Emergency Taxiway Repairs Scheduled to Begin-August 21, 1980

Walter J. Grady, serving as the chairman of the Norwood Airport Commission, described his recent efforts to secure funding for emergency infrastructure repairs as a “$3,000 game of ping-pong.” Last week, the Norwood Finance Commission granted Walter J. Grady a $3,000 transfer to execute emergency repairs on an airport taxiway, which had been explicitly ordered by the Massachusetts Aeronautics Commission. However, the transfer of these funds was strictly contingent upon receiving official approval from the Norwood Board of Selectmen.

The selectmen declined to call an emergency meeting to address the funding request, choosing instead to take up the matter during their regular Tuesday night meeting. During the session, the selectmen effectively bounced the responsibility back to Walter J. Grady. Selectman Walter J. Dempsey pointed out that information provided by the town clerk indicated that the Norwood Airport Commission already possessed $11,400 within its own existing budget. Walter J. Dempsey subsequently suggested that Walter J. Grady return to the Norwood Finance Commission to resolve the matter. Walter J. Grady stated he had no prior knowledge that these specific funds were available, and he requested that the selectmen approve the emergency $3,000 transfer anyway, in the event that the $11,400 budget line turned out to be unusable for some reason. The selectmen agreed to this conditional arrangement.

The following day, Walter J. Grady verified the status of the account with Town Clerk Robert Thornton. The investigation revealed that the $11,400 in question had been earmarked all the way back in 1967 for the construction of an entirely separate taxiway. The funds represented the remaining balance from a large-scale $350,000 project. Under municipal finance regulations, the leftover money should have been returned directly to the town’s general fund nearly thirteen years prior. Instead, due to a long-running bookkeeping oversight, the funds were never transferred and had been mistakenly carried forward on the books of the Norwood Airport Commission ever since.

With the financial mix-up unraveled, Walter J. Grady confirmed that he now has the necessary $3,000 secured, and physical repair work on the airport taxiway is scheduled to begin today. Walter J. Grady expressed relief at the resolution, stating that he believed the commission had finally cut through the local politics surrounding the situation to ensure the necessary infrastructure job could be completed.

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