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NORWALK, Conn. – First they came for the bluestone curbs.
Norwalk is a city of a hundred neighborhoods, so sometimes we forget that for more than 350 years Norwalk has carved out its story of America from the fertile lands along a river valley through the Industrial Revolution, two World Wars and now the Digital Age. We forget these things because the shape of where we live loses its ties to history when we that last bit of old stuff makes way for the new.
Last summer, despite being designated as a historic district, the Camp Street repaving project undertaken by Norwalk's Department of Public Works ripped out perfectly serviceable bluestone curbs to replace them with preformed concrete curbs. Mayor Richard Moccia refused to save the curbs, citing cost and time. Of course, no cost study was ever provided, and the time issue was moot. The concrete curbs took quite a while to be installed. The residents who have carefully cultivated restorations of Victorian homes, proudly designated by historic plaques, were astounded that a mayor could be so short-sighted as to not value the long-term effect of preserving the historic look of the streetscape at a time when every city in America is burnishing their historic assets in hopes of generating tourist dollars. Should it even be a surprise then to note that the work of Richard Booth, who wrote the walking tour of Camp Street, has long been missing from the city of Norwalk's website?
Nothing to see here, please move along.
Norwalk owns many historic properties, including the Lockwood Mathews Mansion, the Mill Hill Historic Park and the Norwalk Museum. Except that in the case of the Norwalk Museum, the building built for its collections is not used by the museum. Mayor Moccia chose to use it for the fire department's temporary headquarters, while the new fire station is built. The city has not allocated any of its triple-A bond rating to fund the capital outlays to restore any of the properties it owns, choosing instead to use its low credit rates to fund the First Taxing District's infrastructure debt. But hey, we can think of that as heritage support, since the water mains were installed not that far from being called 19th century. So no opportunities for increased tourism at our heritage sites.
Then they came to put the art and artifacts in storage.
The proposal to close the Norwalk Museum and place its collections in storage comes on the heels of many years of not funding the curatorial systems to document and catalog the collection items. It comes with many years with no marketing budget, no development budget and no way to even attempt to increase the visitation to the museum. The Norwalk finance director, whose expertise apparently includes cost estimation of preservation and storage of antique artifacts, claims a cost savings can be achieved by closing the museum and placing the collections in storage. I'm sure he forgot to calculate the added savings to the Board of Education, which can now eliminate field trips to the museum as well.
The mayor claims that the city budget is forcing the issue. Yet this is the same mayor who can't seem to understand that an investment in a pedestrian-friendly, culturally accessible city contributes to the property tax revenue growth. In fact, this mayor is so revenue generation adverse, he's overseen the loss of grant monies used to fund cultural organizations and projects. Chronic violations of city laws regarding obstructed sidewalks and garbage disposal remain unfined and unenforced. When the tax assessor fails to realize a newly built building has been untaxed for years because there is no system to consolidate zoning and building permits with tax records, he must channel Rick Perry and say, "Oops." When the city pays out millions more in insurance premiums because the city doesn't employ its own risk assessor, he looks to outsource garbage collection. And while other cities hire the expertise to write grants and seek funding to keep the level of services and programs active and accessible to Norwalk taxpayers, he relies on volunteers to get around to it.
While the mayor has made an effort to support arts and culture in Norwalk in the past, he has clearly changed directions. Where he has cultivated the arts and cultural community in the past, he has withdrawn to his office lair and allowed City Hall staff to lead policy while ignoring the very community he had once so vocally supported.
The economy is tough enough to deal with. Do we really need an assault on Norwalk's cultural heritage from the political leaders who ran on a campaign supporting the arts and culture? The recent budget plans from the governor's office to defund line item earmarks to our major attractions are equally alarming. Is this time to double down on abandoning our cultural attractions?
I strongly oppose the plans to defund the Norwalk Museum, and call on the mayor to engage the arts and cultural community on policy decisions. Further, I urge the mayor to call together the legislative delegation to plan a strategic policy presentation to the governor and the legislative branch is needed. Let's stop the "mailing it in" reactive responses and work to preserve not only what we have, but build on what we could be.
Jackie Lightfield, author of Discover Norwalk, a travel guide, is former chair of the Norwalk Arts Commission and the Zoning Commission and co-founded the nonprofit Norwalk 2.0, a community development agency.
Comments (10)
It shouldnt even be remotely difficult to come up with the money for the museum. If it is $250,000 I'd ask how much we spent on the beach the past few years. I'd imagine that between the ball field lights, the parking lot, the sidewalk & faux gas lights & the current project between the bath houses that museum could have been funded for several years at the very least. But that would be for the citizenry. WE dont seem to be the focus of current city investments but rather they seem to be focused on outsiders bringing in money, even if it ruins the quality of life for our taxpayers. We need to refocus on US, the residents & taxpayers and make Norwalk a better place to LIVE instead of a nice place to visit.
