Westport Girls Softball will hosts its free annual Softball Jamboree on Sunday at noon to 2 p.m. at the Staples High School field house.

Girls in kindergarten through fifth grade are eligible to attend the event that is hosted by the Staples varsity softball team. Additionally, the 2006 Westport Majors Softball All-Stars will be on hand.

Those attending will receive a free t-shirt and can win prizes in games such as base running races.

Mini coaching clinics will be offered to show girls the fundamentals of the game, and there will be information on hand for girls to sign up for the 2007 Little League season.

For more information, contact Stephen Axthelm at (917) 602-7844 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Judith Freedman: Giving a state Senate update. Contributed photoState Sen. Judith Freedman, R-26, will speak at the next Y’s Men of Westport Weston meeting on Thursday at 10 a.m. at Saugatuck Congregational Church.

Freedman will give an update on the state senate during her talk.

She is a Westport resident and represents a district that includes Westport, Bethel, New Canaan, Redding, Ridgefield, Weston, and Wilton. Freedman was re-elected to her post last November.

She is the ranking member of the Government Administration & Elections Committee, which oversees legislation regarding the Ethics Commission, compacts between the state and Indian tribes, constitutional amendments, elections and campaign finance.

She is also the ranking member of the Select Committee on Children and is a member of the Appropriations Committees and the Legislative Management Committee.

Construction crews demolished the house at 4 Hawthorne Lane off Bayberry Lane this week and remained on site to remove the rubble. The 1954 house, which sold last month for $885,000, was the WestportNow Teardown of the Day on Jan. 27. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

113 Cross Highway before preservation work began. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow/WN file photo
By Jennifer Connic

The Westport Zoning Board of Appeals Tuesday night partially approved an application that would allow a couple to preserve some of buildings that once were Westport’s first gas station, the Cross Highway Garage at 113 Cross Highway.

Michael and Kim Ronemus were seeking variances to be able to use an old garage and barn as an office and guest house, which are not allowed under the zoning regulations in accessory buildings. The Representative Town Meeting last December designatated the house as historical based on its history as the town’s first filling station, an action which prevents its destruction.

The board approved the variances necessary to allow a home office to be installed in one of the buildings, but it denied a request to change one of the buildings into a guest room.

Board Chairman Jim Ezzes said there is evidence the barn where the home office would be located was once used as an office and therefore it would be appropriate to approve it. However, he said it would not be right to permit expansion of the building because the board does not approve expansions of uses such as a home office.

Temperatures in Westport—including along the Saugatuck River—reached 40 degrees on Tuesday and are expected to reach into the 40s again today. The warmer temperatures helped melt some of the snow from the recent storms. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Lynn Miller for WestportNow.com

8 a.m. – Town Hall Room 309 – Maintenance Study Committee
10:30 a.m. – Town Hall Room 102 – International Hospitality Committee
Noon – Westport Public Library – authors@the library: Thrity Umrigar
4:30 p.m. – Town Hall Room 309 – School Building Committee
5 p.m. – Town Hall Room 309/307 – Board of Selectmen (live coverage cable channel 79 and westportct.gov)
7:30 p.m. – Town Hall Room 201 – TEAM Westport Committee
7:30 p.m. – Westport Public Library – Westport Community Gardens
7:30 p.m. – Westport Arts Center – Literature: Mark Schenker

By Jennifer Connic

Tonight’s Conservation Commission hearing on the Westport Weston Family Y’s new facility focused on the sewage treatment system, which came the same week the Family Y received a preliminary state approval for the system.

Westport Weston Family Y officials are planning to move their facility from the corner of Main Street and Post Road East in the downtown area to Camp Mahackeno adjacent to the Merritt Parkway. The plans include a septic system—called FAST—that would handle 34,000 gallons of sewage and water per day.

The state Department of Environmental Protection issued a draft approval for the system this week (See WestportNow Today).

Tonight the commission heard from several experts about the septic system, including an engineer who reviewed the state draft approval document.

An estimated four gallons of diesel fuel spilled into the Saugatuck River from a fuel drum with a loose cap on the pedestrian walkway on the Metro-North Railroad Bridge spanning the river, Westport fire officials said tonight.

Someone had moved the drum onto the walkway, and there had been a previous attempt to secure the cap with black electrical tape, said Assistant Fire Chief Gene Maloney.

Firefighters discovered the leak when they responded at 7:32 p.m. to a report of a fuel spill on the pedestrian walkway.

On arrival, they found an oily substance leading from the commuter parking lot on the west side of the river across the pedestrian walkway to a concrete platform adjacent to the bridge tender’s shack mid-way across the span, Maloney said.

Construction crews demolished the house at 376 Greens Farms Road in Westport today. The 1920 house on .75-acre at the corner of Robin Hill Road not far from Bulkley Avenue South sold in November 2005 for $810,000. It was the WestportNow Teardown of the Day on Oct. 9. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com