Towards a Smart City

As kids growing up, my mom used to say ‘when you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.’ Your mom, as well probably? See! I knew you looked familiar; I just didn’t recognize you.

Anyway. It’s early in this new year, with a new City Council who just had their first meeting of 2020 and one of the paradoxes the men and women we elected in November have probably already realized is that while we chose them as our representatives, we don’t seem to ever devote anywhere near enough time or study to how municipal government works, and for whom. 

In my opinion, we have some pretty bad habits as residents in terms of doing our homework and if you don’t think so, try this scenario on for size and let me know if you see anyone we both know.

Across town from City Hall, the men and women of the also-recently elected Board of Education will meet for most of the year in near isolation until they’ve fashioned a budget proposal that will most resemble making jet fuel from peanut oil and then they’ll offer it for public comment. 

And that’s when parents (and I speak from experience, having been one when our two were in school) will turn out in droves for meetings to voice concerns, unhappiness and often plain anger about where economies are being attempted because while needs and desires are infinite, the dollars to pay for them are not (and they never are). 

Not that any of that will not look similar to what will go on next in City Council chambers. You know it, I know it and so do the alderpersons. A city is an expensive form of government to run and too many of us too often have champagne tastes and beer budgets. 

And, here’s the part we should be chagrined to recognize, we rarely, if ever, pay attention to the painstaking process the municipal departments go through in preparing their budget requests and the hours of stubby-penciling that the City Manager and Comptroller devote to double-checking programs and processes before our Council members conduct their own review and seek answers to their questions on just about every line item in the budget.    

Not that this seems to concern us, even though it should. Public hearings on Norwich City budgets have, historically, always reminded me at times of that old cartoon commercial for life insurance where the Peanuts cartoon gang are reminded that ‘not everything can be five cents.’ 

Not that it stops a lot of us from (very) loudly offering our two cents about that nickel. And who can blame us? We should have informed opinions on how our city is being managed and the progress we’re making. The keyword, as you’ve already guessed, being informed.

We have two eyes, two ears, and one mouth, and as residents, all-year-round, we should use them in that same ratio. There’s always plenty of seats at any municipal meeting (check the city’s website for dates, times, and places) because we’d all benefit if you chose to attend more of them.
-bill kenny