Yes the beach is used by some outsiders, but they pay each time they visit. If you compare the number of Norwalk residents who use Calf Pasture beach -- many on a regular basis -- to the number who visit the Museum, it's not even close. The number of residents who use the beach is MUCH higher. Therefore in a world of limited resources, it makes a lot of sense to prioritize the beach ahead of the Museum.
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I don't know much about running museums, but it seems to me a small admission charge, better hours, and a serious effort at marketing would go a long way toward making the museum less costly to operate, possibly even a revenue source, as a destination. There is a lot of history stored there and it could be a lot more accessible with more help. A curator and several interns might work, if the museum collaborated with one of the colleges so interns could earn credit for their time spent working at the museum.
Developing a good digital catalogue, possibly online, would be a good project for students working toward computer related degrees. There is a lot at the museum that should be photographed and digitally reproduced for researchers that need access to historic information without physically handling very old maps, newspapers, and documents. Closing the museum is a large step backwards. The lease could probably be re-negotiated, even if that required some credit to the 2nd district as the old town of South Norwalk, with the history of the building. There was a courtroom there and a police headquarters, and the Mayor's office, etc.
I agree Old Timer, the museum needs to become less costly to operate and less reliant on taxpayer support. Also a higher profile would help. I enjoy local history museums and have been past the museum hundreds of times while in SoNo, and still had no idea that the building was a museum.
Jackie there are a lot of words in your well-written article above, but no numbers. Unfortunately numbers are at the root of the problem -- specifically the high dollar cost of the museum relative to the rather low number of yearly visitors. I agree with you that history is important and valuable. However your rallying cry to preserve the museum fails to explain in any numerical terms how you would pay the cost of doing so. Should we raise taxes on a citizenry who is already financially strapped? Should we fail to honor contracts with current and retired city workers? This is the real choice that our elected officials must face, and I don't envy them for having to do so. Begging from the state is not a solution, as the state is broke too. I don't know the specifics of grant writing, but would expect that if grant writers were successful enough to pay for themselves, the Mayor and City Council would not be reluctant to fund the positions. So at the end of the day, who will pay to keep the Museum open?
Here are the numbers I'd love the city to publish because of course they must have put together a plan to close the museum before proposing defunding it.
1. The leasing fee cost allocated to the Fire Department for using Lockwood House, which was donated to the CIty of Norwalk to house the Norwalk Museum. That would be a credit to the operations fund of the museum.
2. The cost of itemizing and storing artifacts in appropriate storage facilities following standard national museum practices.
3. The cost of moving packaged artifacts to new storage location.
4. The cost of retrieving said artifacts when requested under obligations of responding to genealogy requests.
Numbers, hard data is the lifeblood of any business, and unfortunately the City has demonstrated time and again, that it fails to do its homework before it "creates" policy.
Saving the tax payer's money starts with running a growing city, not making excuses.
OK so let's suppose the plan to close the museum is completely ill-conceived, and that it will not save a penny. Now the city budget has a hole in it of about $250,000 because the Museum is set up in such a way that it can never be closed and must be funded forever. Where will that money come from every year? Should we fire three police officers? Cut four teachers? Raise taxes? The money has to come from somewhere. There are an infinite number of worthy causes, including the museum, but how do we pay for them all? "Running a growing city" is an abstract statement and not a concrete plan. I have a lot of respect for your support of the museum and the arts in general, unfortunately it has to be considered against a landscape of limited resources where we have a lot of other important city services that must be funded.
First the budget for the museum operation is not $250,000, really. Second, any decent operations manager can trim operation costs while increasing revenue offsets. If you are aware of the work I did as chair of the arts commission, then you've seen first hand how you take an operating budget and manage it so that you generate additional revenue. I also managed to increase revenues in zoning, while eliminating fees that impeded economic growth. So I'll let history speak for itself, and opt out of producing a "concrete plan" in the comments section of a news site. It's neither the appropriate place, nor likely to change the "management philosophy" of the Mayor's administration. The bottom line speaks for itself.
Thank you for your work as chair of the arts commission. I'm not clear on what you mean when you say "any decent operations manager can trim operation costs while increasing revenue offsets." I think you are referring to the City of Norwalk, but it seems to me like the City is already doing that with their proposed budget and if they could cut costs any further, they should certainly do so, and the savings should go to avoiding the proposed 3% tax increase. Perhaps you could lend your expertise in this area to the Museum as it seems that they are the ones who need to trim operation costs while increasing revenue offsets so that they can become stronger and more financially independent.
If the annual cost of the museum is not $250,000, then what is it? You and the museum curator both have challenged the assertion that $250,000 would be saved, but for some reason that I don't understand, neither of you seem willing to talk publicly about actual numbers regarding the museum. If the city is talking in hard numbers, and you're talking in vague generalities, both parties are talking past each other so there's not any real public discussion or debate taking place. And what's wrong with having this discussion in the comments section of a news site, where the maximum number of taxpaying citizens can be informed? Would it better serve your goals to have the discussion in private?