Tilting at Windmills

A (not THE) Christmas Story

2009-12-25T01:00:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas. I hope, if possible, you have the opportunity to be surrounded and in the embrace of the love of family and friends. And that this is not just for today, but for all days. Perhaps if we all concentrated on living the message of the Christmas Story on a daily basis, the annual observation of the event would come easier for us.

Four days ago, thanks to the global village and world wide connectivity (brought to me by the same military-industrial complex we normally blame for all the evils of the world (real and and/or imagined), to include the music of Celine Dion and Buckner booting that easy grounder), I had a facebook email (Or do they have their own name for that, perhaps facemail?) friend request from someone whose name I did not recognize but who listed my wife as a friend.

This one was easy since I see Sigrid, my wife, on a daily basis (the apartment isn't all that big and I know many of her usual hiding places) and she shared with me the friend request was from her former best friend and matron of honor at our wedding, damals, Evelyn F, now with a new last name as she and Rick F had gone their separate ways and each had remarried. She is now living back in Germany, only a couple of hours south of where she had grown up and was just starting out on her World Wide Wander.

Two days later, I had email from a person from Port Arthur, Texas, who had stumbled upon this gibberish the night before via a search engine into which she had entered the names of her Godparents from many years ago-their names had turned up in an entry I had written about the day Sigrid and I had married. Michelle G, the woman from Port Arthur, wrote she had been looking for this couple for over a decade and wondered if the people I had mentioned might, indeed, be the object of her search.

To tell you the truth, I had and have no idea if our Evelyn and Rick are hers, too. I know, especially today, how I'd like the story to turn out. Because of a variety of threads, all woven invisibly together, seemingly at random, I was in a position to relay her note, via my wife, to Evelyn and maybe brighten more than just one person's Christmas. Sort of like the First Christmas, except for the animals, the shepherds in the fields, The Star with Royal Beauty Bright, Pentium II computer chips, dial-up modems and, most importantly, the manger, The Mother and Child. Merry Christmas.
-bill kenny

We Need a Little Christmas

2009-12-24T01:00:00.003-05:00

In much the same manner as a rabbit who distributes chocolate eggs has replaced the original meaning of Easter, we've grown old in a culture that has a Jolly Old Elf flying around the world in one night handing out presents that look just like the stuff you can buy for the kids in the store with the giraffe. Funny how art imitates life and then again, when it doesn't.

I'm a fossil who grew up in Fifties where we had air raid warnings that involved hiding under our school desks and facing away from the windows (to avoid the flash of atomic incineration), three (if we had a good antenna) TV stations, all black and white all the time, fathers that got up early and went far away to work and moms who made sure we got to school, came home, put on play clothes before we went outside (every time I see either droopy drawers or tattered-knee jeans, I try to imagine the reaction of my mother or, more especially, my father, and smile as I shake my head), had dinner, did our homework and got ready for bed where we'd get up and do it all again.

Mine was a nuclear family--now most of us live in an unclear society-anything goes and nobody knows. Back in the day, we had Sister Rose, Sister Thomas Anne and Sister Mary Jean and this time of year, our heads were not filled with thoughts of sugar plum fairies (never did get that line or what they were supposed to be. Fruit cake, I've had; sugar plums, not quite), but we were experts on The Nativity Scene (I felt compelled to backspace and capitalize the "T", because I was taught NO other way to write it).

We learned all the hymns, often in what Sister Mary Jean called 'the original Latin' which I realized years later was a private joke she and my father shared and while there's a certain happiness in Jingle Bell Rock, for hard-core jollies, try Adeste Fideles (sung by someone who thought the Wise Men had given The Child the gift of Frankenstein, since I had no idea what frankincense could possibly be).

We've become people who are more familiar with the returns policy at The Mall than the hours during which confessions are heard at the local church, or as I heard it called the other day by someone too young to be facetious, "The God Store." Many of us will spend part of today trying to buy that special present for our special someone and I wish those of us in that situation the best of luck.

I've been told a friend is a present you give to yourself and there's no such things as strangers, only friends we haven't met. If both of those are true, and it is, after all, Christmas, when miracles can and do happen, as you're heading home at whatever time today from that last shopping expedition, rather than follow The Star, seek out the sound of the ringing bell and collection kettle and share some of the change, paper and coins, in your trouser and jacket pockets. You'll never miss it, and someone you'll never meet will be grateful for a moment of peace on the ground.
-bill kenny

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

2009-12-23T01:00:00.005-05:00

There's been a lot of words written in review about this year, rapidly ending, and between now and New Year’s Eve, there’ll be a few more, I suspect. These are not intended to be a part of that. There's something disquieting about the neuralgia of nostalgia--seen through the prism of the past, events often take on a rosy hue, far more in retrospect than you might recall they had at the time they were happening.

I figure in a matter of weeks this, too, will be part of the 'Good Old Days' and perhaps that's better so. Meanwhile, I'd suggest we turn the page on the calendar since, soon enough, we'll be on at a new year and the start of another decade. When you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there-and there's many signposts up ahead. Instead of arguing over who is holding the map, who is steering and who’s called shotgun, let’s keep our eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel.

Let's promise one another to work to assure our elected officials, federal, state and local maintain their focus on the "Big Picture" while devoting attention to the finer details as well. In recent weeks, the women and men of my City Council here in Connecticut have been working hard to define a vision of Norwich, Next, and then refine the ways to achieve it.

It's not easy being an elected official anywhere in these United States and I've often thought sometimes, it's a little more challenging than it needs to be where I live. As someone who is not from here but who lives here now, I don't pretend to understand why sometimes it seems, we expect the worst. Maybe we’ve adopted a pessimistic mindset because that way we can only be surprised and never disappointed. We strike me as somehow being related to Eyeore, Winnie the Pooh's homefry, of sorts, who elevates pessimism to Olympian heights. But waiting for the other shoe to drop means it's much harder to dance in celebration, and perhaps 2010 is the year to dust off those dancing shoes.

The City Council we elected in November invested several hours on consecutive Saturdays (with the third yet to come, this Saturday at eight AM) learning to say aloud, and to one another, what many of us have whispered or feared to even think, and, by thus naming challenges and opportunities for us all, took a giant step in a positive direction as reflected in Monday night’s Council meeting agenda. No, you won't see the progress reflected on your property tax bill-at least not yet, but despite the dogs' barking, the caravan has started to move on. Small steps are how we start on long journeys and great adventures.

Some of us will argue into the new year, and beyond, on the merits and impact of City Council actions and decisions from their Monday night meeting--but we are starting to learn to own the consequences of our decisions. Maybe, just maybe, we're realizing the only way we can get to where we want to go is by going there together. That it's often not eaten as hot as it's served is a truth and a truism and is valid for where you live as well as for where I live. Grab a napkin and tuck in.

-bill kenny

You Dreamed of Heroes Riding Across the Sea

2009-12-22T01:00:00.003-05:00

This World Wide Web and global village connectivity is paying off for me, big-time, this Christmas as I have all my shopping done (I think). I don't have to brawl at the mall or feel like a salmon going upstream to fulfill a biologic destiny--I can smile, at least until the statements come in the mail, thanks to the on-line merchants who've built a better virtual mousetrap and have delivered on their promises of a new world in the morning, or within two days if I choose priority shipping. Oh come all ye Commerce, Epay and by PayPal....

I'm still handicapped by my lack of ability to visualize items. Unless I've seen it on a store shelf, or caught an advert in a newspaper or on television, simply reading a description on line with or without specifications on size and weight, I'm clueless as to the item's actual size. I live in fear this will be the Christmas where that Stonehenge vignette from Spinal Tap comes to life under the tree in the living room of my house (a tree that looks spectacular and which I can admire without ego since my wife made all the Christmas magic happen. Again).

I'm glad I'm done, more or less, because almost, admittedly only momentarily, I caught a TV spot for Jenny McCarthy, in my opinion this generation's Lucille Ball, but without the red hair or her comedic gift, is hawking a workout video for Wii or maybe it's a computer fitness program that, when followed faithfully, will enable me to transform myself into her image and likeness. Such news usually causes me to inventory our supply of stout rope and mentally map which overhead fixtures might best support my weight, so enthralled at this prospect am I, and then came the deal-clincher. In the background, though thankfully NOT by the original artists, the soundtrack to her sales pitch was The Beatles' Revolution

The Beatles were the soundtrack to my growing up, and not just me--a whole generation of nations. Every time their song catalog gets sold, someone does something like this and (take my word for this) it really grinds a lot of us greatly. Almost ten years ago, somebody in the telecommunications industry thought exploiting Come Together to pitch themselves was a brilliant idea. I was hoping we would, indeed, come together and throw stones through every plate glass window in their corporate headquarters. Now, I can dream, should I find the workout under my tree, to finally develop enough upper body and arm strength to be able to hurl a small car both for distance as well as height. -bill kenny

The City's Aflood (Norwich Meetings 21-26 December 2009)

2009-12-21T01:00:00.004-05:00

Still struggling for the perfect present for that hard-to-shop resident of the City of Norwich? Why not the gift that keeps on giving (and no, I don't mean a cold)? Share with them the link on the city's website that lists the entire month's municipal meetings at a glance. Perfect for people with insatiable curiosity. There's nothing to wrap or mail and no scary entries on your credit card statement to start off 2010.

And the lucky recipient has one less excuse to be unhappily surprised by the goings-on here in our Rose of New England. Our neighbors and friends who make up the various advisories, boards, commissions and committees that help so much of this city, and so many others across the country, function will appreciate having the public in attendance. Hey, if they welcome me now, imagine how euphorically they'll embrace you.....

