It's a Flawed Work of Art

Suspect your house is a lot like mine in terms of activity and hours in the day to accomplish things. We’re already into February, and it was just the other day we wished each other a Happy New Year. Of course, as we should know by now, it takes more than wishing to make happy happen. 

For any number of reasons, ranging from meteorological to and through fiscal, this is literally the winter of our discontent. The (most recent installment of the) challenge of change is to never lose sight that rebuilding the Rose of New England is a never ending process and not a product—a journey, rather than a destination. There is no Grandma’s House towards which we’re driving. And the road can and does often feel like it goes on forever.

Every day, city administrators and their professional staff, joined by, and with, volunteers on advisories, board, commissions and committees, all of them our neighbors, begin again as every aspect of municipal government’s ability to deliver good and services in response to our desires for a particular program (sometimes to complement another one and sometimes in competition with it), is balanced against the ability to afford the delivery of those goods and services.

Governance at all levels shouldn’t be a spectator sport, but because of the pace of our lives, we sometimes do not choose to invest the time in much more than glancing at a headline about a state or local issue. That becomes our level of engagement, but elevates the degree of difficulty in arriving at decisions.

We have a general unease that this coming budget season in Norwich, and not just here, will involve hard choices almost pre-ordained to make no one happy. If politics is the art of the possible, then, without our informed opinions and observations, we’ll see elected and appointed officials attempt Mission Impossible. When the smoke clears, and we look for someone to blame for results we don’t like, look no further than the nearest mirror.

Almost every weekday, and weekends, too, there are public meetings on the nuts and bolts operating issues and many of the spice of life aspects that define us as a city--be they Board of Education, the Historic District Commission, Public Safety, Commission on the City Plan, Public Works, and so many others-usually without anyone or almost anyone from the public attending.

Check the city’s website and pick a meeting. You might want to review the online posting of the meeting minutes, so you are caught up, so to speak, when you take a seat be it in person or via a Zoom link. 

You’ll know one or more of the volunteers on most agencies, boards, commissions and committees, so the ‘them’ factor disappears immediately, which leaves only ‘us’, which is as it should be, if we are ever going to reinvent ourselves and our city. 

And since we’re learning to effectively speak to, rather than at, one another, why not use this as an opportunity to practice listening as well as speaking?

-bill kenny