Sainthood and Concrete City Streets

The calendar says pitchers and catchers have already reported for Spring training so in my heart I know there's a change in the weather coming, but (some of) my bones are suggesting it can't get here soon enough. It'd be nice if as the days continue to lengthen and the temperatures climb a few more of us could remember we own the city in which we live (I'm not talking only about where I live, but if it helps you sleep better, pretend that I am) and we selected the friends and neighbors voted into leadership positions so let's start to take responsibility for what happens and stop practicing our Fay Wray face.

Speaking of King Kong, especially as the budget season gets serious, this afternoon at three-thirty in the Central Office conference room (Central Office is what was once called the John Mason School across from the Norwichtown Green) is a meeting of the Budget Expenditure Committee. If you go, and based on the turnout last Saturday I think the two of us 'from the public' in the audience were me and Keith R, neither of whom has children in the Norwich Public Schools system, please drop a note to jmbarber@norwichpublicschools.org and ask for "Planning for 2010-2011 and beyond..." (though I didn't see all that much of the planning beyond part; sorry if that sounds harsh) so you have some means of placing into context the stories written about the first City Council and board of Education workshop (I have yet to see a reader's comment from someone I think was in attendance).

As an aside to the Board of Education, if you started to post per public law the schedule of meetings as well as the minutes (right now a bit little of both that adds up to a whole lot of neither) and added your fiscal planning documents to your website, what would that cost and what might it be worth (in terms of a more informed public)? Thanks to those who sent me notes via Facebook as I posted the highlights of Saturday's meeting in real time. I hope we see one another at subsequent joint meetings and remember, it's never eaten as hot as it's served.

Elsewhere in Norwich, at five in Room 210 of City Hall, it's a regular meeting of the Redevelopment Agency. Here's a draft of their November meeting minutes. December's meeting was cancelled and January's meeting lacked a quorum (related note the Agency Chairman, I think, made some very valid points during the City Council's other workshop last Saturday).

And at 5:15 in their offices in Gales Ferry is a regular meeting of the Southeastern Connecticut Water Authority. Unless you're W. C. Fields, you probably think about potable water for less than ten seconds a year, usually prompted by a I-turned-the-tap-and-nothing-came-out moment. I'm glad we have folks doing this for all of us across the region.

Tuesday at 3:30 in the Central Office, it's a meeting of the Norwich Board of Education's Policy Committee-click here to see another example of my earlier point about timely posting of legally required minutes of meetings. I'm sometimes tempted to file this stuff under 'getting real old, real fast.'

The Harbor Management Commission meets at five in Room 219 of City Hall-based on the website, this may be their first meeting of the year. Meeting at six, down the hall in Room 210, it's a combined regular/investment meeting of the Personnel and Pension Board.

Wednesday afternoon, into Wednesday evening (pack a lunch and stay a while) it's a trifecta, of sorts for what I like to think of as 'actions speak louder than words', in this case, our neighbors rolling up their sleeves and getting a little dirty in terms of redevelopment and renewal and not just in downtown. There's a Dangerous Buildings Board of Review (most current item posted, sorry) meeting at 5:30 in the Planning Department (basement) Conference Room at 23 Union Street followed by the 751 North Main Street Committee (don't know if there will be an update on the Request for Proposal the City Council approved last month, but maybe) at 6:15 followed at 6:30 by a meeting of the 21 West Thames Advisory Committee.

At seven, in their conference room at the course on New London Turnpike, it's a regular meeting of the Golf Course Authority. In the spirit of Abbot and Costello, their posted draft minutes of their January meeting are actually the draft minutes of the December 2009 meeting of the Historic District Commission. When you go to the Historic District Commission's page and look at their draft January meeting minutes, you'll discover it's (also) their December 2009 meeting minutes, though it would appear there shouldn't have been ANY December meeting minutes.
Every penny of it.

Thursday morning at 7:30 in their offices at 77 Main Street, it's a meeting of the Board of Director of the Norwich Community Development Corporation whose role and responsibilities has always been the subject of a lot of opinion in this neck of the words often without a lot of actual knowledge and facts to support any of the conclusions people draw. I'd suggest looking here for one way ahead, and looking here to see who works for whom, and should, in The Rose City.

Added bonuses: the former is part of the body of knowledge being developed and staffed at Saturday meetings, like the one coming up THIS Saturday morning at eight in the Central Fire House (my bologna and the Mayor has a second name just not always) working with the City Council while the latter is a state-mandate that needs to be updated by 2012, and whose revisions are in their earliest stages where informed comment and new ideas and impulses will be welcomed. Two birds, one stone, guten appetit!

That's it for this week-and there's a promise of less than almost Spring weather but try to not let that discourage you from kicking the tires and checking under the hood of our city government. It's easy to say 'I'll leave it for somebody else' until you do the math and realize it's how we got to where we are now. By the way, nice hat.
-bill kenny