While there’s still more number crunching to do, both on the part of the Registrars — A and E should be getting the mandated recounts, and on all the political junkies who follow the spreadsheets of politics — there’s the small matter of what is going to happen next.
There’s some truisms about this election, and the Mayor said it best last night, “Norwalk is a Democratic town.” He said this in 2005, and he said it again last night. With the council majority in the hands of Democrats then and now, you might think it was a partisan statement, but what I think it really acknowledges is that Norwalk is saying that it wants its government to work for the people. That means fixing the things that are problems yet keeping an eye on spending. Even here, on the blog, I don’t think we’d find any disagreement there.
How we can all go about it of course, becomes the points of contention. Part of the fun of doing this blog is getting the opportunity to kick off discussions about things happening around Norwalk. In that light, I’d like to start off with a list of things that it’d be nice if the next council tackled form the start.
1. Budgeting
We’ve seen the process both at its worst and best last year, imperious budgets from the BOE and city government belt tightening. The BOE must have a finance committee, and must represent actual spending over the course of the year to the Common Council. It is highly recommended that the BOE finance committee, meet with both the BET and the Common Council to discuss budgeting priorities for the next year and beyond. City departments should begin at zero based budgeting and provide detail from a line item priority as to that spending needs to happen to achieve policy goals.
2. Communication
Much of the council work gets done in committee, but much of the pubic doesn’t get to see that. The meeting minutes are not always posted, and often they are summarized accountings of what actually happened. Committee meetings should be better managed to allow for more direct public participation and the archiving of a permanent record of actions. We shouldn’t still be talking about flooding in 2007 when it was brought up in 2002. Issues such as when road work starts shouldn’t be a surprise one morning to businesses and residents alike. There’s a simple communication called email, and web sites. They are low cost and enable mass communication to happen and be archived. It should be used more.
3. Development
There are some big projects out there. There are little projects that fly under the radar. Both can impact neighborhoods and traffic. We have parks that are underused, and areas of Norwalk that are fighting to preserve what they look like and others fighting to get economic activity. It’s a struggle to manage all this, and there’s not one single area in Norwalk that doesn’t affect everyone else. But, the reality is Norwalk can’t stay exactly as it is. It has to grow, it has to compete with other towns and it has to be a place that we all agree is the best it can be. The council is responsible for all things infrastructure, yet it seems that we can’t even manage what we currently have. Somehow this dichotomy must be breached. The first two items will help solve this one, but we also have to remember that making development decisions based on election priorities is not the way to manage growth. You can’t have one group of politicians calling for more future affordable housing while voting for projects that remove real affordable housing. Long term and short term priorities need to be developed.
The rest of the list is up to all of you.
