The Triangle Garden, at the intersection of Church and Main Streets, adjacent to Tracy Hall, is a thing of beauty. Volunteers from the Norwich Women’s Club design and maintain it, and have for more than two decades, with an assist from the Town’s DPW. It’s the most visible flower garden in Norwich.
On May 20, Carol Loveland wrote to the Selectboard on behalf of the Norwich Women’s Club and the Triangle Garden Crew. The volunteers who tend the garden haul more than 100 feet of hose from a faucet near the back parking area, “across the sidewalk at the entrance to Tracy Hall (on Main Street) then across the grounds to Church Street and then across Church Street” to the garden. There are two faucets on the Church Street side, on either side of the Tracy Hall steps. The closest one, on the left, isn’t connected. The one on the right works, but the volunteers were told not to use it. See May 27, 2026 Selectboard meeting packet at 152.
Her letter asked one direct question: “What is the issue of connecting water to the faucet that is on the left side of the steps and easiest access to water for the garden? Is it structural? Financial?”
She also noted something else: this wasn’t the first time asking the question. They have made “numerous verbal requests over the years” to connect the faucet, answered with “I’ll pass it along” and “We’ll look into it.”
Ms. Loveland appeared at the May 27 Selectboard meeting to reiterate her concerns during public comment. According to the meeting minutes, she asked again whether the problem was related to “structural or financial matters” and indicated the Club “could contribute if finances were the issue.”
What followed took seven more weeks, a chair’s memo, a warned agenda item, two motions, and a tense discussion at the July 8 Selectboard meeting. The Selectboard ultimately approved the purchase of a $100 hose reel. But — per the public record — nobody had requested a hose reel, and no one apparently asked the volunteers whether it would work for them. The only data point added since May 20 was confirmation by the Town Manager that the faucet on the left of the stairs has not worked for 25 or 30 years, by his estimate. But we still don’t know why that faucet doesn’t work. “Is it structural? Financial?”
I’d say our town government failed the Triangle Garden volunteers and the public. This post isn’t about assigning blame. The Chair’s memo did what oversight should do: it forced a stalled matter onto the agenda. The SB members who voted down soliciting plumbing bids had legitimate grounds in the town’s gift-acceptance and procurement policies. The Town Manager noted at the meeting that he was “not tasked with fix[ing] this problem.” YouTube July 8 meeting video at ~1:34:00. Notably, he responded to the agenda item by walking the site and identifying the problem as a heavy hose, not the faucet’s location — a reading the initial letter partly supports (“with the hope that we can haul less hose as we are not getting any younger”).
The system came up short because no one owned the problem. To start: who should residents go to when they have a problem, and when can they expect a response? To read Ms. Loveland’s letter, requests were not answered “over the years.” The letter also indicates that the Triangle Garden volunteers previously used the faucet on the right of the Tracy Hall steps. However, someone instructed them to use the more distant faucet by the back parking lot. Seven weeks after raising the issue in public correspondence and then by public comment, nobody had called the person asking about the faucet (or at least no one mentioned speaking to her).
Norwich needs a government where either the Town Manager proactively takes ownership of the problem or a Selectboard feels comfortable directing him to solve it and report back. Instead, residents got neither. That is the problem.
Meanwhile, the question from May 20 is still open. Is it structural? Financial? And someone should call Carol Loveland.
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Thank you, once again, for taking the time and effort to advocate for common sense, cooperation and civility.