With that in mind, recognizing snow (and removal of snow) and its impact on intended schedules and realizing Friday is Christmas, let's see what's forecast under the tree this week for municipal meetings, and watch out for the coal and what looks like a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer (and some of their output).

This morning at 9:30 in their offices in the Norwich Business Park (it's easier to get there if you head up Plain Hill Road) is a special meeting of the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Transmission Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative. The only part of their meeting open to the public is the discussion and decision on next year's meeting schedule, so you may want to consider the weather outside and the driving conditions in light of the return on attending the meeting.

This afternoon at 5:15 in their offices just off Route 12 in Gales Ferry, is a regular meeting of the Southeastern Connecticut Water Authority. I suspect it's counter-intuitive to assume they have a bottled water vending machine in their lobby, so drink up before you go.

This evening at 6:30 in their offices in the Norwich Business Park, is a regular meeting of the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments Regional Planning Commission RPC Reference Committee, the proverbial mouthful if I've ever seen one. And kidding aside, as belts continue to tighten because the recession-that's-already-been-pronounced-as-over-seems-to-keep-on-going-around here, the pragmatic necessity of regionalization and cooperation will continue to replace the 'leave my rice bowl' alone mindset that many seem to think is independence and SCCOG are setting the standards on cooperative efforts.

Tonight at 7:30 (remember the time changed for the second monthly Council meeting) the City Council convenes with a hefty agenda. You might wish to pay attention to reports from the two committees, the Commission on the City Plan and the Norwich Baseball Stadium Authority.

The report from the Commission on the City Plan is a negative recommendation to purchase the Norwich Hospital Property parcel and creates the requirement for a super majority of the City Council, five of seven, in favor of resolution seven. Assuming, of course, all members of the City Council, to include the three former members of the Hospital Site Advisory Committee, choose to vote, either tonight or at a subsequent meeting prior to the state-mandated purchase deadline of 24 January.

The State of Connecticut just agreed to significantly restructure the remediation provisions of their purchase agreement with Preston for their share of the property, so perhaps an extension of the purchase deadline of the Norwich parcel isn't beyond the realm of possibility, as has been presumed. If you don't ask, the answer is automatically no.

The other report is from the Norwich Baseball Stadium Authority, whose November minutes (most recent ones posted) don't indicate what the presentation might be about, but with Major League pitchers and catchers reporting in less than sixty days (yippee!), it would be swell if an update on a possible new tenant for Dodd Stadium were the topic.

Another item of elevated interest on the agenda, at least for me, is resolution six, the leasing of 337 Main Street, the former YMCA building. Some have argued that Norwich cannot afford another failed building as a gateway gargoyle. But when all the improvements at 337 Main are made, and all the foot traffic that the Recreation Director's presentation forecast/promised for the facility walks out the doors and back into downtown Norwich, what will have changed in downtown (be it in three years or three decades), aside from the facility itself? Quite frankly why is this building more important than the one across the street or at the other end of Main Street? You know what else I'd like to know--how many memberships, offered the evening of the presentation, have been sold in the ten days since it happened? What's your guess and are you an optimist or pessimist?

I would hope the ladies and gentlemen of the City Council, based on two Saturday sessions in a workshop entitled Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail (not what Doug Relyea is calling his intervention, but could), with the third session set for this Saturday (more later) would agree the Silver Bullet Solution to urban center revitalization does NOT work. (And the draft plan handed out Saturday was just that, a draft. I can remember the person who distributed it saying just that. I hope the Council can remember that.) You are not done and we are not over. Unless there's a more holistic approach to development and implementation of a revitalization plan rather than the current haphazard philosophy still being used, we'll continue to have bright starts that quietly fade to black with time.

Remember when the Mercantile Exchange was going to be the catalyst for a new downtown? Then it was the Wauregan that was the spark in the dark. At one point it was going to be a Discovery Center in a building someone stuck us with (and then charged us extra for windows he never installed and we paid for them anyway). We're told the Regional Inter-Modal Transportation Center is the tool that will 'help us turn the corner' and now we can add the acquisition of the former YMCA building, 337 Main Street, to that same list. In case you haven't noticed--nothing is improving.

The possibilities of a recreation center at 337 Main Street have enormous promise and offer both great rewards while containing great risk. We shouldn't become so enamored of the former that we are blind to the latter. Nor should we fear doing anything lest we do something wrong. We should research and evaluate such an acquisition, but think bigger, not smaller. What if the City Council can agree this project is but one step, and not a journey unto itself, in a larger, longer and more difficult road to re-establishing a defined downtown district as a destination for visitors while also reinventing itself as the heart of a Norwich our residents can come home to.

Our elected leaders should and would work to reward risk undertaken for the greater good, over developer greed, while defining a vision of The Next Norwich and then partnering with the private (NOT public) sector to refine that vision into a more tangible future. You and I have heard and read that 'better days are coming to Norwich' FOR DECADES. We're running out of calendar pages as well as opportunities. These are better days because THIS is the only day each of us has. We need to make something of it while we have it.

I'd like to think we haven't yet had all the discussion on this issue that there's going to be, and a friendly reminder of a point we all know, but sometimes forget (present company included): two competing monologues do not a dialogue make. There's a difference between speaking with and speaking at one another.

The Board of Education Policy Committee meets tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 in the conference room at the Central Office, across from the Norwichtown Green. There's a lot to be said for an up to date website, especially for an entity whose operation requires over half the municipal budget. Too bad it doesn't get said, or updated, often enough on some websites, eh?

The Harbor Management Commission meets tomorrow at five in Room 219 of City Hall. Here's a draft of their November meeting minutes. I'm concluding the reconstructive work on the seawall is just about accomplished, though I'm not sure if that's what the minutes actually mean. And just as a pass-along, the regular meeting of the Building Code of Appeals has been cancelled.

Wednesday night at seven in their conference room at the facilities, and don't let the weather fool you, there's a regular meeting of the Norwich Golf Course Authority. Think Spring and give Golf for the Holidays (I was reading their special meeting minutes).

And, because you've seen these itty-bitty, teeny-tiny notices in the newspapers about 'force rankings', I wanted to mention a meeting this Saturday morning (yes, as in the day after Christmas) at eight in Room 335 of City Hall where a third City Council (and City Manager) workshop, and they've been incremental in going at this, will attempt (my word, not theirs) to 'Develop a plan that will improve the Norwich economy by XX% before the end of 20XX.'

Working with their facilitator, Douglas Relyea, the City Manager, City Council and Mayor will develop a SMART-Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely-Plan of action, define the specifics and refine the tools needed to achieve the goal. Gotta tell ya, the same faces were in the gallery last Saturday as were there the Saturday before, so you need to think about joining us. Keith R is seeing more of me than my wife is-and one of them is waaay too happy about that turn of events.

Seriously, these sessions aren't high drama-but quiet progress and hard, solid work. Maybe this town is in need of a small vacation from grand gestures, or even rude ones for that matter, and instead of a balled fist, we might be willing to finally try a helping hand. "Oh, we're beaten and blown by the wind; Blown by the wind. Oh, when I go there, I go there with you. It's all I can do."
-bill kenny

Ebenezer's Lament?

2009-12-20T01:00:00.005-05:00

Just in time for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, it's Christmas Light Hero, because nothing says 'let's commemorate the season marking the birth of the Savior of Mankind' better than over the top conspicuous consumption and ostentatious displays of excess. And many of us wonder across these United States, why so many people in so many places around the globe don't like us. It is a puzzlement to me as well.

At one level this, it may be argued, is harmless and "American" in every positive sense of the word. After all, check the wording in our Declaration of Independence, "...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." F-U-N. Who else lives in a country founded on fun? Anyone? Judging from the footage I've seen of Mardi Gras Rio, maybe Brazil, but that's about it. And admittedly, no one's getting hurt and it's all lighthearted and that's fair enough I suppose.

I have no idea what a display like this cost in terms of money and material or into the service of how many other uses all of that could have been placed, but I suspect whatever amount it , it would have disappeared without a trace into the chasm of need we have on this planet, or just in this country. The (unconditional) War on Poverty declared by then-President Lyndon Baines Johnson began forty-five years ago. How do you suppose that's going? Perhaps we could ask one of the homeless who shuffle from abandoned threshold to threshold in my downtown, and yours, trying to get a break from the winter wind--or inquire of the poor who sleep on heating grates as people step over them on their way to work everyday in every major city in this country.

I don't pretend to know the intricacies of the most recent census (or the politics of manipulation as we gear up for the next one) or the truer meanings of the New Testament, so I'm not sure how many unwed, pregnant women we have living in barns across Connecticut or the county it's a part of, and in many respects it makes no difference. As a culture and a country, I fear, we've not only come to expect the giant government program, we rely on it.

Instead of neighbors helping neighbors in a thousand small ways, we group together to form advisories to draft a plan and organize a feasibility study. We've gone from the preamble of the Constitution, "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity...." to "Greed is Good."

If I'm distressed by anything I've seen or known in my fifty-seven years (so far) on this Big Blue Marble, it's that we keep having to choose between extremes-there's never any way to lift all the boats. Coming out of the local Stop and Shop stores earlier this week, the ringing of the kettle collector's bell prompted me to offer a dollar bill to a foot soldier in the Salvation Army. This has been a tough year for many of us, but, hand on my heart, a buck is nothing. If each of us gave a buck, how many people could that money help and, before we get too euphoric, how many would remain to be helped?

