After 5Þ years, Thibeault closed his The Airbrush Gallery on Franklin Street this past December after the clientele seemed to dry up. He consolidated his business in The Other Side, his wife's business next door, but he said the future looks bleak.

"Downtown's not going anywhere," Thibeault said.

Wednesday night, Thibeault and more than 20 other downtown merchants crowded a meeting room at the Buckingham Memorial on Main Street and took Mayor Arthur Lathrop to task for what they called his failure to fight for the survival of downtown businesses.

Lathrop, who took office this past December as the city's first mayor in 50 years, began the meeting by poring over press clippings that quoted many downtown merchants criticizing his efforts as mayor.

"To conduct a dialogue via the press is not the world's easiest thing to do nor an accurate way to talk about issues," Lathrop said.

Lathrop later took heat for the closure of the downtown Tourism & Main Street Office, the city's inability to act on the large number of street people many merchants said are threatening downtown businesses and his alleged refusal to fight for a downtown Three Rivers Community College.

"We're dying downtown," said Jacqueline Quercia, chairwoman of the Downtown Neighborhood Revitalization Zone and owner of Norwich Rare Coin and Jewelry. "You say you know what's going on, but I don't think you do Mr. Lathrop. I don't think you have a clue."

Lathrop said he did not fight to keep open the Tourism & Main Street Office because it had little support from the City Council. He said there was little the city could do about street people without infringing on their constitutional rights and said it was Gov. John G. Rowland's decision to keep a consolidated Three Rivers out of downtown, not his.

Rowland recently said he agreed with a state Office of Policy and Management report endorsing the community college's consolidation at its Mahan Drive campus. That report was unanimously accepted by the Community College Board of Trustees Monday.

Lathrop said "it was a struggle to keep this college in Norwich" and added that he was the mayor of all of Norwich, not just downtown.

But, an infuriated Ronald Aliano, the developer proposing the downtown campus, blamed Lathrop, who he said made downtown a "low priority" to the governor.

"A mayor should be fighting for his city," Aliano said. "What the hell are you going to go to battle for mayor?"

Aliano said by not fighting for a downtown Three Rivers, Lathrop was compromising the business community downtown and the residential community on Mahan Drive.

Aliano will meet with Rowland Chief of Staff Dean Pagani today to make his final argument for the waterfront project.

Lathrop and many downtown business owners said they would try to make meetings like Wednesday's a more regular event.