My Head is my only home, unless it rains

Not much on the calendar for Norwich municipal meetings-in theory allowing us to study the backgrounds and qualifications of all of those seeking our vote a little more than a month from now. Some have set the bar rather high: not sure how many candidates can deliver a crotch kick or misspeak about their time in the service. And let's not forget about others seeking to live in the Governor's mansion who are either corrupt and grasping capitalists or bumbling career politicians (C'mon, you know you know about whom I'm speaking). Meanwhile back here on earth we have to dance with the ones who brung us, so here we go twinkle-toes.

This afternoon at five, in Room 210 of City Hall it's a regular meeting of the Redevelopment Agency (no idea why the website notice speaks of "11/29/10"), whose agenda is right here. A suggestion on the minutes of the July and August meeting, called 'notes' for reasons I don't follow (speaking of which, I'm familiar with regular and special meetings-not sure why the July meeting is called 'informational ' since ALL meetings are informational unless we view them as entertainment). One of the local newspapers has this meeting happening again (I guess) at seven-not exactly. Maybe the second show is completely different from the first; maybe not.

That same newspaper has the Public Parking Commission, which normally meets on the third Tuesday of every other month, meeting at six tonight, except they had their meeting last Tuesday as they were scheduled to do.

Tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 in the conference room in the Central Office (over at the Norwichtown Green) it's a regular meeting of the Board of Education's Policy Committee. My appreciation to the city's note on the meeting since the Board of Education's website is uncontaminated by any mention of anything that has even happened this year with this committee. We worry so often about citizen apathy, not that you or I should care about that.

The Harbor Management Commission meets at five in room 219 of City Hall. Here's their meeting agenda and I'm hoping within #7b "City Pier/City Dock/Seawall" might be a hint as to the progress of reopening the Heritage Trail from Indian Leap Falls to the Norwich Harbor as a follow-up to item 9 of the 24 August meeting minutes.

And at six, in their conference room at 16 Golden Street it's a double-header (sort of) as the Board of Commissioners of the Norwich Public Utilities holds its regular meeting and a regular Sewer Authority meeting. FWIW, the August Sewer Authority meeting minutes are actually July's and the meeting itself lasted about two minutes. Flushed with success, the Commissioners returned to their regular August NPU meeting (oh, stop crying! You're just mad because I typed it faster than you could) without ever answering Mr. Ripley's questions, I guess.

At six Tuesday evening (according to the city's website these are as necessary) there's a special meeting of the Building Code Board of Appeals. Here's a draft of their August special meeting minutes and you get a flavor of the important quality of life issues the Board deals with on a regular basis.

There's a newspaper listing for a five PM Wednesday meeting of the Board of Dangerous Buildings, except they regularly meet on the fourth Wednesday of the month which would have been the 22nd. The last mention on the city website about anything connected to the Board is their meeting agenda from 27 January 2010.

In closing, my attempt to underscore that the farther out in space you go the more alike we look, wanted to mention that today is National Gay Men's HIV Awareness Day. As John Donne eloquently suggested, the tolling of the bell, be it on Water Street in Norwich's Chelsea District or on the streets of Philadelphia is both a warning and a call for action for all of us as the 30th anniversary of the Center for Disease Control, CDC, concluding that Karposi's Sarcoma and other fatal opportunistic infections were Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, AIDS, approaches. We are all infected and affected.

-bill kenny