Enjoy the success of excess but try to remember, as covered in Santa suits and reindeer poop and Black Fridays and best deals of the year distractions that all of it seems to come with, the reason for the season. Others around us may not celebrate Christmas but their holiday and ours share so much of the same values that it's hard to believe after all the work we've (all) invested in helping those of us less fortunate that there's still so much yet to be done. So go ahead, double click on the You Tube funny clips about holiday lights-but reach into your pocket today, the last Sunday of Advent, as you look into your heart, and give of yourself to someone else. Their smile of gratitude will light the world.
-bill kenny

And All this Time the River Flowed

2009-12-19T01:00:00.007-05:00

I don't ever remember celebrating my father's birthday as I grew up. Logic dictates we, our mother (his wife) and my brothers and sisters (his children) must have done so as we did for everyone in our family, and yet every year I struggle and fail to find a single memory of a single moment of that day.

I mention that because had he lived, today would be his eighty-sixth birthday (he died twenty-eight years ago) and I'd like to think he would be something I never felt he was while we shared the earth, proud of something, anything, I'd ever done. In this case, as was so true in our shared lives, I would be cheating (oh so slightly) as I'd hope he'd be proud of his grandchildren, Patrick and Michelle, who are my wife, Sigrid, and my children.

My most lasting memory of my father isn't really a memory of him at all, but a reminder of how life goes on within you and without you. Many years ago while shopping, Sigrid found what she assured me was 'the perfect card for you to send to your dad for Father's Day.' This was all pre-Internet and global village days, remember, and actually it was back when it was only she and me and work (and sadly, not always in that order).

I don't remember the card, though this would be a better lesson for me if I had, but I signed it, after Sigrid had addressed it, put a stamp on it and had me throw it in my work bag (a shoulder-strapped book bag, of sorts, that carried, judging from its weight, most of the world's most curious and heaviest items).

And that's where the card stayed. Months later, and well past Father's Day, she was rooting through my bag, in search of something I had promised to bring home but had misplaced. Her theory, more often right than I'd like to admit, was that whatever it was, it could be found in my bag. The body of Jimmy Hoffa, the other gunmen on the grassy knoll, Weapons of Mass Destruction--check in the bag.

What she found that day, and registered a quiet note of disappointment with me because of the discovery, was the card we both thought I had mailed months earlier for Father's Day. Faced with the reality that I hadn't, all I could do was to mumble a promise to do so 'next year'.

You've guessed, of course, that my father died before 'next year' ever happened. As a self-centered oldest child, stiff-necked and incapable of bending, I had clashed with my father nearly everyday of life-I think from the time I could talk, all I said to him was 'no.' I don't recall what we fought about or why, but they were bitter arguments, often ending in physical contact that made me more fully appreciate the weight of his hands, but I refused to yield anything at anytime and we passed months, if not years, exchanging as few words as possible for as long as possible. I had wished the worst for him countless times, and when notified by the Red Cross (I was still on active duty in the Air Force) that he was dead, my first reaction was overwhelming guilt.

The three oldest children had moved out and away, but our three youngest sisters and brother were left to be raised by our mother in circumstances vastly different from ours when were their age, and that I made no effort to ever learn or to attempt to mitigate or improve. I've never spoken to them about those times and know I'll never do so. More casualties in a war that should have ended decades ago, but continues even as I type this and feel the gorge rise in my veins as if "enough" weren't already, and finally, truly enough.

I am, like it or not, my father's son in ways neither of us could have ever seen or imagined. Perhaps he'd be proud of that, and yet I truly hope not. Life is a sum of all your moments--waking and dreaming; everything you've done or left undone; every word, said and unsaid and of all your prayers, answered but, most especially and finally, unanswered.
-bill kenny

Utensils at ten paces

2009-12-18T01:00:00.000-05:00

Many years ago, a mentor watched me struggling to achieve something that, when I did, I literally had no idea what to do next. So much had I devoted of my thoughts and energies to simply achieving the goal that applying what I now possessed to assist me and others was difficult to grasp.

'When you sup with the devil,' he offered, 'you must use a long spoon.' Our Connecticut legislators should have learned this, no later than Tuesday, when, having been summoned back for a special session by Governor M. Jodi Rell, to pass her package of budget adjustments for this current fiscal year, they declined to do so and suggested they will have a special, special session before Christmas to flex their majority muscle and pass what is, in essence, one party's vision of how to fill the growing budget chasm for the current fiscal year.

They have the votes to do so, and I wish them well, because while it's their budget, it impacts all of us who live here. Lost in all of this noise is that the current fiscal year budget was more blue smoke and mirrors than anything else to begin with and relied more on Wimpy's "I Will Gladly Pay You Tuesday for a Hamburger Securitized Today." (Suspect Simsbury's Representative Linda Schofield wasn't invited to lunch and we all know the 47th District's Representative Chris Coutu is brown-bagging it).

If you have had trouble finding securitization in your Funk and Wagnalls it's because it's a somewhat whimsical (at best) notion in which magic elves count make-believe dollars in just the right amount to make sure we all have a happy ending. Except, of course, this year in The Land of Steady Habits where the budget that was finally enacted, and never signed by a Governor who less than two weeks later announced she would not seek another term, wasn't real or happy in the first place. And as it turns out, it has no ending.

So Tuesday our representatives didn't get their jobs done, for themselves or for us. While we wait to see what additional day they choose to probably NOT get anything rectified again, check out the public statements of both Schofield and Coutu and a far too small number of other representatives and don't be surprised if:
a. they make more sense than where we are now;
b. aren't all from the same political party and
c. your representative probably isn't among them.
I leave you to draw your own conclusion on that last point.

With the way we've been spending money in The Nutmeg State I'll be amazed if those hamburgers that we were hoping to have for lunch on Tuesday, and now today, haven't already been eaten by the time the grill is hot enough to cook 'em. Guten Appetit!
-bill kenny

The World's Oldest Profession as an Equal Opportunity Employer

2009-12-17T01:00:00.004-05:00

If the AP reports are to be believed, things are about to get a whole lot more interesting at the Shady Lady Ranch in Nevada who've just received state approval to hire male prostitutes. It's this kind of fearless forward-thinking that, according to their website, has helped them be 'voted best small brothel for seven consecutive years'.

As daunting as the 'occupation' blank on a hotel registration form must be for one of the ranch hands (unsure if the pun is intended), I'm trying to imagine what the evaluators who bestow such awards put in that same blank. I was as impressed by the historical overview and social commentary offered as I was to learn that the ranch accepts all major credit cards without a surcharge. Talk about change we can believe in.

If this stuff hasn't been on all the late night shows and the Comedy Channel pseudo-news programs, it will be, I'm sure, as it's a humor writer's dream come true. I'm as sophomoric as the next person, and because I'm SO competitive, actually much more so, but I'm not sure we are headed in the right direction when we start to regard this type of situation as an expansion and extension of equal rights.

Shady Lady can, I suppose, make itself as famous as the former Mustang Ranch in Sparks, Nevada (which has a handicap accessible room that, sadly, we just don't get to see enough of in the all-too-brief video clip), though the news accounts report the pricing structure for a dalliance with the men hasn't yet been determined. I've heard at one time they were Selling England by the Pound, perhaps she might be wise to consider another unit of measurement.
-bill kenny

Spoiled for Choice

2009-12-16T01:00:00.004-05:00

Nearly all of our City Council and the City Manager attended a workshop Saturday morning, facilitated by Doug Relyea who has made a career from working with organizations, from multi-national to cottage industries and everything in between, to define their direction and map their progress on journeys to their destinations.

His workshop Saturday was Part One of a (at least) two part sort-of intervention without the reality TV drama that word has picked up in recent years. What he's trying to do is help this City Council create SMART objectives for Norwich-by SMART, he means, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.

During this past election, there was a lot of talk about 'revitalizing downtown'. His point Saturday was talking about revitalization without defining specifically what you will do and how you will do it, and how you'll measure your progress, is a lot like singing about football and is the same waste of talent and time.

At least that's what I heard him telling our aldermen and alderwomen.

The public was invited, and I really thought there'd be more of us, aside from the usual suspects, but, it is after all the holiday season and this time of year everyone seems to have so much to do. I guess the six members of the City Council and the City Manager have all their holiday shopping done already because while they probably had other things to do Saturday they didn't have anything that was more important to do than to sit together and learn to work towards clearly defined and shared goals.

The workshop lasted ninety minutes. If you're a Black Friday shopper, who stands in line for three hours before a store opens, this is nothing. The workshop's rules were clear and simple. Each alderperson and the City Manager, in turn, had to offer one difficulty or opportunity, each, for Norwich.

And all the other participants had to remain silent until it was their turn. All ideas, large or small, were summarized into a single line then scribbled by Relyea onto large sheets of paper on an easel. As the pages filled, NCDC's Bob 'Too Tall' Mills carried them to the far corner of the room and hung them on the wall.

I counted forty-three different points created by the seven participants-and they shied away from nothing. Challenges ranged from a lack of leadership through inability to work with others to lack of trust in local government and inability to establish and accept realistic goals. Don't misunderstand, it wasn't all dark. Positive opportunities were seen in the involvement of volunteers across our community, and in our schools and human services. Our diversity and arts community were seen as bright spots as well.

Doug Relyea will tell you he is a statistician--what he means is after he asks the question, he tracks the answer. After they'd offered nearly four dozen challenges and opportunities, he charged each participant to place all entries in one of three categories: very important, important and less important. They could not consult with one another. He then led them back through their collective notes and by show of hands, and no one was excused from voting on any topic, he had them tell him, and one another, what was very important, important or less important in Norwich.

