — as Karen Como’s “Westport … Naturally” photo reminds us — humans were not here first.
(Photo/Karen Como)
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And finally … anyone who saw the 2012 Oscar-winning documentary “Searching for Sugar Man” knows that Rodriguez’s story is astonishing.
The Detroit musician wrote and sang haunting protest songs. But he never found an audience, and settled into a life as a laborer and office worker.
He was “discovered” in Australia however — and then, even more so, in South Africa during apartheid. According to the New York Times:
“To many of us South Africans, he was the soundtrack to our lives,” Stephen Segerman, owner of a Cape Town record store, said in the documentary.
“In the mid-’70s, if you walked into a random white, liberal, middle-class household that had a turntable and a pile of pop records, and if you flipped through the records, you would always see ‘Abbey Road’ by the Beatles, you’d always see ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ by Simon and Garfunkel, and you would always see ‘Cold Fact’ by Rodriguez. To us, it was one of the most famous records of all time. The message it had was ‘Be anti-establishment.’”
Astonishingly, Rodriguez did not know he had fervent fans in South Africa. Equally astonishingly, South Africans thought he was dead. One rumor was a drug overdose; another, that he had killed himself onstage.
In 1998, he was discovered — alive, and living in obscurity in Detroit. He was invited to South Africa, and played concerts at sold-out venues.
He was “discovered” again more than a dozen years later, with the release of “Searching for Sugar Man” — a film about his strange but vibrant life.
Rodriguez — whose full name was Sixto Diaz Rodriguez — died Tuesday, in Detroit. He was 81.
Click here for a full obituary. Click below to hear Rodriguez.
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