For former city Alderman John Paul Mereen, it’s time to “drop back five and punt.” The 64-year-old Norwich Republican has decided to take life a little easier, and let others serve in municipal government, boards, and commissions.

Sitting outside his Mediterranean Lane home last month, Mereen reflected on a career that included 12 years on the City Council, leading a lengthy effort to get a municipal park in Occum built, being a past president of the city’s Rose Arts Festival, chairman of the Harbor Management Commission, establishing the popular Rock the Docks downtown music concert series, and, most recently, getting a new water irrigation system for the Norwich Golf Course.

Mereen says the new system, installed in July, will save the golf course authority as much as $100,000 a year, easily paying back the $800.000 bond needed for the construction.

“On top of that, there’s also now a water fountain on the course that changes colors at night. Not only is the project serving a function, it’s also adding to the golf course experience.”

Mereen says he “had an inkling” he’d be involved in local government even while he was still a student at Norwich Free Academy. The 1974 graduate was president of his junior and senior classes.

He graduated from Virginia-Wesleyan University in Virginia Beach with a degree in political science in 1978. He and his future wife Nancy then played in local bands for about six months, before he realized “I have to get a real job.”

Nancy was working as a draftsman for the city of Virginia Beach, and the man in charge of the city’s land surveyors had been attending the couple’s concerts. He offered Mereen a job as a surveyor, which he accepted. He has been in the business ever since, now the owner of a surveying company based in East Lyme.

Mereen moved back to Norwich in 1981, along with his wife. Inspired by his father Samuel Mereen, who served as a Registrar of Voters for Norwich, the younger Mereen got involved in the local GOP town committee, eventually leading to his run for the City Council in November 1995. His six-term tenure included one when he was the only Republican on an 11-member Council.

There was no mandatory minority party representation rules back then. He remembers when the 10 Democrats would caucus before the Council meeting to discuss city business, meaning Mereen would have to leave.

“That was B.S.,” Mereen said. “But the Democrats would emerge from many of those meetings disagreeing on issues, and I would have the swing vote.”

He remembers then-Alderman Don Alfiero, during one meeting, yelling back at a fellow Democratic city councilman, “Mereen’s a better Democrat than you are!”

Mereen says, though, he got along with everyone on both sides of the aisle, something he says he wishes occurred more often today in politics, especially on the national level.

Perhaps Mereen’s greatest accomplishment is a 10-year effort to successfully get a $2.7 million dollar municipal park built at a former mill site off Route 97 in Occum. He pushed the project when he first ran for City Council, as the contaminated mill site had already been laying dormant for a decade.

There was little to no progress on the proposal for quite a few years, but Mereen says he never gave up.

“Once financing came through for site testing, I knew something was going to happen,” he said.

The park opened in 2005, the culmination of the work of many city officials, Mereen stresses.

“It was a city project, not a J.P. Mereen project.... It’s great to see all the people enjoy the park, especially the kids. There always seems to be somebody there.”

Mereen has also been dealt some serious blows. He and his wife suffered the loss of twin sons, who died in childbirth in January 1986. Nancy died in March 2019 from a microbacterial infection that Mereen says was caused by potting soil she used.

“She was an avid gardener,” he said.

He has found a kindred spirit in an old college friend, who also lost her male partner. He says the two comfort each other, and know the grief involved in losing loved ones.

“That grief is really sneaky. You don’t know when it’s going to come up on you, When it does, sometimes it hits really hard.”

Mereen says he generally likes the direction Norwich is going, despite the pandemic. He says, though, the city is still struggling to find its own identity, unlike places such as Putnam that is now a destination for antiques shopping.

“Norwich has always had a lot of potential,” he said, “but sometimes can’t seem to get out of its own way.”

Mereen plans to continue with his surveying business, but in a more limited role, and will remain as a board member of the Greater Norwich Area Chamber of Commerce. Other than that, he says he’ll enjoy some “J.P. time, and re-calibrate the compass.”