Part Two will be driven his analysis of what our City Council and City Manager consider to be the absolute most important outcomes and issues for our city and will concentrate on developing plans to achieve the desired results-not just continue the endless and empty years of discussion we've had. And it's happening not a moment too soon.

This City Council, the neighbors we selected and elected, are preparing to address known issues of reduced state aid for the remainder of the current fiscal year, uncertain state funding for the next budget they are about to begin working on, as well as the ramifications of decisions looming on purchasing the Norwich Hospital Site and attempting to revitalize 337 Main Street, once known as the Norwich YMCA.

They, and we, need to acknowledge that people prefer problems which are familiar to solutions that are not. As long as all we do is talk about the negative perceptions we, who live here, have of Norwich, nothing will ever happen to change those perceptions. It's not enough to say we lack an economic development plan unless and until each of us is willing to roll up a sleeve and lend a hand to write, implement and measure the success (and failures) of a new one.

This summer we capped celebrations of Norwich's first 350 years and failed to grasp this history's most fundamental lesson--tomorrow is shaped by both what we do, and what we fail to do, today. Some will still be here for the Quadricentennial. When our grandchildren and their children ask you what we did in Norwich as America struggled to right its ship in the wake of the economic calamity that reshaped the face of our nation, I'm pretty sure no one wants to say 'I watched and waited.' Each of us needs to become an exclamation and not an apology.
-bill kenny

I Prefer the Ice in My Adult Beverage

2009-12-15T01:00:00.002-05:00

All the rain Sunday (and let's get that annual winter math drill out of the way now: 'If all the rain we had, had been snow, how much snow would it have been?' NONE, if we lived in Florida or Hawaii. I HATE that question) with the overnight low temperatures we had around here yesterday morning turned sidewalks and roads into slightly dicey (rhymes with icy) propositions to get around on here in SE Connecticut for a good part of the morning.

I helped (=stood out of the way) as Thelma and Louise staged their end of the semester tactical withdrawal from Eastern State Connecticut State University where Michelle, about to enter her final semester as a senior, has been residing on campus since she was twelve, or so it feels (I know it hasn't been that long; I like to see if I can get a rise out her).

That was Sunday's project-to fill up the Forester with as much of her stuff as would fit, and then some, shuttle it back home to Norwich, and unload the boxes onto the kitchen floor. In my house, if one of us has learned anything after thirty-two plus years of marriage to the other one, it is to NEVER let your partner put ANYTHING away because he just moved here and has no idea where stuff goes.

There are items I 'helped' (someone else's word) unpack when we arrived from Germany that have yet to see the light of day in this Brave, New World. It's not my fault. Only the strong survive, I guess. Anyway, the problem Sunday was rain, and since I'm not a witch and am in no danger of melting, it was little problem at all.

Yesterday, as part of my be nice to the people I work with program, I had the day off and offered to help my son move into his studio apartment in the Crocker House on State Street in New London. It is very nice and is in downtown. New London, Connecticut, reminds me of New Brunswick, New Jersey, in terms of ambiance but it doesn't have a Greasy Tony's at the corner of Easton and Somerset Avenues. Tony's was across the street from Carroll's, an attempted hamburger fast-food joint that saw itself as a chain in competition with Mickey D's; sadly (for them) no one else did and simply drove them into the ground, sales-wise.

The early morning loading and unloading was a bit more ginger than might have been expected or desired (especially the latter) because of the smooth as glass finish on so many of the surfaces Patrick and I were walking on, lugging boxes and bags of swellness. Pat correctly pointed out that the only time you really appreciate how much stuff you have is when you have to pack it all to move. As someone who, himself, has a lot of stuff, let me be the first to agree with my son on that assertion.

I think I like it better that he lives 'in the city' (=buildings much closer together than farther away) as opposed to where he was in a rural area about fifteen minutes from the Foxwoods casino. It's very pretty country, winding roads, lots of flora and fauna, Laurel and Hardy, Tinker and Evans, ham and eggs and--well, you get the idea, especially if you like solitude. Actually, only if you like solitude.

He had friends coming later in the day with a box truck to help move the 'big stuff' because when you have son who is twenty-seven, there's an excellent chance you yourself are somewhat of a doddering fossil so, as was the case the day before with your daughter, after a while, even you start to wonder just how much help to these vital and marvelous fully-equipped young adult persons whom you helped create, you're actually being. I'm glad by mid-morning, when my part of the helping was done, it was warm enough that the perspiration in my eyes (my sister Jill used to say that all the time; she never cried) didn't freeze on my cheeks. Don't know about you, but I just hate that.
-bill kenny

This Town's Done Its Share of Shoving (Norwich Meetings 14-18 December)

2009-12-14T01:00:00.006-05:00

We're approaching the shortest day of the year next week, though as we start to accelerate the rate of travel in the circles we're running as Christmas shopping days dwindle down, you might think you're living through the shortest day of the year every day until the 25th.

Meanwhile, government back and small, marches on with the Connecticut legislature set to convene in special session tomorrow to take another crack at balancing the current year's budget which no one involved in believed was actually viable when it finally months late. Yeah, I, too, am amazed that somehow all the vaporware and magic arithmetic didn't work. I wonder whose pocket will get picked and--waitaminit, I can't find my wallet.....

Here in The Rose of New England the business of local government is in good hands as neighbors work to do what they can for all of us by helping out each of us starting this afternoon at five in room 209 of City Hall with a regular meeting of the Volunteer Firefighters' Relief Fund Committee (you can find the draft minutes of the September meeting on the municipal website).

Also at five (and NOT a word about it on the City's meeting schedule) is a regular meeting of the Ethics Review Commission in Room 335. If you are interested in becoming a member of this commission (where have I heard this before?), there's a link to the application on the same page of the website. Tip on Room 335-sit up front as the acoustics are horrendous and you can't hear a thing beyond the first row.

There's a budget forum sponsored by State Representative Chris Coutu (R-47) before he heads back to Hartford on Tuesday to try to keep his House and Senate colleagues from continuing their attempt to make jet fuel from peanut oil. It starts at seven and runs until nine in Room 335 of City Hall (and just me, is it not funny that a discussion on state finances would follow a meeting on municipal ethics? I love God's sense of humor.)

Tuesday in the Otis Library starting at five thirty and slated to run until 7:30, it's the Rose City Renaissance Holiday Celebration, Community Update and Awards Presentation (How'd you like to have put all of that on the invitation?). Lots of well-deserved recognition for many talented people, working in and for a downtown district that has, for me, gamely struggled and must be admired for never giving up on itself.

You'll have to leave the party early if you're going to get to the Norwich Public Utilities offices on Golden Street by six for a regular meeting of the Board of Public Utilities Commissioners (which appears to have a vacancy by the way. Perhaps you're interested in applying) with a bonus, so to speak, of a regular Sewer Authority meeting to immediately follow. The minutes of both of their regular November meetings are on the NPU website.

The Commission on the City Plan has a regular meeting at seven in the basement conference room at 23 Union Street. I've not been able to locate the agenda as it's not on the city's website (doesn't need to, in accordance with the public law on meetings (I was told), but they're usually very good about posting it). As you probably know from the local papers, last week's special meeting on the Norwich Hospital Site purchase resulted in a negative recommendation to the City Council, meaning a 'super majority', five votes of seven, to acquire it will be necessary.

The Downtown Neighborhood Revitalization Zone meets at seven at Artwork to Empower (no idea where that is) and SUPER job by the committee in assuring their meeting minutes are posted in a timely fashion. I never tire of reading the (draft of the) June minutes on the city's website, which is a good thing, as that's all that's posted there. I'm a little surprised the 337 Main Street slide show for the Rec Department hasn't ended up on the website as well.

The regular monthly meeting of the Personnel and Pension Board has been cancelled and their piece of the municipal website could do with an update on members' terms expirations and November agenda and minutes.

Wednesday morning at eight thirty in their offices in the Norwich Business Park is a regular meeting of the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments who serve as a reminder that while at times each city and town may feel adrift in the ocean, it is the same ocean and together we are smarter and better than each of us alone.

Wednesday at nine in the Community Room of the Dime Savings Bank on Route 82 is a regular meeting of the Norwich School Readiness Council (Children First), whose efforts, I'm sure, are laudable and deserving of all the support we can give but whose efforts at telling me what they do and how they do it in anything vaguely approximating a timely fashion are, at best, execrable. One of the sites, in explaining the political climate in Norwich, describes a precinct system that disappeared after Charter Revision in March of 2001.

Thursday's Historic District Commission meeting has been cancelled, but Thursday morning at 9:30 in their offices in the Norwich Business Park, just down the street from Dodd Stadium (whatever happened to the idea of a NY-Penn League team to take the place of the now-departed Defenders?), is a regular meeting of the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative (I'm hoping that's not a real-time photo on the website), another example of cooperation across town lines that benefits everyone if we make the effort.

And Thursday at five, in the conference at The Rink, is a regular meeting of the Ice Arena Authority, whose meeting minutes are nowhere to be found on the city's website and whose members' appointments expired years ago, but certainly not their sense of dedication to working as best they can to help make sure the rink is one of the coolest places in Norwich. So, no matter how many awful puns are made at its expense, this is my town.
-bill kenny

The Other Lives of the Saints

2009-12-13T01:00:00.003-05:00

Watching the NBC Evening News yesterday evening after having shivered and stumbled for hours out shopping during the day gave me a whole new perspective on cold weather. They had a report on the non-stop two days of snow that had belted upstate New York, an area where we almost wound up many years ago when I was leaving Germany.

