Our World According to ARP

Some of my favorite quotes are from 'unknown' (or perhaps better expressed as 'unknown to me,' admittedly a very different set of circumstances), and among my most favorite of favorites is 'Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.'  

Between us, I've never thought of our City Manager, John Salomone as a lumberjack and don't ever recall seeing him wear a flannel shirt, but sharpening an ax in preparation for felling a tree is very much what he was about in his presentation to the Norwich City Council last month for a plan to invest the first half of the city's just-about $30 million dollars of American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds.  

Pay attention to hyperlinks and the universal resource locators, URLs, because you'll need a road map for this part of what I like to call 'Participatory Democracy-The Play-at-Home Edition." At last Monday night's council meeting, there was very strong bi-partisan support for making doubly and perhaps even triply sure that you and I, who seem to see ourselves more as walk-ons in too much of city government, have an actual speaking part. 

Or, to revisit my lumberjack reference, we can channel our inner Paul and Paulette Bunyan, instead of remaining Babe the Blue Ox. You should find or make the time to take a long, hard look at the City Manager's proposal, and the Council's initial responses and adjustments, and then share your thoughts, reactions, and ideas (yes, it would be nice and I'm sure in the works, to do some neighborhood meetings to gather inputs, but don't wait to be asked, take the initiative). 

On the City's website page for the Mayor and City Council, scroll down to 'Send a message to the Mayor and all six City Council members,' and with a few keystrokes, you can make your voice heard, or technically speaking, read. While you're at it, since he did so much of the original research and planning together with the City's Department Heads in creating the initial proposal, it would be a nice idea to also share what you've got with the City Manager, whose email address is cmoffice@cityofnorwich.org. 

I know what you're thinking, 'this seems like a lot of work.' Yeah, that's because it is. It's also a LOT of money that, wisely invested across our city can dramatically improve our community quality of life, both short-term and in the long run. It's a heavy lift requiring all of us to use our legs, our brains, and our hearts rather than put all that strain on our backs. 

And let's face it, when was the last time you were asked for your idea on how to best deploy almost fifteen million dollars? Money doesn't talk, as Bob Dylan noted decades ago; it swears. And aside from a second installment of about the same amount next May, we're not likely to have this kind of hands-on opportunity to shape our own destiny anytime soon. 

Yes, our goal should be to do our best to spend this money wisely but goals without a plan are just wishes. And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. I'd wish for pony rides for my birthday but haven't we spent long enough looking at the back end of the horse? It's time to saddle up, buckaroos.  
-bill kenny