It's Time To Make Your Own Demands

There was a story near the latter part of last week, though not in The Bulletin, that reminded me with a jolt that time flies whether you're having fun or not. 

The headline, "Norwich Officials Consider Renewing Downtown Revitalization Program Set to Expire" (it may be behind the paywall) is for a story about a municipal bond initiative for downtown Norwich we residents approved very nearly a decade ago. 

In the course of the last ten years, rehabilitation and revitalization efforts, great and small across Down City have been made proving, as Dylan once offered, money doesn't talk, it swears. The bond approved at that time was for about 3.4 million dollars and the story notes that about half a million dollars remain in the program which expires next April. There are, the story goes on to report, still some applications for the program pending and about $150,000 of repaid loans included in that half a million-dollar figure. 

I know, you're reaching to secure your wallet, but I'm not coming for it and so far, neither is anyone else in City Government. I can still recall the contretemps during the Council's adoption of our current budget about ponying up money for the Armstrong tennis courts reconstruction so I don't think any alderpersons have an appetite right now for an argument about another revitalization bond, loan, or perhaps a bottle and can redemption drive to get the money.   

Except as James Kwak wrote earlier this month in The Washington Post, "The End of Small Business," all the progress made in the past decade not just in our small town downtown but across the country may be nothing more than a memory because, as he notes, "after COVID-19, giant corporations and chains may be the only ones left." 

A decade ago, despite all the brave talk about architectural diversity and a construction heritage that stretched back for over a century and a half, downtown was on life support. We, who lived here at the time bet on ourselves in approving the bond and I think it can be argued the proponents and designated adults managing the downtown revitalization the bond paid for got a lot of things right. Not everything, but the successes were there and from Burnham Square to Main Street practically to the Mercantile Exchange you can still see positives. 

This terrific photo first appeared in an NCDC newsletter

As I wrote a decade ago growth and adaptation are critical to every successful organism, from a single cell tag-along to a government spanning a continent. It shouldn't be that surprising to us, here in Norwich that our city has changed a great deal in three hundred and fifty (plus) years. And that's the thing about change-it relentlessly keeps happening because it's a process and not a product, a journey and not a destination.

This time around, I'd wonder if looking across the entire city might not be a better idea or at least worth exploring. as opposed to again targeting only the Consolidated City District. It makes little sense to apply it to only 'downtown,' when the additional CCD tax burden discourages any development there. Fixing the CCD fire tax should be part of any further discussion on any revitalization bonding. 

Any next steps the City Council should consider on any bond(s) would formalize the entire process from application and eligibility through approval, articulating what agencies and city offices had which responsibilities for accessing funds to include an ongoing feedback/report to shareholders (us) and the City Council via (perhaps) the Community Development Agency or a revitalized and reconstituted Planning, Administration, and Economic Development (APED) committee of the City Council on what the bond monies have generated. 

Meaning well and doing well are two very different things and we should stop confusing the former with the latter. We need to accept the reality we can only have the city we are each willing to fight for. No more and no less.
-bill kenny