The base I was looking at as a possible employer has since been shuttered in yet another round of cost-saving closures that, earlier, had prompted my initial search (where did all the money we saved from winning the cold war so we cut the overhead go anyway?). I was speaking with the Base Commander on the phone, prior to his offering me the position. I asked about the winters, and more specifically about the snow, and he replied by asking me how tall I was. When I told him I had served (I may have used the word 'spent') in Greenland he offered 'then you'll love it here.' I realised it had nothing to do with Eskimos and continued to look for jobs.

They say the camera adds ten pounds and from what I saw in the report, they must have used a LOT of cameras to file the story. It sure looked like they had feet of snow and not a measly inch and change like we did around here, most of which got washed away when the weather warmed and everything turned to rain. It's NOT turning to rain in upstate New York until April, maybe, if they're lucky.

And they're interviewing people who have mastered that 'whatcha gonna do?' nonchalance that always makes me grin because it's so human. And each of us has some situation that we've been in at some point where we've said and done pretty much the same thing in the same manner and walk like Brando right into the sun, and then dance just like a Casanova. Right after the snow plow gets done with the three feet of partially cloudy that life has left on your doorstep.
-bill kenny

And One to Grow On

2009-12-12T01:00:00.006-05:00

We were a loud and large family when I was a child. My parents had heeded the Biblical injunction at least in part-my dad always had a garden though how fruitful it was, it's hard to say now-but we were many so they were good at math, at least at multiplication.

Birthdays usually involved grandparents, Mom's, who were much closer geographically, living in Elechester out in Flushing, Queens, than were Dad's, someplace out in Illinois (I learned years later, Taylorsville (maybe without the 's'). Sightings of Grandma Kenny were rarer than Elvis, the live Elvis, who's not nearly as successful as the dead one, so we always called Grandma Kelly, Grandma.

It was of her I thought yesterday morning when reading the saga of Nicholas Trabakoulos versus Sue Handy, actually Judge Susan B. Handy, in a courtroom in New London, Connecticut, Thursday. Grandma had, when her children were our ages, she told us, started a birthday tradition of gently smacking the birthday child on the bottom once for every natal anniversary topped at the conclusion by a pinch, 'to grow an inch' by your next birthday. In the ensuing decades, the notion gentle was lost. Reading that now helps explain why, usually for our tenth birthday, most of us received a set of Esso road maps as a gift so we wouldn't get lost when we ran away from home.

Anyway, Nicholas wasn't ever at those gatherings which is just as well as Nicholas comes across as a bad man when you read the news report. I couldn't help but wonder if he'd built up his stamina, if Lance Armstrong couldn't have used him on his Tour de France Astana team. But that was not to be. Nicholas had other ideas and when a boy and his bike (and his sawed-off shotgun hidden under a pink blanket) have their mind set on something, that's all there is to it.

Nicholas, says the news story, was in Groton visiting from New York when he robbed someone of $140, making his getaway by bicycle. The idea of a bike race where you commit armed robbery along the way probably hasn't yet been broached to anyone in the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, (I envision swarms of competitors, stretching to the horizon with satellite TV uplink vans and bloggers, twitters and facebookers as far as the eye can see. Tourist Ka-Ching!). I just hope when they go with it that we don't owe Nicholas royalties on the intellectual property rights.

Back to Grandma. Nicholas the Biker had not been Mr. Congeniality during his incarceration says the story, from the time of his arrest, through his trial to his sentencing Thursday, where he was awarded fourteen years for both robbery and weapons possession (I wonder what became of the bike?). As they say in the infomercials, wait-there's more. Apparently not appreciating the right to remain silent might be for his own good, Nicolas "unleashed a stream of obscenities... when Handy asked Trabakoulos if he had anything to say. His responses are unprintable." Johnny, why don't you tell us what Mr. Trabakoulos has won?

The judge ordered Nicholas removed from the courtroom, gave him two hours to mull over his actions and then brought him back to ask if he wished to apologize. Nicholas had a number of wishes, but apologizing didn't make the list. Judge Handy, like Grandma, then gave him six additional months on top of the fourteen years, for contempt of court. It would have been too much, I suppose, had Nicholas also been sentenced to be transported to the pokey on the handlebars of a bicycle pedalled by a corrections officer, though I'm unsure the officer could have reached the bell.
-bill kenny

Even A Dog Can Shake Hands

2009-12-11T01:00:00.002-05:00

Coming home yesterday after detouring to pick up a pair of prescriptions in Lisbon (Connecticut) which isn't all that far from Versailles (also in Connecticut) which is around the corner from Berlin (I'll let you guess; bingo!) as I've been meaning to get these two refilled for at least a week. My problem is, maybe like you for the same reason, the only time I ever think about ordering is when I'm taking the medication to realize 'Yipes! It's getting low! I should really order more now!' (Tip: watching me yell 'Yipes!' in my pajamas in my kitchen is neither an audio nor visual treat. You can ask my wife.)

I wasn't more than five minutes out of the store's parking lot on Route 12 as it winds around the Round Hill section (district? village? I'm not sure but the people who live there are, I'm positive) in a four car parade-technically three cars, a Toyota, a large Cadillac, me, and a truck, a silver Dodge Ram with the giant wheels and beefed-up suspension that I always think means you need a rope ladder to get in and out of the truck. I never wonder anymore why anyone does this because I'm afraid someone will tell me and then what would keep me awake at night? The college football play-offs? Not.

Before you go down a (slow) incline that traces a path alongside the railroad line that I've never seen a train on in the eighteen years I've been passing it, right along the banks of one or the other, or perhaps the third, river in this area (unless it's one of the brooks that feeds the river), there's a very nice in shades of green 'typical country' kind of house with gables and a wrap around porch and, as it so happens, a canine who thinks of herself as a welcome wagon.

Maybe the shiny Toyota caught her eye. Point in fact, she almost caught the Caddy and because the driver was jabbering away on a cell phone (yes, like where you live, we have a hands-free law that's enforced sort of like Prohibition was, but with smaller glasses and more ice), the car almost bought the large black dog a ride to puppy heaven (and herself a trip to the body shop)before swerving to a near stop and then rapidly accelerating after shifting into IPO. The dog by this time was standing on the double yellow line, tail wagging so furiously I expected the back end to get airborne.

As I approached, very slowly, the dog stepped towards my car, barking (and tail wagging which seems contradictory). I powered the window down and stopped and the dog's shoulders came nearly to the top of my door. When she tilted her up head, she was looking directly at me and since she was no longer barking I figured her reboot switch was on her head. I patted her in such a manner that she took it for petting. This caused her tail to wag even faster and she turned in small circles as if hoping I'd get out of the car right there on the highway and pet her some more.

The lady who lives in the house hurried from inside, down the porch stairs and across the road, calling 'Julia!' repeatedly--not so much irritated as embarrassed. She struggled to put a leash on the animal and talk to me (I usually don't like ambiwhatever-they're-called people, but she told me she'd named the dog for John Lennon's song, which he wrote for his mom who was, as I recall, struck and killed by an automobile). She'd taken her eye off Julia for just a minute and she was gone-and the lady just knew she was on the highway, again.

Again?, I asked. As it turns out, the dog hits the road, Jack, about three days a week, for no more than one or two cars, before coming back and stretching out on the porch to watch the highway. At some point that only Julia knows, the spirits move her and up she stands and away she goes. From the way her owner described it, it almost sounded like Julia was addicted to petting. She struggled to get Julia away from car and the dog tugged so hard that they both made a detour that took them past the Dodge Ram truck whose owner been working his camera phone fast and frantically, tried, and failed, to reach out his window to pet the dog.
Somewhere Zevon smiled,

"He's got the phone in the car in his hand
Everybody's trying to be a friend of mine
Even a dog can shake hands."

It would have been perfect had Julia lifted a leg on his tire, but she was too much of a lady.
-bill kenny

Yet More Vox Populi

2009-12-10T01:00:00.004-05:00

It's hard to NOT shake your head sometimes at news and notes from the nation's capital. There are many surveys, too many for my taste, that suggest a lot of us hold the people whom we have selected and elected to represent us in the houses of the legislative branch in extremely low regard. From what I've read, we don't feel that way quite as strongly about our own representative, at least usually-given the opportunity to personalize her/him-but rather in the abstract, as in 'those Senators' or 'those colorful expletive deleted we send to Congress'.

It can't be an easy job, sitting in either house and weighing the arguments and deciding the merits of issues as diverse as national health care (with as many opinions as ticks on a dog; some being espoused by folks who resemble one or the other of those two), through government intervention in attempts at economic recovery to issues of war and peace across and throughout the globe. The vast majority of representatives, Congressional or Senatorial, are in some way, shape or form, our neighbors--maybe we don't each or any of them personally, but I'll bet we know someone who does know them.

My point is none have cloven hooves or pointy heads, or vice versa (I guess). And just as I'm about to convince you to at least think momentarily more kindly about 'those people in DC' up comes a story like yesterday's Sport Illustrated bulletin (is that a little too dramatic, or do I mean redundant?), "House Panel Passes College Football Playoff Bill."

This is why we are helping Afghanistan to build its fragile democracy, so that they, too, can enjoy the blessings of liberty and peace, and maybe getting a chance to stick a large red, white and blue foam index finger (the clerk did say it was an index finger, right?) on one of their own freedom-starved hands and scream themselves hoarse for some manner of mascot representing an institute of higher learning in something as sacred as a college football game (I'll bet it won't be for the College of the Holy Cross, for obvious reasons).

