In 2006, The Day published an op-ed I wrote decrying the municipal privileging of the Chelsea Botanical Gardens project, as well as the untenability of the initiative, the lack of city oversight, and the moral criminality of destroying significant acreage in Mohegan Park. Before submitting the op-ed, I called every member of the then City Council to express my outrage and chagrin; only one returned my call, and that person expressed wholesale, unquestioning enthusiasm for the project.

That was nine years ago. During the intervening years, public questioning of the project and the city’s unsavory relationship with it were absent. The Mohegan Park Commission seems to have exercised no scrutiny at all. In 2008, 2009 and 2011, the council approved a total of $125,000 in Sachem Fund monies for the project; a cursory review of city budgets since the 2003-2004 year reveals another $12,394 in itemized disbursements under non-departmental expenses. In a recent Norwich Bulletin article, Adam Benson identified another approximately $88,000 in funding from 2000-2003. Counting an unbudgeted special disbursement of approximately $20,000 in 2006, that brings the total to $245,394. A forensic audit would likely reveal more.

Before the April 20, 2015 council meeting, Chelsea Gardens President Hugh Schnip gave a lengthy presentation to the council, at which time he announced that deforestation had commenced in order to illustrate “the footprint” to potential big-money funders and confirm that Chelsea Gardens means business. The reaction on council to this disingenuous explanation — a map, after all, would do the same thing, and probably better — was mute. No one expressed shock that deforestation was occurring in advance of any serious intent expressed by a funder. One member asked Mr. Schnip to confirm that a future botanical garden in Norwich would be a major driver of development. Chelsea Botanical Gardens remained unchallenged and uncontested. But not for long.

The ensuing furor has mobilized Mohegan Park neighbors and others. I was infuriated, as well, but not in the least shocked or surprised. The initiative, at its heart a vanity project, has always encapsulated a contempt for the land, a disinterested hubris and an enormous capacity for magical thinking.

That a City Council in the early 1990s saw fit to turn over 80 acres of a precious, natural parkland begs some interesting questions, and the answers are not that hard to discern. Three symptoms of Norwich municipal character all converged to enable Chelsea Botanical Gardens.

First is the “who, not what” syndrome. In this disease of thinking, it’s not the idea that matters, but the status of those promoting it. The fact that the main promoters and founders of the Foundation are well-connected and well-positioned has continually screened the project from any real scrutiny. Even the absurd idea, part of the group’s most recent presentation, of creating a native plants section upon the deliberate ruin of a natural habitat, was unremarked upon.

Second, we have the “If it happened there, it can happen here” disorder. The original impetus for Chelsea Gardens was Butchart Gardens in British Columbia, originally a family estate. The newest role model, according to Mr. Schnip, is the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay, Maine. That garden, which saved land slated for development as a subdivision, opened 11 years after purchase of the initial site. It is embedded in a long- flourishing tourist mecca, includes a mile of waterfront, and is one of only two major coastal botanical gardens in the country. Any comparison is misleading.

And third, Norwich has historically been seduced by magic bullet development projects that are as grandiose as they are unlikely. (Utopia Studios, anyone?) This infatuation consistently leads the city away from capitalizing on its existing assets and planning for livability rather than “visitability.”

So what can be done now? A lease allows Chelsea Botanical Gardens to hold hostage 80 acres of the park. Perhaps the Foundation’s demonstrated reckless stewardship of the land can undo the lease, perhaps not. In any case, the heretofore serenely unexamined life of the Chelsea Botanical Gardens initiative is at an end.

Elanah Sherman lives in Norwich. She is not affiliated with the Stop Chelsea Gardens Facebook page.