If Shakespeare were writing about Norwalk politics he would open his play, “Republicans and Democrats” with Tuesday night’s bipartisan political meeting, an opening scene that may foreshadow the political theater yet to come. For Tuesday was not spectacular because 4 Democrats and 5 Republican council members showed up to talk about how committed they each were to the idea that together they wanted to make Norwalk a better town. No, it was the absence of the 5 Norwalk-outers, the five Democrats on the council who now refuse to talk to their fellow Democrats, before, during or after meetings. The plots and sub plots that have led to this sorry state of council affairs are intricate and nonsensical, as the drama plays out, important details are forgotten.

Starting with; these council members are up for re-election. Nothing screams indifference to the office than politicians who fail to attend meetings and otherwise stay abreast of the issues they are required to vote on. Each year since 2001, when the Democrats held every seat on the Common Council, they have lost seats in the next election. In 2003 they lost two. In 2005 they lost three. The trend says this year they lose four, which would put the Democrats out of power and the Council majority. Trends can be reversed, and its a long time till election day, but the starting the year with a intra-party feud is not a tactic that most election gurus would recommend.

But things like storming out of meetings, like public spectator and historical preservationist Todd Bryant did Tuesday night, are much more emotionally satisfying, than submitting reports on time. Not just any report, the report outlining the request to create a Historic District our of the city owned Fodor Farm property.

From The Hour:

On Nov. 13 — as noted by Nolin — Bryant’s committee held a public hearing on the draft report. Nearly two-dozen people, largely from the historic preservation community, backed the historic district concept. One person spoke against the plan.

Bryant, speaking early Wednesday evening, said he had not received Nolin’s letter. He acknowledged that his committee “missed a deadline for filing with the Town Clerk’s office,” but indicated that report and effort to create the historic district are alive.

“It was an oversight that it didn’t go to the Town Clerk at the same time that it went to the Land Use Committee, but we’ll deliver it to the Town Clerk (today),” Bryant said. “It’s a result of having no staff and getting no help. Had the committee really known about that particular deadline, we certainly would have filed it. We’re not stopping — it’s a technicality.”

Moccia, while opposed to the historic district plan as laid out in the report, has said he will let the council have the final say.

But what Bryant doesn’t say is that the real reason the report didn’t get filed on time was that the preservationists were distracted by the contretemps swirling around the Historical Commission. But we can understand his distraction, after all his wife was one of the commissioners whose term expired. But it raises the question of what is really important to Bryant. Personal political clout, or community preservation. That question can be asked of anyone involved in politics, but it is more acutely apparent when the very issue that drives the passion to serve is left abandoned, like the historic house in trailers on Mill Hill.

Act One closes with the gathering dissension, the gathering clouds of winter storms and the gathering of Council members struggling to engage each other. The offstage players lurk in the shadows, and as often in history as in Shakespeare’s plays, what happens offstage sets the events that lead to the downfall of the very group that sought victory. That’s why they call them tragedies.