And you thought all the folks in D. C. did was take expensive junkets to exotic places and pass laws they don't have to abide by. Wake up and smell the coffee. If you thought passage, unanimously in the Senate, declaring August is National Peach Month was as good as it gets, break out the face paint and start working on a buddy now, pilgrim. When sponsor GOP Representative Joe Barton, Texas, and his posse get through with this important legislation, there will children all across these United States if not around the globe, born perhaps during Capital One Bowl Week, who'll be named after him. The World According to GOP. Are you receiving, or taking the wind?
-bill kenny

Putting the Why in the Norwich YMCA

2009-12-09T01:00:00.004-05:00

Tonight at 7:30 in Room 335 of City Hall, Recreation Department Director Luis DePina will offer a presentation on repurposing, reopening, renovating and reviving the YMCA in downtown Norwich that sank in a sea of red ink at the end of this past March.

Its sudden closure (there was a very angry and very loud informational meeting in City Council chambers organized by then-Mayor Benjamin Lathrop that many felt did little, aside from throw a member of the YMCA Board of Directors under the wheels of the bus) sent shock waves through this city and sparked a lot of "we've got to do something!" comments from a lot of people who meant well, but had close to no idea about what to at all.

Mr. DePina who runs a highly-regarded municipal Recreation Department with many different program offerings for a wide variety of citizens of all ages, would, I'm sure, be the first to admit that trying to operate a facility which failed to break even for most of this decade would be a challenge in the best of economic times, and these, most certainly, are not the best of economic times.

Every time there's stories in local newspapers about resuscitating the YMCA, there's always readers' comments about how the programs and facility are needed and how important they are, which (to me) misses the point. Of course, the programs were an integral part of many families' lives and routines. No one is suggesting otherwise--the trouble is we are in a time when our will is much larger than our wallets.

That's what you should listen for tonight when you go to the presentation. I want to gain a better understanding of how the facility rental and operating costs will be funded without adding to the Norwich residents' current tax burdens. Tonight's meeting promises to offer a roster of public sector agencies, like NFA and the Norwich Public Schools, who can outline what programs they hope to shift, and pay a fee for, to the YMCA, creating a source of income. That's all well and good except...

These agencies have NO money of their own. Their operating budget comes from our taxes. Every dollar they expend, or save, belongs to us. So, we're taking money from our left pocket, putting it in our right pocket and are then pleased to find 'extra' money. Adds a whole new meaning to 'fuzzy logic.' Taking six inches from the front of the blanket and putting it on the back WILL NOT make the blanket a foot longer, no matter how many PowerPoint slides you have to the contrary.

And the ripples in the pond effect being what it is, if those programs currently beyond the city limits are brought 'back' to Norwich, what happens to those who were providing them now and who augments their operating budgets? Welcome to Unintended Consequences, Population: us. The sound you are hearing is that of John Donne's bell, tolling for someone whose name you may not (yet) know, but who will turn out to be one of us.

I, too, want to believe the acquisition of the YMCA will cost Norwich taxpayers no money, except you get what you pay for. An important listening point tonight will be those programs to be offered, and compare it to the list of the ones the former YMCA had, all of which lost money, and that will NOT be a part of the 'new' YMCA. Those were called non-sustaining for a reason. What was true then remains true now.

So go tonight and root for a fact-based presentation that makes and proves its case for taxpayer support for community-wide benefit. It's wonderful to believe we can do more with less-but the time is long past to finally accept that we must learn to do LESS with less. Some truths are truisms despite our wishes to the contrary.
-bill kenny

Dear Virginia, Free Lunch Now Costs Only a Dollar

2009-12-08T01:00:00.005-05:00

I very much enjoy the TV commercial for the Dollar Menu of a fast food restaurant where the fellow goes from place to place, including a travel agency, (judging by what he's holding in his hand, a hanger) a dry cleaner, and a tanning salon while also being invited (sort of) to get out of a taxi he's just entered before he reaches the fast food place. He just wants to know 'what can I get for a dollar?' By now, here in The Rose of New England, we should have learned to never ask the question if you can't stand the answer.

We're edging our way towards an answer to that very question here in Norwich as we have a (seemingly) never-to-be repeated opportunity to buy acreage from the State of Connecticut for the low, low price of only one dollar. But wait, there's more. A decision on the possible purchase of the former Norwich Hospital Site property will be made by the Norwich City Council (nice job, previous Council) and as part of that process there's a special meeting tonight at seven in the basement conference room of 23 Union Street by the Commission on the City Plan, CCP, to offer a recommendation, required by the charter, on a purchase decision by the City Council.

It promises to be a very organized meeting, though the agenda doesn't seem to allow for comment by the very people on whose behalf the decision will be made, the residents of the city. You wouldn't think the CCP would want a repeat of all the shouting and yelling (I think the newspapers called it vigorous discussion) that went on outside, after their approval of the Byron Brook resort. Neither would I, but then again, I didn't think they wanted it the first time, either. On the up side, we all improved our vocabulary skills after that and can now define a six letter word as if it were a well-known four letter word.

I attended many meetings of the Advisory Committee the last City Council appointed (very late in the day) to research a purchase, and I've read their final report and the cost benefits analysis and assumptions behind that analysis delivered to the previous City Council. I was impressed with the thoughtfulness of their recommendations. There's a lot of hard work contained in it, and perhaps some creatively 'rounded' numbers (five million dollars for remediation? I recall hearing bigger numbers at some of the meetings). A read-through of all their deliberations doesn't take very long and is quite helpful but here's what I'm still looking to have answered:

If we buy "our" part of the Norwich Hospital Site, then what? Are we thinking too much about the purchase itself and not enough about the impact its acquisition has on the city and the region? Pretend you're a developer. Oh, you are a developer? Even better! Why would you choose our piece of this property over the soon-to-be-painfully-vacant corporate Pfizer campus in New London, one of the numerous already vacant spaces in the Norwich Business Park or in any of the broken and blighted buildings sitting vacant in all four corners of the city? Because you like to wait for years before putting a shovel into the ground. Really?

And what happens to the price of ALL available office space in Norwich when we create tens of thousands MORE office space footage by purchasing the hospital property? I know, let's pretend it'll only be zoned industrial--except then we get to ask that question again as we have lots of 'excess capacity' for industrial space, too. Everything comes with a price and with a cost and we have to figure both.

There's a lot of talk, and references in reports, of the "hope" many have that grants will be secured to subsidize the millions of dollars needed for remediation, though the specifics of exactly who has this money and how to gain access to it are vague. Others "hope" that specific types of development can be attracted to our portion of this property. Did I mention that Preston, the neighboring municipality has already plunked their dollar down and bought over four hundred acres of the site, the part that was within their borders. Surely you've heard of Utopia? All I can ever hear is Tom Waits' Step Right Up, whenever someone mentions this project....but all the music obscures a most fundamental point: Hope is NOT a plan.

But maybe the City Plan is the perfect starting point for tonight’s meeting. Using the City Plan as a map, refine the route and define the path to the Norwich we should be building. Working with volunteer municipal boards and committees, create the consensus that is a condition necessary to the implementation and execution of this plan and finally we can become the city we believe we were meant to be. This will require a lot of work and isn't a project that can be done by a half dozen people and zipped through the City Council. Or we can keep our eyes closed and hold our noses, we have a lot of practice at both of those, and be amazed when we come up One Happy Ending Short.
-bill kenny

To Dance Beneath the Diamond Skies (Norwich Meetings 7-11 December 2009)

2009-12-07T01:00:00.006-05:00

Today, as you know by now, is the sixty-eighth anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I note, in the interests of fairness, there have been NO confirmed reports of Tiger Woods having a dalliance with a woman other than his wife in that area at that time (but today is young). I'm not trying to be funny--actually, my larger point is we need to do a better job at distinguishing between what's real and important from what's ephemeral and superfluous. Otherwise sooner than we'd like, we'll be electing the GEICO gecko President, assuming the birthers will shut up about his heritage.

Here in The Rose of New England, they're sweeping up Broadway from yesterday's Winterfest parade while the rest of us have gone back to work. Norwich city departments are still meeting with the City Manager, I suspect, looking for budget dollars that can be reduced as a result of the state's promised (threatened?) lowering in aid to cities. If you thought it was a little dreary in your town already, wait until the Legislature convenes next Tuesday in special session. None of which should, or does, stop the men and women of Norwich from getting the business of the city accomplished.

At 8:30 this morning there's a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments at their offices in the Norwich Business (along-with-some-condominiums-and-rental-units-and-housing-for-the-elderly-but-don't-forget-the-baseball-stadium-even-though-there's-no-longer-a-team-playing-in-it) Park (the entrance sign, not surprisingly, is visible from space with the naked eye). I'd hope their annual report will be posted to their website as it's been, in the past, an excellent and informative, if not always pleasant, read.

Tonight at 7:30 the newly sworn-in City Council gets down to business in its first full business session, much of which will be devoted to repopulating a variety of boards and advisories that have City Council membership (with those now on the Council) and shifting the second Council meeting of the month to a new start time , also at 7:30. There's also, on the agenda, an oral presentation/report by the 751 North Main Street Advisory Committee on the progress they are working towards on their project. I'd hope we'll have a LOT more reports from the helping hands as part of Council meetings. There are times you can feel as a member of the volunteer panel like you've been forgotten by the City Council, so this is a promising start.)

