Selectmen approve Veterans banner program

The Norwood Board of Selectmen met on Tuesday night and voted unanimously to approve a Veterans banner program from Norwood Veteran Services Officer Derek Wennerstrand.

The program will allow interested residents to put up a banner on any one of the light poles around the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Park on Walpole Street/Route 1A.

“This location, I thought, has emotional and historical meaning,” he said. “The banners would serve meaningful purpose in this location, and it also brings renewed attention to the DAV Memorial Park, and creates a unified representation, rather than scattered placements.”

Wennerstrand said the location is also ideal because the Norwood Light Department owns all the poles around the park, which is not always the case across Town. Selectman Michael Saad asked about allowing residents to put up banners in their neighborhoods, around, presumably, where the veteran in question lived or grew up.

“The reason we’re not doing that, and this might be something we could get into down the road, is that one, the Town/Light Department doesn’t own all the electrical poles,” he said. “So having to go through Verizon for everything, I contacted them several times just to see how they’re feeling and how they operated with these banners in the past, and I got no response from anybody. But that is something we can continue to work on. My focus was finding a nice, centralized location to start out with.”

Wennerstrand said the banners will include information like the veteran’s name, branch of service, photograph, whichever conflict(s) they served in, awards and a message from the sponsoring entity or family, if they so choose. Any veteran that was not dishonorably discharged can apply. Wennerstrand said the office has interacted with about 500 confirmed eligible veterans in Town just through the normal services they provide, but said between veterans who have grown up in Norwood and moved and veterans who do not take advantage of their earned benefits, he believes there are many more veterans eligible for the banner program.

“They serve as a visible community-wide tribute and educational reminder of Norwood military service and sacrifice,” he said.

Wennerstrand said the application process will have a fee of $105 per banner, for which a fund will be created for Gold Star Families – which has already, according to Saad and Wennerstrand, had a lot of contributions – and will be handled by the website MilitaryTributeBanners.org. Wennerstrand said anyone who does not feel comfortable on a computer or has trouble with the application process can come into the VSO Office at Town Hall, where a laptop and assistance will be provided.

“We hope to have that website live the morning of Feb. 9,” he said.

Wennerstrand added that the office is looking to have an unveiling event on Memorial Day Weekend, but no specific date has been set just yet.

All the Board, as you might expect, were very supportive of the program.

“We’ve seen this in other towns and they’re a beautiful tribute, and so I commend you on putting forward a Norwood program,” said Selectman Bob Donnelly.

“Derek, great project, very dear to my heart and a lot of veterans have already been contacting me,” said Saad. “Great job, but be prepared for the next storm of callers. People are going to be knocking your door down; they’ve already called me from Walpole, Westwood, and Norwood veterans. They want to be on that pole.”

Residents from other Towns who grew up in Norwood can apply for banners.

“This is a great project and I fully support it, and if you need anything in the future from us let us know,” Selectman Matt Lane said.

“The thing I really appreciate about this is that sometimes our veterans memorials that are visible in the Town, in terms of monuments or memorials, a lot of them contain phrases like, ‘Every soldier,’ or it’s a placeholder to represent all soldiers,” Selectmen Vice Chair Amanda Grow said. “I think this is really nice to be able to put faces, specific people from our community who served, and have those faces represented.”

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Saad added that the Board will get on Verizon about adding more locations.

“If you need help with Verizon, (Town Manager) Tony (Mazzucco) will beat ‘em up,” he said.

In other news, the Board unanimously approved a request from Lewis’ Bar and Grill for a change of manager. Owner Colleen Padden will be taking over managing duties from here on out.

“My dad had this business for 46 years and I’ve been doing it three-and-a-half, four years and nothing’s changed,” she said.

“You’ll do a fine job, and your kids will help out,” Saad said.

The Board voted unanimously to approve the measure.

The Board also voted to draft a letter of support for the Norwood Trails Advisory Committee in seeking a grant from the MassTrails organization, a state-run department, for the installation of new wayfinding measures and informational kiosks at trailheads. The Board approved the measure unanimously.