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NORWALK, Conn. – This letter has been submitted by the Democrats running as Common Council at-large candidates.
Running a city is a large, complicated and expensive undertaking. It is, in effect, big business. For example, the city of Norwalk spends more than $250 million a year and, as taxpayers, we need to make sure that our money is spent in a cost-effective, responsible and responsive way. To build the kind of community we all want, we need visionary, hard-working leadership – people who keep their eye on the ball, shape the agenda and then follow through. We need first-rate minds, first-rate commitment. Yet the Republicans presently tasked with running our city are still governing in the status quo, "just slap on a coat of paint and don't rock the boat" mentality.
To make this city thrive we must have an overall economic development program for the 21st century that will focus like a laser on creating, and keeping, jobs right here in Norwalk while at the same time navigating a steady course during the stress of the economic downturn.
Putting shovels in the ground may be a good campaign slogan, but there is no substitute for good economic policies that pursue the right economic development. There are too many Norwalkers out of work or underemployed to not have an extreme sense of urgency when it comes to really creating jobs here.
During the past six years, how many truly innovative and forward thinking new ideas have come out of the mayor's office about the kinds of jobs we can create with our development and revitalization projects? The Republican campaign theme this year couldn't be more accurate, they truly are in motion for Norwalk – very, very, slow motion.
All around us, new technologies are impacting on every aspect of the way we live and work and we need to embrace and integrate that technology into our local governance.
In education that means we have got to focus our resources on closing the digital divide between rich and poor, and making sure every child who graduates from Norwalk schools is ready for the 21st-century global economy and can meet a minimum level of competency in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). We need new blood on the Board of Education, as well as the Common Council, so that we are all pulling together as a Norwalk team, leaving party politics outside the door when we meet. Our kids are more important than any brand of party politics.
While the present city website gives lots of data, it is not very user-friendly and often not very up-to date. With modern technology all city data and proposals should be made easily available to decision-makers and to the general public, for it is the public, the people who pay Norwalk taxes, who must hold our leaders accountable for results. We should create a publicly accessible website that tracks citizen complaints – potholes, abandoned property, downed power lines, etc. – so we can track results and response times. Citizens should be able to text their complaints and transmit photos showing the problems and these should be made readily available. That should get results! We need to know who is responsible for work and how they execute that responsibility.
Our first order of business should be to focus on establishing our priorities and then finding ways to fund them. We need to actively seek funds from both federal and state agencies and rigorously pursue grant funding for new projects. Rather than take last year's budget and add to it or cut from it, let's focus on what we keep, not the cuts, and make sure we are getting what we pay for with a regular, rigorous review of every program – not every two years, but every two weeks!
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" isn't good enough, Norwalk needs better enterprise than that. We not only want to pro-actively maintain our city, we want to push it forward to make sure it really is "all it can be." We need a mayor that engages in the process of government, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We need a mayor that helps change the trajectory of our city. Andy Garfunkel fits the bill.
As Democrats, we are a party of action, and in this coming election we want the chance to renew our commitment to revitalize the city that is our home. We'll work together as a team with a fresh perspective, using innovative ideas, discipline, good old-fashioned elbow grease and common sense. As Democrats, we want to give everyone a voice, and represent all the people in this diverse community. We want to cultivate and add to the assets innate to our city: our waterfront, our commercial centers, and our tourist attractions. We need to make our residential communities flourish once again. Norwalk should be a destination, and a point of interest. By voting for the Democratic slate, you can bring about the change that can help our city thrive and expand to its full potential.
Thanks for writing this. It does help clarify some of your positions that were difficult to pose in just a few minutes at the forum.
A few questions and points.
You call for new technology, but at the forum and in the paper yesterday you called for using post it notes on devices that use electricity to remind us to shut them off. Which are you for? There is technology that will detect presence in a room and dim the lights or lower the heat. That is a little more expensive than post it notes, but you can recover the cost over time. Plumbing features also have come a long way too but those shutoff valves can be annoying. Also, most computer operating systems have timeout and power savings settings that are fairly easy to change.
As for the website there is always room for improvement but it has come a long way. Before the current administration we didn't even have the City Charter on line like most every other city in the state did at that time. It was pretty embarrasing. If you are lost on the website, you should try the "search" field. It works pretty well. Of course you have to know what you are looking for. There is no AI feature just yet. How exactly would you make the whole site more navigable and user friendly?
As for a service request tracking system, I agree. Although, you might want to expand on this here so we know where you stand. Typical enterprise CRM systems can run into the millions for an enterprise the size of Norwalk and require extensive training and upkeep of hardware, networks, training, etc... I'm not certain of the volume of requests, but we might be better off building a simple spreadsheet that can be made accessible from the web if data isn't sensitive to customer privacy issues. A simple classification system can be used for fairly robust tracking and reporting from Microsoft Excel. Have you looked at any real world examples of how this is done and can you propose some specific ideas for the next council?
As for your stance on science and math education, I disagree. Meeting some minimum required achievement level is the exact attitude that has seen our country lose so many hi tech jobs. We've been told for decades that Asia is surpassing us in these aptitudes and here you are suggesting the minimum is ok. Norwalk needs to raise the bar and set expectations far beyond some artificial boundary of an unimaginative bureaucracy. Our children need to excel at Reading and Math, so that Science and Technology are easier to understand, so that one day they can focus on a disciplined application such as Engineering, Accounting, Medicine, etc...
Thanks for clarifying or expanding on any of these positions. And thank you for your endorsement as I have never ran or been on the council before this year unlike my ballot line opponent who has over 10 years of past experience.....experience during the time the city charter was never put on line.