Civic Center Future Up For Vote-June 15, 1981

Town Meeting Confronts $2.2 Million Civic Center Relocation Choice and Winslow School Sale

Town meeting representatives could make a $2.2 million decision on the future of the Norwood Civic Center this week. How and where to replace the now abandoned Civic Center comes last but not least in a 21-article agenda. The special session convenes at 8 tonight at Junior High School South. Last July town meeting directed that plans be made to convert the former Aaron Guild School to Civic Center use along with development of Eliot Field in South Norwood. But a referendum vote in April showing interest in an area YMCA plan put the Guild-Civic thinking out of kilter. The building construction committee, in charge of planning, is now looking for direction. The committee will tell town meeting that $2.18 million is now available to proceed with constructing the Guild-Civic Center. The sum includes $2.08 million from payments by Norwood Hospital to buy the Civic Center site, plus $100,000 from the original $180,000 granted by town meeting for planning expenses.

The finance commission was scheduled to meet at 4:30 this afternoon with selectmen and the permanent building construction committee before taking a stand on the issue. District 9 town meeting representative Edward F. McKenna has volunteered to carry the ball for the PBCC which he described as reluctant to take an advocacy role. Another District 9 town meeting representative, Walter J. Grady filed a citizen petition article to make sure the issue got before town meeting. Grady led the move last summer to focus attention on the Guild-Civic plan. But selectmen Chairman John F. Kinnaly told the FinCom that selectmen voted 4-1 against continuing with the Guild-Civic plan. The reason, he said, is because “the school situation is still up in the air” on whether another school might be turned over to the town.

The Civic Center issue aside, there are other reasons to draw out town meeting representatives less than a week after finishing the annual town meeting business. The town stands to collect $325,250 to sell the former Winslow School. The proposed sale and rezoning for professional office use must be approved first. A proposed burglar-alarm bylaw could allow fines in habitual cases of false alarms as a means to discourage the costly and potentially dangerous number of false alarm responses by police. The FinCom is recommending dipping approximately $176,000 further into surplus or free cash for state Chapter 90 road construction. The proposed transfer from the $1.4 million is in lieu of short-term borrowing which the FinCom wants to avoid. The sum to be fully reimbursed by the state will be used with a 25 percent local cost share already raised by town meeting. Selectmen will again ask town meeting permission to file legislation to permit the extension of University Avenue through the so-called Ellis wellfield lands. In a message to town meeting members, Town Manager John J. Carroll recalled how town meeting last year rejected the move until certain environmental concerns had been ironed out. Now Carroll stated, a final Environmental Impact Report, already approved in draft form, will be completed and approved by the state Secretary of Environmental Affairs shortly.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger