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NORWALK, Conn. This is an open letter to Norwalk's Mayor Richard Moccia and the Common Council.
Thank you for your various responses to my open letter regarding the Feb. 14 Common Council meeting. First I want to clarify that I did not write my letter to embarrass the mayor or any elected official; my hope was to possibly turn a frustrating situation into a learning experience. I accept Mayor Moccia's prompt email apology for interrupting me during my public comment. (I have been delayed in responding promptly due to a recent family vacation where I was trying to be "electronics-free").
For a variety of reasons, many members of the public find it somewhat futile and often daunting to speak during the public comment section of the council meeting even without being interrupted. To those of us who are not big fans of public-speaking (myself included), the whole experience of sharing your thoughts and concerns with the city's leaders can be a bit intimidating, to say the least. To then see them transcribed, rehashed, replayed on video and repeatedly posted to Facebook after one letter to the editor seems a bit excessive and sensationalized. This would definitely give me "pause" before speaking in public again. The good news is that it now appears to be possible to obtain and post videos of Common Council meetings much quicker (a week) than has been the norm (a month).
From what I've observed in my years of involvement, most of the council business is pre-decided during the various party caucuses held prior to the public meeting. The public comment section appears to be a formality that gives people the opportunity to say what is on their mind but doesn't really seem to have an impact on any decisions. Oftentimes, the public speaker is taking a view that runs counter to how the council has already decided to vote and by speaking is adding time to an already long night.
My intention in speaking last Tuesday night was to impart some information that you might have found helpful in evaluating an upcoming agenda item. I did not have a formal statement prepared like I often do when I come before you, but I instead started my comments by taking some excerpts from a July 29 email from Tad Diesel on behalf of the mayor indicating that the Mayor's Advisory Commission on Arts and Culture was being "formulated in a manner that is at once more accountable and structured while maintaining its activist and inclusive personality" (the emphasis in bold here and below is mine):
"With this in mind, the mayor intends to appoint or reappoint a nine-member Commission with a responsibility to organize and lead the efforts by our city to ensure a lively arts scene. While the appointed members of the Commission will be charged with ensuring adherence to appropriate governmental policy and regulatory structures, they will be encouraged to lead a broadly inclusive group of citizens wishing to participate in efforts to develop and sustain the arts."
"The formation project is to be complete in August."
The point I was attempting to make was that the Mayor's Advisory Commission and Arts and Culture has not convened a single public meeting since this email was sent on the mayor's behalf in July 2011. Although I believe the group has met on a somewhat regular basis since being formulated, I have not seen a posting of their meeting schedule or location, agendas or minutes discussing what the group is working on, or how they are spending our tax and grant dollars.
As someone who is deeply passionate about the arts in Norwalk especially as they relate to economic and community development, I find this disturbing.
Since I am no longer an appointed commissioner to the Mayor's Advisory Commission on Arts and Culture (I resigned as vice chair in July 2011), I am not aware of what role the current commission played in creating the grant application on that night's council agenda, although I have heard through several conversations that they were not included and that most of the grant was created by city staff.
While I am appreciative of the staff's efforts to work under a tight timeline to respond to this exciting grant request, I am troubled by the lack of broadly inclusive outreach to the arts community at the time the grant was being formulated. I was hoping to learn more about this grant at the committee level, but the item passed through at the planning committee with no presentation, questions or back-up material, so I was unable to learn more about it at that time.
The mayor's suggestion to speak with a member of the audience did not seem like the appropriate response to the concerns that I was stating and made me flustered and frustrated at the time. After getting up my nerve to share potentially unpopular remarks, I felt that my comments were being dismissed and that my opinions were being disrespected. I was unsure how to respectfully disagree with the mayor so I decided that it was easier to say nothing at the time. I went home and decided to "sleep on things," but I awoke as frustrated as I was the night before.
Public comment is democracy in action. When else does the public get to interact with its elected officials?
I had to chuckle when one of the main characters, Mayor Kevin Garvey, in the book I am currently reading, Tom Perrotta's "The Leftovers," described his thoughts on the public comment section of meetings as follows: "We're here to serve you. And we can't do that if we don't know what's on your mind. The most important job we can do is listen to your concerns and criticisms, and find innovative, cost-effective ways of addressing them."
I am hoping that by expressing my concerns and clarifications in this follow-up letter, you might better understand how some members of the public feel when making public comments. It often takes a lot to get someone out to speak on an issue, so please be a little more patient with them as they sometimes stumble over their words or express an opinion that runs counter to how the votes are going to go. It would be even more exciting if you truly listened to them during public comment and then asked tough questions about the agenda items in question. Even more radical would be voting differently than you might have previously if you get some new information from a member of the public that was not presented to you earlier.
I am still hopeful that Norwalk puts together a high quality grant application that is well received by the state. I look forward to continuing to work with many of you on a wide variety of projects and initiatives that will continue to move Norwalk forward.
Thank you again for your time and all that you do to serve the people of Norwalk.
Respectfully -
Maribeth Becker
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