Daze of the Calendar

Odd isn't it, how we get angry about standing in line at airports as part of a process we concede might well save our lives, but many of us willingly spent hours in the cold and dark to save twenty bucks on Pimp My Mario (I swear to you I thought I had made it up until I searched; so sad) or some such crap as part of Black Friday. What a humorous species we would be, if we could look at ourselves the way we look at so much else.

And we'll need some humor as we attempt to do Christmas shopping in a constrained economic environment and meanwhile a city of this size, and I mean Norwich, but insert your town here, doesn't run itself. That's why we are fortunate to have so many volunteers to help out. We can certainly use all the help we can get.

The Redevelopment Agency meets this afternoon at five in Room 210 of City Hall. Having spent two special meetings interviewing partners to help develop a plan for the road ahead I'd expect a decision on whom that selection will be to be at the heart of the meeting, but we are a city of surprises and not always happy ones, so brace for impact.

Tuesday afternoon at a quarter of four in Room 335 of City Hall it's a meeting of the Community Development Advisory Committee, to review requests for (I call it returned) funds from the current calendar year Community Development Block Grants (CDBG vice CBGB's).

At five, though you'd have to remember reading a note (and a wrong one at that) from last week to realize it, there's a special meeting of the Harbor Management Commission in the City Manager's Office, Room 219, in City Hall. Looks like the last time they met was in September, if the minutes posted online are any indicator.

Both of these meetings are short-term goals kinds of meetings-with "where will we be in a year?" type of questions. However at seven in the Rose City Senior Center on Mahan Drive, it's a public meeting and hearing on the Plan of Conservation and Development, a decennial exercise that we should take far more seriously (remember Byron Brook in Occum or the Commercial Overlay Zone on Washington Street?) than we tend to. Here's the one we're working from right now-show up with ideas to offer and make sure you bring your ears, to listen as well.

Wednesday at five in Room 319 of City Hall, it's a regular (I assume) meeting of the Emancipation Proclamation Commemorative Committee, whose members aren't listed on the city's website so I guess you'll just have to go and see for yourself. Also not listed are minutes of any of their previous meetings, so I guess we're talking a lower case "p" at the moment.

Thursday, the first day of the last month of this year (already!), at seven in the Planning Department conference room at 23 Union Street,, it's a regular meeting of the Inlands, Wetlands, Watercourses and Conservation Commission. Their most recent minutes, from September's meeting are here, leaving me to wonder about those from October and November.

And Saturday morning at nine in the Taftville Fire Department, it's a One City Forum, giving you the opportunity to join hands with those from across the city working on projects great and small to improve our community's quality of life. Or you can just stay home and sit on your hands while complaining about how nothing ever changes and by so doing prove yourself to be your own self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's only your chance to take back the city for yourself, so no pressure, okay? See you at something?

-bill kenny