Walk Tall or Don't Walk at All

I just rediscovered something I offered long ago and I think every word of it still applies, but you can decide that for yourself. I imagine 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 a lot more than wishing to make happy happen. The other and more important “w” word is work and we have more than enough of that to go around.

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.

Based on what seems to be about the last decade or so we already have a general sense that 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 new and improved city's website and pick a meeting. You might want to take a look at the online posting of recent meeting minutes so you are caught up when you take a seat because having informed opinions is critical to making good decisions. 

You’ll know one or more of the volunteers on the board or 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