I know we consider the rose to be symbolic of our city, claiming as we do that Norwich is the Rose of New England, but based on the thirty-one years I’ve lived here, I think a more accurate representation of our city, sadly, is a watch with no hands because whatever it is and whatever you want, now ‘is not the right time to do it.’ Ever.
Hear me out.
Without fail, every year there’s at least one (and more
often more than one) issue or concern our elected leadership wrestles with,
usually at budget time, that gets kicked down the road for next time because ‘this
just isn’t the right time.’
I got thinking about that watch with no hands earlier when
chatting with an acquaintance whom I encountered who sort of warned me off from
writing about “that really expensive school construction bond item” on the
ballot for our (I hope) approval on November 8.
Well as we all know, the road to a very warm place is paved
with the best of intentions (roundabouts sold separately, I’ll wager), and I’ve
always been more of short sleeve shirts guy myself, so here we are.
To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve seen a whole lot about this
construction project, which will fundamentally reinvent how we deliver
education to every school-age child in the Norwich Public Schools System for
probably the next three or more decades.
There was a report in the pages of The Bulletin after the City
Council approved sending the bonding proposal to us, the voters, but that was back in August and here we are, checks watch (oh wait, never mind),
twenty-seven days before we cast our ballots and there’s been hardly a peep on
any (social) media platform I can think of.
Don’t let the dollar figure scare you, although $385
million of anything is certainly a lot; after state reimbursement and grants,
our share is about $150 million (which ain't chump change by any means). You can visit the city’s website
and click here for a quick summary. And since you’re clicking on stuff, here’s a PowerPoint presentation detailing where the dollars and effort are going
I know, ‘Can’t we just fix up what we have?’ We’ve been repairing
our schools since my kids were in Buckingham, and that was three decades ago.
We’ve gotten to the point where we’re patching the patches.
Over two decades ago we approved two ten-plus million-dollar
bonds to finally install technological infrastructure in our schools and
expand two of them instead of utilizing capital improvements because (you’ve
guessed it) ‘the time just isn’t right for spending that kind of money.’
It may not be ‘right’ now, either, but it’s a lot cheaper
than continuing to maintain buildings decades past their best-by dates. And
money expended on repairs cannot be invested in people and programs for our
schools to maintain our education system as a shining attraction for anyone
looking for a world-class school system.
Here it is: There’s never going to be a right time to do this right thing
if we don’t do it right now.
There are but two moments in each of our lives, now and too
late. And as irony would have it, you
don’t need a watch to know which one is which.
-bill kenny
