Changing Directions of the Circles

The speed of light is faster than the speed of sound. Perhaps that's why so many people look good until you hear them speak. Present company definitely included. Less than a month ago we were arguing line items, re-evaluations, mill rates and property taxes eventually acquiescing to another municipal budget where no one has quite enough to live but more than enough to keep from succumbing.

We are masters of the municipal dog-paddle, never reaching shore but never going under. Of course, all this annual hand-to-mouth financing means a full set of fingerprints on our tongues because that’s how perilously close the gap has become.

But now the summer (perhaps of our discontent?) has arrived, and the kids are out of school and for better or for worse we’ve put aside any serious thoughts about developing solutions to our seemingly perpetual problem of growing the Grand List to better enhance our community’s quality of life. 

After all, what can any one person do? What was that Hamlet said about a petty pace and way tomorrow and tomorrow creeps? He didn’t have property taxes due on the first of July, that’s for sure.

And  maybe when those tax bills start arriving next week (July is next Tuesday) we can attempt again to restart a dangling conversation we have with those whom we’ve chosen to lead our city about what goods and services we want/need/expect and how much we are willing to pay for them.

It’s unfair to those whom we have chosen for office to show up at City Council meetings in the spring when close to 80% of the budget formulation is complete and yell at them for three minutes, leave and not be seen again until the following year.

No matter what the people we elect do, we’re unhappy. Is it because doing something is riskier than doing nothing? Perhaps. The difference between a rut and a grave is nothing more than the depth and we all know people prefer a problem that is familiar to a solution that is not.

I’d suggest because it is summer when weather and day-to-day activities seem to encourage us to do different things that we dedicate ourselves to a more than cursory review of how we can make our own lives better.

We are, after all, the architects of our own fates. It’s all well and good to try to place blame on “them” those in the world who are holding us back, but in the end we are the ones responsible for everything we do-and everything we fail to do and the results of those actions and inactions.

Normally I’m not a big fan of bumper sticker philosophy but I saw a positing the other day on Facebook that’s succinct, concise and more than just painfully accurate at describing our situation here in Norwich. It made me smile but then it made me think. I hope it does the same for you: “We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.” 

-bill kenny