Lunch Money

Sometimes you just have to move on. That’s what Mike Norton, the former executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District, said to Whispers in the aftermath of his abrupt resignation on Sept. 17.

Norton, damaged by the nasty split in March with the district’s partner, the Northwest Arkansas Area Agency on Aging, paid the final price when his board of directors, led by Berryville mayor Tim McKinney, asked him to step down, which he did immediately.

Keep in mind that Norton had been at the district for 41 years, and for 24 of those years he was the top executive at an office that presides over a nine-county area and can administer as much as $30 million in a year. For Norton to step down without a fight meant he had seen the writing on the wall.

And the source of his downfall was lunch money. Lots of it.

According to news reports, the Economic Development District, based in Harrison, at one point owed as much as $528,000 to a grocer out of Missouri that provided food for the district’s Meals on Wheels program. And according to those same reports, the Area Agency on Aging and its director, Jerry Mitchell, were upset that an $83,000 grant was never deposited into the agency’s foundation account.

A source told Whispers the grant money was used to buy groceries for Meals on Wheels instead of paying for a much-coveted fitness center at the Springdale Senior Center. As a result, neither the aging agency nor the senior center got what it wanted, making Norton the odd man out.

When the board voted to ask for his resignation, they did it with a show of hands, not a roll-call, so Norton couldn’t hear the names of the people forcing him out after more than 40 years of service.

“Sometimes it’s just time for people to move on,” Norton told Whispers.