By Bruce Kimmel (D-At Large)
Norwalk Common Council
My wife was surprised. I walked into the house around 11 p.m. She said, “I thought you would be home early,” referring to my prediction that the Jan. 28 Common Council meeting would not go too late.
All I could say was, “And we only dealt with one issue. One #%^*@# issue!” I went on to describe in general terms (since it was late) the debate on the Rowayton Avenue road project, a $2.3 million, federally and state funded project that, two years before, I had not only voted against, but called a “boondoggle.”
I mentioned that there was something about this issue that agitated me, made me almost angry. Moreover, it seemed some of the folks in the audience were also uncomfortable as they spoke against the decision to hire a company to commence the final phase of a project that was officially approved two years ago and had been in the works since the mid-1990s.
Her view of my agitation was simple: “Must be the season of the witch.” While I would have loved to attribute these intense feelings to witchcraft, from a personal standpoint, my guess is that I had never before flipped on an issue, gone from voting against to voting for, and that was probably the reason I was bothered.
Two years ago, I viewed the Rowayton Avenue project through a residential lens, that is, I looked at it exclusively in the context of a residential community. From that perspective, I didn’t see the need to spend a couple of million state and federal dollars to address the kinds of safety issues, such as poor vertical lines of sight, that are common across the city.
Subsequent to that vote, two things happened. The first, and most important, is that I began to view the project in a different context, from the perspective of a commuter railroad station (which is really what this is all about), where relatively large numbers of people are invariably in a hurry, on foot and in cars, in good and bad weather, and often in the dark.
Second: In recent weeks, I received more detailed information than I had received two years earlier; such as, data about accidents in the vicinity, measurements that indicated only minimal changes would be made to the road, information indicating the state had gone through the review process for historical areas, assurances that the project could not possibly lead to large trucks barreling up and down Rowayton Avenue, etc. Thus, I changed my vote.
Nonetheless, the debate and the public participation were a little strange. (Especially for a project that is totally funded by the federal and state governments; and especially in light of the fact that, if the city killed the project, taxpayers would have to pay the state and federal governments somewhere between $500,000 and $700,000, which is the amount already spent on design and other work related to the project.)
For instance, a speaker from the public announced that the overwhelming majority of Rowayton residents opposed the project. But in the days before the Council meeting, none of my at-large colleagues who voted for the project received a single email asking us to nix the project. In the past, whenever there was a groundswell of opposition to an agenda item, we would be swamped by emails and phone calls, and even petitions.
Also, there were statements from the audience and some Council members to the effect that the public had not been properly informed about the project, and thus had no opportunity to voice its displeasure.
But discussion of this project began in the early 1990s during what was called a “commuter revolt,” had been endorsed by three mayors, the federal and state governments, and had been approved by the Common Council in 2011 after a lively debate.
Plus, a special sub-committee had been set up by the Council’s Public Works committee to address any resident concerns, and we agreed to address those concerns, even if they fell outside the official scope of the project, such as the addition of more sidewalks leading to the railroad station.
During one of the several recesses in the debate, we tried to pinpoint exactly what had not been done; what specific resident concerns had not been addressed. And we couldn’t come up with one. Thus, we approved the construction contract by a 9 to 6 bipartisan vote, with seven Republicans and to Democrats voting for, and six Democrats against.
But some folks are still angry – at what we’re not sure. Maybe my wife is right, “Must be the season of the witch.”
Bruce Kimmel
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