BRAVO!

I’ve lived here long enough to be familiar with the names we’ve given to places in and around here and surprising myself when learning that sometimes I call a place by a name I’ve heard but that’s not its ‘real name.’  

For instance, I call the pocket park separating Broadway and Union Street, just beyond the Cathedral of Saint Patrick, ‘Little Plains Park,’ because everyone I know calls it that. But it’s also known as Union Square Park, (because of the Soldiers’ Memorial in it). It was only when someone passing through not that long ago stopped me while looking for it that I learned that.

I renamed the Regional Inter-Modal Transportation Center on Hollyhock Island, the Samuel Beckett Bus Station for two reasons: everything eventually gets a name, and for about a decade and a half, the project had seemed like something out of Waiting for Godot. And no matter how you feel about its existence, cost, value, purpose, or function (and some of the names other people call it), I think my name is accurate and memorable despite discussions to the contrary.

Speaking of which, the property transfer approved last Monday by the City Council with Mattern Construction for the company to rehabilitate, resuscitate and transform the long-abandoned YMCA on Main Street from an eyesore at a gateway to our city into their new corporate headquarters (with plans to convert the excess space into a restaurant or pub) should send ALL of us who root for Norwich into raptures of delight.

I did hear/read a lot of joyful noise but also a fair amount of jabbering from that flock of YeahBut Birds who nest everywhere. You hardly know they’re around until a project (just about any project) is about to launch and then you can hear/read their unhappiness.

While you and I should be happy the YMCA property will return to the city’s tax rolls for the first time in over a hundred years, I read ‘Yeah But…insert personal grievance masquerading as a reason here.”

Why is optimism always in such short supply around here and why can’t we ever seem to have a kind word to say about anything being undertaken in this city?

Let me start. This project is great news; thank you to all involved in getting it this far..

The Mayor and City Council are working together with the talented professionals across city government and with the citizen volunteers on the various agencies, boards, commissions, and committees who do so much of the heavy lifting to create a development plan with clearly defined goals and the means of achieving them.

And an almost identical cast of players, the Council, Mayor, City Manager, and Department Heads are also wrestling with the next budget at a time when there are a thousand good reasons to just throw up their hands at the enormity of the challenge and all of them could use a break, but they won't get one.

And (and you knew this was coming, didn’t you?) when we sit on our hands at public meetings, assuming we show up at all, we've chosen a side in the ongoing outsider versus insider debate, a debate that none of us can ever win. We can do/are doing important things as a city-look around and celebrate what we already have, but we need to understand all of our progress happens when we move forward together. 
-bill kenny