Today Is Yesterday's Tomorrow

You might think reading these words today, they were precipitated by last week's story in The Bulletin or, more immediately, by the excellent editorial in Sunday’s Bulletin about funding Norwich Public Schools except, you’d be wrong.

I first offered them nine years ago proving yet again that those who do not remember history are fated to repeat it. We need to stop having amnesia.

When it comes to the education of our children, all of us have skin in the game. We must think larger and wider about what we want and expect for children from our schools and then examine and evaluate means of funding other than, and in addition, to the way we’ve been doing it. The more ideas the better, and the more voices taking part in the discussion, the more choices that are a part of the decision.

At budget time, money drives every discussion and the easiest way to end anyone's argument about an initiative, idea or ideal is to ask 'and how will you pay for this?' The silence is often deafening.

But here's the thing, especially as work begins on another city budget many fear we cannot afford, we should assume there's not going to a lot of state or Federal help in making ends meet leaving us to decide if can we afford to run our city.

We all agree we want to enhance and enlarge the municipal revenue stream by expanding private sector investment in Norwich, and that is happening, but if we don't recapitalize our infrastructure, reinvest in our public safety and readdress decades of make-do funding for our public schools, whom do we hope to attract to Norwich and what will we have left of Norwich for ourselves?

No one wants to pay more taxes, none of us like what we're paying now. But all of us want the services we currently have to remain exactly as they are, and maybe even get a little more. And each of us has an opinion on where (else) in the budget savings can be realized.

The only people who can get us out of this situation are already here. We are all we can count on and that's perfect because we are all we need, but we have to take risks to achieve rewards. And we need to remember there are NO silver bullets. And while we should always hope for the best, we must remember hope is NOT a plan.

Each of us is worth every penny of the current city budget as well as the one being developed by the City Manager and the various department directors. Soon enough the men and women of the City Council, the neighbors we elected to make tough decisions like budget expenditures, will need every informed idea and constructive suggestion we can offer.

If we are worth saving, we'll have to reinvent every aspect of how we do business. The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth of the habit.

-bill kenny