House to House and Heart to Heart

Not sure how it fits, or even if it fits, but Paul Young's cover of a Marvin Gaye tune popped into my head a moment ago and seems to be as true a start as I can come up with to talk about community and municipal meetings this week in Norwich "Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home)."

The first item, this morning at eleven in Room 335 of City Hall (the former courtroom I think-it has what seems to be forty foot ceilings) is a community, vice municipal, outreach and, intending to NOT put too fine a point on it, a gut check. In the middle of last week, the Norwich YMCA announced it had come to the place where the road and the sky collide, and faced with a crushing debt and a diminished revenue stream would be closing at the end of April.

There were in both local papers for the next couple of days lots of comments that confused search for the guilty with attempted solutions and I hope the community-wide effort to assess the situation and salvage what can be saved will start this morning. There's a difference between lending a hand and pointing a finger, and we're running out of time to learn the difference. I'm hoping to be able to get to Room 335 Monday morning because I don't know what I don't know and I need to get smarter in a hurry--and maybe if you're already smart, you can sit next to me and help me out--and if you're not as smart as you'd like to be, we can keep one another company, since all of us working on a solution are, by definition, better than only some of us working on a solution.

According to one of the local newspapers, at six o'clock tonight "in City Hall" (which is a model of specificity) there's a public hearing by the state legislative Appropriations Committee. It's NOT listed on the city of Norwich's website, and by their own schedule, the Appropriations Committee would appear to NOT be in the Rose City this evening.

Here's what I found interesting on the Committee's web page: "The committee has cognizance of all matters relating to appropriations and the budgets of state agencies. Other issues under the committee's jurisdiction include matters relating to state employees' salaries, benefits and retirement, teachers' retirement and veterans' pensions and collective bargaining agreements and arbitration awards for all state employees." A pretty sweeping mandate if you ask me--and even if you don't.

The Committee has 58 members, thirteen from the State Senate and forty-five from the lower house--you tell me how many of these folks you voted for in the last election, and later over a tall, cool root beer, we can talk about why Eastern Connecticut seems to get dealt from the bottom of the deck when state-wide initiatives are developed. Yet another reminder that you must be present to win.

Six o'clock is a pretty popular time to get things done in City Hall, though the workshop notice for Tuesday (I think) jumps the gun by twelve hours. There's a workshop on "Bully Busters" scheduled for Room 335, beginning at 6 PM (as opposed to what the workshop notice claims is the start time. In fairness, I should point out the notice has an AM start time and a PM).

Also Tuesday, at 7 PM, about halfway across town in the Park Church, facing Chelsea Parade at 238 Broadway, is the monthly meeting of the Norwich Against Global Warming Action Group (NAGWAG), which, considering it wasn't that long ago that Norwich became a "Cool City", is a start. At first I thought we had elected Charlie Parker Mayor, which explains the 'cool city' designation but it seems Bird Lives was an ideal not an idea.

Wednesday evening at seven, the Republican Town Committee meets in Room 108 of City Hall. We're a little less than a month away from the special election to fill the vacancy on the City Council when Alderman Chris Coutu was elected to the CT Legislature. Everyone gets to vote (no matter your party affiliation) though the only choices who can be elected are either a registered Republican or an unaffiliated candidate (we have one of each, in case you didn't know). As the date draws closer we'll talk a bit more about voices and choices in terms of the Council seat.

And speaking of State Representative Christopher Coutu and community meetings of note, next week, actually next Tuesday the 7th, at 7 p.m. in the American Legion hall at 22 Merchants Avenue is a state budget forum. Representative Coutu promises to do his best to accurately outline Connecticut's current financial shape and outline what roads are ahead of us.

Thursday at seven PM in the lower level conference room of 23 Union Street is a regular meeting of the Inland Wetlands, Watercourses and Conservation Commission and reading their agenda you get a greater appreciation of how important getting as much help from across the city, every city, can be when you look at the scope and breadth of concerns in our neighborhoods across this country. Each of us is a part of the solution and each of us is someone the rest of us have been waiting for to arrive.
-bill kenny