Tuesday afternoon at five, in the Public Works office at 50 Clinton Avenue, it's a regular meeting of the Public Works and Capital Improvements Committee whose LAST monthly meeting was in July (!)-but wait there's more-and which has met exactly twice since March. I would assume there'd be a LOT more under "old business" than the agenda indicates; the Feast of the Assumption, for those scoring at home, is 15 August (that of the Immaculate Conception is tomorrow).

The Board of Education meets, starting at 5:30, in the library of the Kelly Middle School. If I may be persnickety for a moment, the author of attachment nine (presented as part of the legislative committee report) who writes eloquently about children and education when what he's (really) talking about are teachers and schools, draws a state pension in excess of one hundred and ten thousand dollars a year, leading me, who watches his sodium intake carefully, to wonder about many of the points made in the article. Perhaps you, too?

At 7:00 Tuesday evening in the basement conference room at 23 Union Street is a special meeting of the Commission on the City Plan that has been anticipated and dreaded in equal parts (perhaps simultaneously) for weeks on the purchase of the former Norwich State Hospital property. There was talk of a workshop on the 15th of December (next Tuesday) where public comment would be permitted, but the agenda for this meeting doesn't have any opportunity for public comment, so know before you go.

Wednesday, you can spend all day (or most of it) in meetings, if you wish (I won't which should please the heck out of a lot of people, though none of the ones I work with, or for), starting at oh- bright-early, a quarter of nine, with a meeting of the Rehabilitation Review Committee at 23 Union Street. Their November minutes give you a snapshot of the types of challenges older, small cities and towns across New England face when trying to maintain safe, available housing stock. We are fortunate to have dedicated volunteers to keep us on the path.

The Norwich Housing Authority meets at 4:30 in their offices at 10 Westwood Park. Don't look for their meeting minutes on the municipal website. I already did, and they're not there and have never been there. Maybe in addition to FOIA workshops, there can also be some remedial training on compliance with "Public Act 08-3".

The (Kelly Middle) School Building Committee may be meeting at 5:30 in the Norwich Public School Central Office at 5:30, though their November minutes speak about shifting the time and location to "Illiano’s...for a dinner meeting" so you're sort of on your own (bring a napkin, just in case, and try the carbonara. Es schmeckt lecker).

At seven, there's a meeting of the Public Safety Committee at the Laurel Hill Volunteer Fire Company on Route 12. Their November meeting was cancelled--and in recent months they were in the news because of concerns expressed to them by residents about registered sex offenders residing in areas along the walking routes of school children. When you read the draft of their October meeting minutes, the topic is a much smaller part of a large and complex meeting than you might have thought by reading the news stories, demonstrating again why it's important to attend meetings in person and not rely on others to be your eyes and ears (or nose and throat, if you're a specialist).

And at seven thirty in Room 335 at City Hall is an informational meeting by the Recreation Department on the 'conversion of the former YMCA building to a Community Center (sic).' Recent State of Connecticut funding decisions have raised the degree of difficulty in paying for all the 'need to do' aspects of our city's budget. I am more than a little curious on how it's proposed to pay for renovations of a building we will not own, and doing it, seemingly, without cost to the taxpayers. If it can be done, I can tell you right now to whom I'll be addressing that request for pony rides for my birthday come April. Giddy up!

Thursday morning at nine in Old Lyme is a regular meeting of the Board of Directors of the LEARN Regional Education Service Center. And rounding out the week is a seven o'clock evening meeting of the Democratic Town Committee, which you needn't be a Democrat to attend, though I don't think you can have any of the pudding or cheez doodles unless you are. Though, if you're like me, you don't need to eat any of them to keep awake, as "I'm not sleepy and there ain't no place I'm going to."
-bill kenny

Thelma & Louise Take Manhattan

2009-12-06T01:00:00.004-05:00

The women of my house are on the penultimate road trip today though I hope, unlike their namesakes, they don't develop too much of a knack for long distances. They are headed for New York City, traveling as part of a trip organized through Michelle's school, ECSU, to the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular 2009 at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. Both have always had a thing for the island people, I guess...Rhode Island, Block Island, Five Towns on Long Island, so the island of Manhattan is a logical progression.

And as impressive as you or I might find an outing to Rockefeller Center, neither have (to my knowledge) been there, the actual attraction for them and the whole reason Michelle worked incessantly to score TWO tickets for the school outing is more ambitious than merely kicking it with The Rockettes (sorry, Aunt Claire). And with Sigrid's ankle out, that would be sort of problematic, I fear.

Michelle had been able originally to only secure one ducat. Getting the second took some great timing and and persistence, but fortune smiled and they'll be rolling out at close to oh-bright-early as the jaunt from Willimantic not via the yellow school bus they had first feared was their chariot (yep, long box on wheels, bench seats, not a lot of heat, less shock absorbing suspension, a real treat. And we wonder why our kids hate to go to school!) but in a coach, should take if not forever, than what will feel like forever to reach Nu Yawk, Nu Yawk.

The object of their affection is a pilgrimage to F. A. O. Schwartz (I didn't realize they were such closet Robert Loggia fans.). I hope they appreciate the distances involved in trying to get both sites and sights into the same afternoon visit.

The weather, I've read, will be cooler than it's been though still slightly above normal at least in temperature and of course I've nudged them for days about dressing warmly as the concrete and steel canyons created by the buildings will turn the slightest of breezes into the sharpest of howling winds. They won't be able to pop into Boyd's Chemists to warm up, since not only has Boyd's moved since the days Browning School students nursed a Cherry Coke (fountain service only, please!), waiting in vain for Spence School girls, but they've never expanded their hours to include weekends. Dress warmly, ladies.

Back here in the Rose of New England, I'll be huddled with the Shiners for Shriners and the marching band maniacs as we brave a flotilla of floats at the annual Norwich Winter Parade. It all starts at Chelsea Parade at one this afternoon and ends up in Franklin Square, practically across from the Labor Ready (I love the sense of humor this stuff takes) and we have a wonderful time. If you see me, please accept in advance my apologies for being pre-occupied (post-occupied is just so darn expensive). If you offer me a penny for my thoughts, I may tell you that I'd like it as "Three dimes, a hundred dollar bill and 87 ones." It's all that Hanks' guy's fault.
-bill kenny

Hazy Shade of Winter

2009-12-05T01:00:00.002-05:00

According to the calendar, winter is still sixteen days away, though in these parts (and parts of us are excellent) normally by the first weekend in December we've had some very cold and unpleasant days that lets everyone know we are living in New England as the year ends.

Not unhappily for me, but I'm not seven and not hoping for a sled for Christmas, this year we are (so far) having warm days. Earlier this week in the sixties and for the last couple, very brisk mornings but temps in the middle fifties by the time the afternoon starts to fade. I am not complaining, but as a loyal if fallen away Son of Mother Church, I've been conditioned to believe that we pay for what we receive, and arguing 'but I didn't order this' will satisfy no one later in the course of the changing seasons.

That's my way of suggesting to those of us looking forward to the Norwich Holiday Parade, Winterfest, this Sunday starting at one from Chelsea Parade, that while it's now logical to look forward to a warmer than hoped for day, we cannot have long faces if the real winter arrives between now and then. What I'm concerned about is how long it stays after it gets here.

I'm concerned because I had experiences yesterday within minutes of each other that underscore Thomas a Kempis' notion that man proposes, God disposes. I walked past a landscaping improvement I've spent weeks observing that I've never understood. A lot of earth moving equipment and big trucks and burly men digging, dumping and flattening and gathering up has now more of less ended. I watched a fellow in coveralls and a hard hat (always a plastic hard-hat. Why?) spreading grass seed across a newly unearthed section of earth (yeah, it reads weird but that's what it actually is, everything on the plot was turned over). I sort of admired his optimism with the grass seed, since, after all, it is December.

Back at the office, I saw a squirrel on the front lawn of the building I work in. During the summer months there were swarms of squirrels and the random, or randy, based on the behavior I interrupted one afternoon that I will not go into (say no more) chipmunk, but in recent weeks as the days grow shorter, the numbers have dwindled. I still have a bag of peanuts (you NEVER know when the elephant parade from the circus will be in town and I was, very briefly, a cub scout, which is nearly a boy scout, except for the shorts and the neckerchief) and I threw a handful of peanuts out the window and he bounded towards them.

I watched as he juggled one peanut in her mouth (his? I can never tell one from the other but as long as they can, I guess it's okay) while maneuvering so to carry a second peanut. As she wrestled with the second one, a blue jay from the nearby tree hopped down and snatched up a peanut, too, despite a half-hearted attempt by the squirrel to run him (her?) off. The squirrel finally satisfied she had both peanuts under control, took off for parts unknown. That's when I began to worry about this not-yet-here winter.

The blue jay came down from the tree again, dropped the peanut he had stolen already, looked around and finding a much larger one, grabbed that one very pleased with himself and flew away. I'm afraid we could be making snow angels around here until Arbor Day.
-bill kenny

No Rhyme, Less Reason

2009-12-04T01:00:00.000-05:00

My most recent original thought died of loneliness but before that, I wondered, listening to a TV commercial, about the turn of phrase "emerging science indicates..." WHAT exactly is emerging science? Is it like rock 'n' roll, "I know it when I hear it"; perhaps more like Jennifer Warnes and a heartache (and why wasn't that brought us to by Lasik, btw)? As a kid the rule was you had to define a word before you could use it (remember spelling bees and that desperation dodge, 'would you use it in a sentence, please?'). Now, you just throw out words like the small chimps in the zoo fling poo, and try, like them, to not get any on you.

