Government as a Team Sport

Suspect your house is a lot like mine in terms of activity and hours in the day to accomplish things. We’re already into February and it was just the other day we wished each other a Happy New Year. Of course, as we should know by now, it takes more than wishing to make happy happen. And for any number of reasons, ranging from meteorological to and through fiscal, this is literally, the winter of our discontent. (Except, perhaps for my youngest brother, celebrating the anniversary of his birth today, so Happy Birthday!)

The (most recent installment of the) challenge of change which, here in Norwich, we began in November is to never lose sight that it’s a never ending process and not a product—a journey, rather than a destination. There is no Grandma’s House towards which we’re driving. And the road can and does often feel like it goes on forever.

Every day, city administrators and their professional staff, joined by, and with, volunteers on advisories, board, commissions and committees, all of them our neighbors, begin again as every aspect of municipal government’s ability to deliver good and services in response to our desires for a particular program (sometimes to complement another one and sometimes in competition with it), is balanced against the ability to afford the delivery of those goods and services.

Governance at all levels shouldn’t be a spectator sport, but because of the pace of our lives, we sometimes do not choose to invest the time in much more than glancing at a headline about a state or local issue. That becomes our level of engagement but elevates the degree of difficulty in arriving at decisions.

We have a general sense this coming budget season in Norwich, and not just here, will involve hard choices almost pre-ordained to make no one happy. If politics is the art of the possible, then, without our informed opinions and observations, we’ll see elected and appointed officials attempt mission impossible. When the smoke clears and we look for someone to blame for results we don’t like, look no further than the nearest mirror.

Almost every weekday, and weekends, too, there are public meetings on the nuts and bolts operating issues and many of the spice of life aspects that define us as a city--be they Board of Education, the Historic District Commission, Public Safety, Commission on the City Plan, Public Works and so many others-usually without anyone from the public attending.

Check the city’s website and pick a meeting. You might want to take a look at the on-line posting of recent meeting minutes so you are caught up, so to speak when you take a seat (and make a note if the minutes aren't posted; it's a violation of CT public law). You’ll know one or more of the volunteers on the board of committee, so the ‘them’ factor disappears immediately, which leaves only ‘us’ which is as it should be, if we are ever going to reinvent ourselves and our city. And since we’re learning to effectively speak to, rather than at, one another, why not use this as an opportunity to practice listening as well as speaking.

-bill kenny