The historical commission Meeting last night was relatively mundane until it came to the subject of what to do about the Rogers Rich Merrit House. To refresh our collective memories, this is the house that was disassembled, stored in trailers, and initiated a project to rebuild it at Mill Hill. Unlike your typical episode of the Six Million Dollar Man, where they rebuilt Steve Austin for 6 million,–a bargain at today’s prices– better, stronger, faster, the house was intended to be part original part reproduction. Er, back to the show.
So the project was to add the Rogers Rich Merit house, which represents the typical maritime family type home of the pre industrial age. If you think about Mystic Village, then you get the idea of the types of homes built to accommodate the families who worked the Sound waters over the years. Rebuilding the house at Mill Hill, keeps Norwalk down the path of collecting various types of buildings needed to depict the early ages of Norwalk’s industrial growth, nicely compacted into a walkable and visitable area. That the site overlooks the river is a good one, since much of the industrial growth of Norwalk centers on waters as highways, since much of Norwalk was pastoral and farming.
So the house was dismantled, the frame of it was kept and stored and the fund raising started, sort of. Somehow, because this is Norwalk, momentum fizzled, focus shifted, and several years later the project languished despite the $150k city money and private donations raised to fund the rebuilding. Trying to follow the who said what on this is like watching a tennis tournament where all the players are in the same court hitting balls at each other. Who could possibly keep score? But score, is apparently the measure that most of who are involved in this are keeping, despite the rest of us.
Peter Bondi summed up the problem well last night. “We have all failed,” he said, “every Historical Commission since 2002 has failed on this project.”
The current crop of Historical Commissioners are really just trying to secure funds to fix the current buildings at Mill Hill, which everyone basically agrees should be fixed. At some point it doesn’t matter how they go to state of disrepair because things are only getting worse. So the idea to use the funds to do that doesn’t seem that far fetched, if, and oh what a big if, everyone understands that it is the whole of the Mill Hill Historic Park that the commission must focus on, rather than the individual buildings driving the funding.
Yet, the enthusiasm for raising money form a variety of sources to add the Rogers Rich Merrit house to Mill Hill indicates that there is the ability, even in Norwalk, to fundraise to accomplish specific projects and goals. The arbitrary way in which the whole issue of what to do and how to do it, without going through the messy process of public discussion only serves to add fuel to the idea that Norwalk somehow is always one step from adding to the legend of the grassy knoll.
The good thing though, was that Kelly Straniti added an important amendment to the resolution the commission ultimately passed. The original resolution was to request that the capital funds set aside for the Rogers Rich Merrit House be moved to an account they could tap it to fix thing now. The amendment acknowledged that the project was still viable and that the ciommission intended to keep at it. Even Charlie Yost said that the effort to secure more money should be stepped up. Which brings us to the point that brings us here, about the historical commission, on a regular basis.
The historical commission, all version between 2002-2008, may have failed to act more aggressively in pursuing grants and fund raising opportunities, but the lack of a professional staff to delegate the day to day administration of a functioning cultural organization is the problems. We can all sit back and complain that Norwalk doesn’t get its fair share of ECS funding, but that is part of the global picture. Norwalk under performs when it comes for a systemized way in which Norwalk’s city and private non profits go about securing grants, and funding for civic projects. The Mayor made an important step in the right direction by creating the position of a grants coordinator, but the rest of the cities boards and commissions, and non profits need to do a better job in pursuing the dollars that the State of Connecticut readily allocates to other towns because of the lack of asking on our part.
That the curator was again not at the historical commission meeting, and offers no framework of the business of the commission at these meetings is a huge part of the problem. Accreditation, professional qualifications and documentation. These are bits and pieces of the infrastructure the historical commission needs. They would be well served by working more closely with the state’s department of Culture and Tourism.
