Once Around the City: Be thy neighbor’s keeper

NORWALK, Conn. – Mayor Harry Rilling is urging Norwalk residents to check on neighbors and the elderly to make sure they are safe and warm during this period of frigid temperatures.

Also, he, said in a press release, be mindful of how the cold can negatively affect pets. Animals can suffer frostbite or even freeze to death if left out for prolonged periods in severe cold.

Single-digit temperatures and even lower wind chills are predicted to stay around for the next week.

It’s Darwin Day again. Already. What?

We received this email alerting us to an event with which we were not completely unfamiliar but, depending on your feeling about the planet – and plants – sounds like it could be a good time:

Dear Friends, Neighbors, and Fellow Science Lovers,

Please join us for the Sixth Annual Darwin Day Dinner.

Joined us in prior years? The venue and cost are the same as last year: The Continental Manor in Norwalk, CT, and $60 per person ($65 if you respond after February 1st).

New to Darwin Day? Like (or love) science? Interested in plants, and their future? Like great parties? Do you eat and/or drink? Then this event is for YOU, and you will LOVE IT! The invitation, which includes a response form, is attached – please respond early.

Our speaker this year is Prof. Peter Crane, Carl W. Knoblach, Jr. Dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. His talk is titled “The Future of Plants”, and will address some urgent issues: How many species of plants are there and how many species of plants are we losing as a result of changing patterns of land use? Are we on the verge of a botanical mass extinction? What will be the consequences for plants of changing climates? How quickly are plants changing at the genetic level? And how are we changing plants through plant breeding and genetic engineering?

As always, the event is open to the public, all are welcome, and everyone will go home smarter. Please forward this invitation to your friends.

Best regards,

The Southern Connecticut Darwin Day Committee

P.S. Please contact John Levin – [email protected] at 646 371-9280, or Craig Tomarkin – [email protected] with any questions or suggestions, or go to: www.DarwinDayCT.org.

Consider the seed planted.

Duff plans office hours at Broad River Homes

State Sen. Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) will serve lunch to Broad River Homes residents and discuss state and local issues with all in attendance from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Jan. 30.

The event is open to the public (but not the lunch).

Duff plans to take questions and discuss statewide and local issues with all interested attendees.

Broad River Homes is at 108 New Canaan Ave.

It will be Duff’s second event of the day. From 10 to 10:30 a.m., The senator will join state reps Gail Lavielle (R-143), Bruce Morris (D-140), Chris Perone (D-137) and Terrie Wood (R-141) to read to children at Norwalk Community Health Center in support of the Reach Out and Read School Readiness Program. It’s part of the center’s push, through the program, to encourage parents to read aloud to their kids, something that, the program’s press release states, prepares children to succeed in school. The center sends families home from medical checkups with free books and the encouragement for the parents to read aloud to their kids, the release said.

Gathering of the neighborhoods

The Coalition of Norwalk Neighborhood Associations (CNNA) will meet at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 27, at Norwalk City Hall, Room 101, to discuss CNNA’s 10-year anniversary celebration, neighborhood updates, on-site notices of major projects, park and land use changes and relevant public hearings; status on recent zoning applications and Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD) compliance.

According to its press release, the CNNA seeks to provide a common voice on larger Norwalk issues by providing information to members on important issues, meetings and events and to solicit fair and equal participation of neighborhood association and residents.

Member associations are encouraged to attend, and all Norwalk residents are welcomed.

For more information, visit the CNNA website.