Empty Words Can Lead to an Empty City

By now, those who follow politics in Norwich, Connecticut, know that last Monday evening's City Council meeting may have involved an interesting sleight of hand in connection with the not-quite-ready-for-Prime Time Community Center in order to save the current Council from a repeat of what happened during the Great Hospital Site Purchase Brouhaha.

That contretemps played itself out in December into January, though admittedly it got started a number of years ago for reasons all who live here are keenly familiar with. The community center is a similar long simmering stew, going back to about this time a year ago when the YMCA in Norwich announced it had crushing accumulated debt and operating cost shortfalls and would close its doors on 31 March. Lots of rallies, lots of Facebook groups, lots of 'we have to do something!' delayed the closing by not one minute and the building has stood empty at 337 Main Street since it closed. There are six phases to any project: Enthusiasm, Disillusionment, Panic, Search for the Guilty, Punishment of the Innocent and Rewards and Honors for the Non-Participants. We seem to spend a lot of time in this neck of the woods vacillating between #1 and #4, which leaves us very little time to actually get anything done.

Norwich's Recreation Director, in response to an oft-articulated desire across the community for 'someplace the kids can go', has been working to repurpose the defunct YMCA as a community center with both reasonable membership fees from the general public and partnerships with public and private agencies to fund a more-focused (leaner, though certainly not meaner) operation that appeals to a broad portion of the various publics across the city without losing money.

There's still work to be done on the concept, which is what I had hoped we might use the City Council meeting to do, but last Monday the alderpersons decided an Executive Session was necessary, for among other stated reasons, a concern that discussions on acquisition might precipitate a higher asking price. My disquiet about this attitude is, if there were someone interested in buying a building that some see as a million dollar facility and others see as a money pit, the property would have been already sold. And yet there it stands, empty and alone.

There are currently four or more fitness centers in Norwich operating as businesses. If someone thought another one would turn a profit, a purchase of the YMCA would have already happened. That it hasn't, and won't, probably means the field is empty of competitors. That makes the decision to go behind closed doors last Monday night more disappointing than anything else.

Any time (and every time) a City Council changes, and last November brought wholesale changes, there's a lot of brave talk about new beginnings, transparency, openness, teamwork and multiple-path communications, all of which usually lasts until just about the final Spring frost, so we have a ways to go yet. Then, whoever is on the City Council starts to slide back into old, comfortable habits and nods and winks replace discussion. Motions for Executive Session become the equivalent of the index finger beside the nose in "The Sting". All of us know, or think we do, how that worked out.

There are still many who lack confidence in the very neighbors they elected to the City Council, who hear hooves and think zebras instead of horses. This just means all of us have to work that much harder to keep the lines of communication open and free of secret agenda and double speak as all work to address the too-long neglected needs of our city. A great opportunity to do that is this coming Saturday starting at nine, upstairs in the East Great Plains Fire House (dalmatians optional) when Peter Nystrom holds his second Public Meeting with the Mayor. He can't hear your concerns if you don't tell him.

Trust can be a rationed resource that can, however, be infinitely expanded when it's extended in all directions. Rust, on the other hand, is a consequence of acting to fail and failing to act. We need to learn to say what we mean and mean what we say, open and out loud.
-bill kenny