Choice, Chance, and Change

I'm a clutter bug. I throw almost nothing away, ever, and save things for years even if the reason why I saved it escapes me. Agendas from City Council or Board of Education meetings from years past, complete with my scribbled notes in handwriting that would make a doctor jealous? Yep, I have them by the boxcar, together with whatever supporting documents were offered at the time. 

They come in handy as they did just the other day while I was reading that news story on "Norwich welcome to additional housing units downtown" because in my pile of papers is a copy of an older Norwich Plan of Conservation and Development from 2002 (I've saved a number of them since moving here) with this in its foreword, "Good cities don't just happen, they are made" and a line I should hope none of us forget, 'the future of Norwich depends(s)on the ability of City leadership to bring together disparate opinions around a common vision.' 

Here we are in the almost-spring of 2019 and some things, like those two sentences, are constants. And others like this one should be. No matter who you are, where you live or what you do, life, reduced to its most simple and pure is: You have to make a choice to take a chance and make a change.

Too often, our personal (and collective) fear of making a mistake keeps us from doing something in the belief that not doing anything means we can't do anything wrong. I'm not sure sitting still in a world always in motion does us any good, especially when it comes to advancing and improving where we live.

In conversations, comments offered on radio call-ins, letters to newspaper editors, and on social media, we want those in positions of (formal and informal) leadership to do the 'right thing' for us and by us, though (and I'm one of those offenders) we're not always clear on what that 'right thing' looks like.
    

Our most recent election for Mayor and City Council brought a mixture of fresh as well as familiar faces to Council chambers with new ideas and enthusiasms which I think we're still working to harness and channel. It's one thing to decide a new direction is needed and another thing entirely on defining that direction. It's important we never lose sight that change is a never-ending process and not a product—in other words, its a journey, rather than a destination. 

Too often for a variety of reasons, we don't invest the time in taking an active part in our city government aside from glancing at a headline. It doesn't have to be that way and the more engaged we each are in how where we live is maintained and improved the more successful we are as a city. 

If you want to stay up-to-date on the progress of the reinvention of Norwich, check the city’s website and pick a meeting to attend. And if you don't mind a suggestion you might start with this Saturday morning at nine for an "Informational Meeting and Workshop" at Foundry 66. Will your life change? Probably not. Could our city change? I'm thinking maybe.

There was a healthy cross-section of municipal leaders, city department heads, and local businesses at the first one last month (and as there had been at the City Manager's Special meeting earlier this month), defining goals and mapping milestones to measure progress while sharing insights and information I hadn't heard anywhere else, which I suspect is sort of one of the reasons for having the conversations because knowledge is power.

For too long enthusiastic beginners, be they residents or businesses, have been worn down by discouraged experts. All of us, no matter where we see ourselves need to promise that 2019 is the year we stop making excuses and start making a difference. See you Saturday?
-bill kenny