What exactly constitutes a 'third world country'? If you're living in one, do you know it? Is there a playoff at the end of the continent where you can be relegated to the status of a fourth world country or advanced to a second world country, and is there a checklist to document your advance to First World Nationhood? Is that the term that'd be used? And if you have to ask do you lose points?

We've seen so many of them, on TV, in newspapers and on line, advertisements for prescription medications-who are those messages aimed at, us or doctors? If it's supposed to be us, I have a problem because the names of many prescription medications are nearly unpronounceable. Who comes up with those and how? Is it based on the compounds that go into them or do the drug companies hire marketing and opinion research firms to invent words? We've all heard of "Viagra"-what else was in the running? "Yippee!", or perhaps "YIPpee!" (see that subtle shift of focus just then; I could so do that naming gig for a living.) And have you ever mentioned a drug whose advertisement you're read to your doctor and what happened then?

Coming home the other day to take Sigrid to the orthopedist (she won thirty lessons with Dancing with the Stars, but she had to use all thirty in the same afternoon; what a trouper!), I got off to a late start by just a few minutes leaving work so I was, perhaps, more hurried than I'd otherwise normally be driving to Norwich. I wasn't reckless-I was accelerated. After all, I wanted to get home so we didn't have to rush and that way I knew my wife wouldn't be anxious about worrying about being late. Out of nowhere, a car came up behind me, then beside me and then well beyond me, disappearing at the bend in the road. What a driver and a complete maniac!

Sitting in the doctors' offices I remembered motivations are internal and behaviors are external, and while everybody's got something to hide, except for me and my monkey when your insides are out and your outsides are in, you can't see what another person is feeling, only what he/she is doing. My high speed driving didn't bother me because I knew why I was going that fast. My trouble was that 'other guy' (the maniac) who didn't reveal his heart, just kept stomping his gas pedal. Of course, to others on the road that afternoon, I, too, had been the nearly-identical twin to an elbow we've all heard so much about. Proving yet again sometimes the things we do speak so loudly we cannot hear what each other is saying.
-bill kenny

Timing the Spin Cycle

2009-12-03T01:00:00.007-05:00

A score or more years ago, Charles Barkley made himself very well-known for more than his on-the-court antics in the National Basketball Association by declaring 'I am not a role model'. Beneath and behind the tee-shirt sales, the TV commercial, the shoes and all the other hullabaloo, was a truth bordering on a truism. Thank goodness we all have attention deficit or we would have remembered his point and then what would I have for today?

Is this a Tiger Woods rant? Almost- It would be if I thought there were a reason for one. But when I sit here and stare at the monitor, all I can concede is that it's all really none of my business. The last time I checked, Tiger (or as the NY Times always calls him, "Mr. Woods") is still a professional golfer (a bit of an understatement, you say. Yes,like the Titanic Captain telling the passengers, 'here comes the dodgy part').

If that's still true about the golfer what to make of a release on his website, "For all of those who have supported me over the years, I offer my profound apology" or so says an item on People magazine's website. I'm being facetious when I wonder if he's talking about a poor round, when (of course) I, and you, know that's not what he's been in the news about. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. It seems Tiger, too, has been hiking the Appalachian Trail.

I agree with Mark Twain, "Golf is a good walk, ruined." Until Tiger Woods came along, I usually developed a cramp in my thumb from pushing the remote even harder and faster when I came across golf on television. Now, I'll actually look at it and if it's a tournament he's competing in and the camera is on him, I'll sit down and watch at least until the next commercial break (I ADORE the way the guys in the booth announcing the tourney whisper like maybe the golfers can hear them). I behave like this ONLY for Yankees baseball or for World Cup soccer matches. Yeah, I'm a big fan of Mr. Woods, the golfer.

He doesn't owe me an apology for anything that has happened on or off the course. I'm not the laid-back ranger or a live and let live kind of guy. I am utterly indifferent to him and the other six point whatever billion of us who are scurrying around today on the big blue marble. And I thank you in advance for treating me the same way.

I'm the most self-entitled person on this planet so if I think he owes me nothing, he owes you nothing, too. When he has his own rubric on the ESPN crawl across the bottom of the screen, that's probably par for the course (you knew I would do that, right?GROAN.). When he has his own ticker on CNN or Fox, we need to find other things to do than watch TV.

Our right, not prerogative--not privilege, but right to NOT know everything about another human being, celebrity or otherwise, should ALWAYS exceed the mainstream media's need to tell me . Who the heck decided a decade and a half ago that the National Enquirer's assignment desk was to be the nexus of world news? And all the 24/7 Gnus guys and gals, spare me that whole 'we're covering this story because XYZ News is covering it' jazz. As someone noted, 'if twenty million believe in a stupid thing, it is still a stupid thing.'

Tuesday night the President of the United States took to the airwaves to outline his proposal for additional troop deployments to Afghanistan and to discuss the ramifications and import with the rest of us. Maybe you saw it. What led every one's newscasts and was all over the front page of your newspaper yesterday? "You don't really need to find out what's going on. You don't really wanna know just how far it's gone. Just leave well enough alone. Eat your dirty laundry." Vamp for time while we play through. Hand me my driver, Teddy.....
-bill kenny

Channeling George Blanda

2009-12-02T01:00:00.005-05:00

Was in to see one of my doctors Monday, actually my primary care physician who feels (I suspect) at times like he's the project manager (being called a project is actually a step up from 'a piece of work' which is how many refer to me), with all kinds other health care professionals more or less sub-contracting on his behalf.

Despite having me as a diagnostic albatross around his career, he's remarkably even-tempered and good-natured, always calling me 'buddy' though I'm sure there have been times he's tempted to call me something else. If you're one of the swarms of people disappointed to learn on a daily basis that I still walk this earth, he is the person most responsible. It's comforting that your animus and antipathy do not upset or influence him. Perhaps some money.....(kidding, I hope).

To go forward, I have to go back: I spent part of Saturday evening with my wife in the Emergency Room. Sigrid violently turned her right ankle while walking across our bedroom in our apartment. The X-rays confirmed that she did some serious damage and her very real pain added to the gathering gloom I always go through as we enter 'The Holiday Season' (capitals not optional). I liked her crutches but concede the best part about them was when she didn't need them anymore.

I was thinking about her and those crutches Monday when one of the practice's nurses, with a pink floral print blouse over florid pink scrubs (with pink rubber-soled shoes), strawberry blond hair and my sister Kara's skin (Kara can almost get a sun burn from a fluorescent light), came down the corridor in search of 'Loretta.' This wasn't the Loretta who "thought she was a cleaner but she was a frying pan" but, rather, a woman of advanced years who was a walking illustration of the word 'frail'.

From the way she slowly walked towards the nurse, I realized Loretta had every intention of remaining exactly as she was, unless or until she improved. No retreat, No surrender looked like her mantra. As the nurse approached, as so often happens in doctor's offices, she asked her "how are you feeling?" not in a diagnostic spirit so much as making conversation between human beings. Loretta studied the young woman for no more than two beats, and offered, responding for all of us at some point in our lives, "I'm still kickin', just not as high."
-bill kenny

Lowering Our Voices, But Not Our Expectations

2009-12-01T01:00:00.003-05:00

This Sunday afternoon is the Annual Holiday Parade here in The Rose of New England, where in years past we've had everything from short-sleeve shirts and temperatures in the Sixties to parkas and shivers as the winds have howled and the snow has fallen. Many people from beyond our city limits come and march while others just come for the enjoyment. It's a much anticipated event, and speaking of which, so is something else happening more immediately.

Tonight at 7:30 in City Hall, it's the organizational meeting of the elected-in-November Mayor and Norwich City Council. For Mayor Peter Nystrom and the incoming City Council, risks and rewards are high, as high as our expectations for all of them, while the margins for error may be reduced because of what’s come before the ladies and gentlemen we’ve chosen for this chapter of our story.

Much of what our elected leadership face beginning tonight is disturbingly familiar: underfunded and ageing infrastructure, to include roads and bridges in need of repair and public safety equipment in need of replacement; a grand list that grows arithmetically while municipal expenses rise geometrically and a persistent worry that a wary and weary population is long on anger and instant solutions and too short on patience and understanding.

This Mayor and City Council also face a unique, and unwelcome, challenge: almost immediately, in concert with the City Manager and Comptroller, they must develop and implement spending reductions for the current year’s budget reflecting additional decreases in state aid while also bracing for impact on the next budget, whose formulation is just beginning. There's really no one to look to for help this time, except to one another.

We talked during the election campaigns almost exclusively about economic development. We’ll expect those we elected to do more than talk about issues as varied as purchasing the Norwich Hospital Property; taking meaningful and measured action to put feet in the street of a mostly-moribund downtown; and deciding what to do with the failed condominium projects that squat at practically every gateway to the city like gargoyles warning off development partners (and doing an all-too-good job of it).

If you attend the swearing-in tonight in Council chambers, to borrow a suggestion from a former alderman, let's try to hold off on the 'swearing at' our new elected leaders. Instead, let’s promise to remember this Mayor and City Council are our neighbors whom we selected because they promised to do their best for our good, and given the opportunity that's exactly what they will do. We may not always agree with one another (it would be amazing if we did) but we can disagree and NOT be disagreeable.

Norwich needs every one of us and all the help we can give one another. Perhaps that means less stridency and more civility in our civic discourse with each other. More talking to, rather than at. New Beginnings, again and as always. See you in Council Chambers, tonight at 7:30.
-bill kenny