Blooming business
North Windham has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. A glance at the Windham Historical Society’s collection of old photographs shows that. What once was farmland, evergreens and old wooden homes is now a dazzle of bright lights, big boxes and parking lots.
And through it all, and before it all, was Linda’s Flowers and Windham Jewelry, two of the anchors of Windham business for decades.
This week, as we read in a page one story, Linda Nadeau of “Linda’s Flowers” fame, is done with the flower business, retired to a life of family and hopefully some lakeside fun. Linda is a memorable figure in Windham, especially to the hundreds of boyfriends and husbands who came to the rose oasis every Valentine’s Day. Her quality product and professional, friendly demeanor made buying a flower a pleasant experience, as pleasant as the smell of her roses.
Not only did she run a successful flower business, she offered limousine service to countless prom, wedding and special event goers employing local police officers as drivers. It will certainly be different not seeing that limo stretched out beside her shop. I, like many drivers, look to see if the “limo is in” every time I drive by. But it’s all just a memory now.
Linda was important. For 18 years, she and her staff represented how a good work ethic can help grow a town into a hub of economic activity. The same goes for the folks who are moving into her space. Kathy Byrnes’ Windham Jewelry has been in Windham since the early 1980s, and has provided special gifts for area residents ever since. They work hard. It’s a family affair with her daughter and husband involved, and together they provide top-notch service – because it’s good business to treat your customers right, as Kathy would say.
So, while Linda’s may seem like a simple flower shop and limo service to visitors of North Windham, locals know that businesses like hers and Windham Jewelers have helped make North Windham a commercial hot spot. They were part of the foundation that attracted Wal-Mart and now other big boxes and their smaller competitors to the area.
So congratulations to both, one which is growing and another which is moving on after long and dedicated service.
Cramming it through
Who knew the SAD 6 Board of Directors could be so funny?
On Monday, after Standish reps asked for significant budget decreases in the amount of $170,000 and $120,000, the board voted to reduce the budget by a dollar. Surely, Hollis representative Shawn Cram meant his proposal to reduce the multi-million dollar budget by 100 cents as a humorous summertime prank. How else can one take the dollar decrease? But, for some reason, no one, especially on the Standish side of the district, is understanding Cram’s joke and Standish is now fuming at the school board’s cavalier handling of its budget-reducing request.
It just shows how school boards can get when they forget who puts them in power and why they are there. They are not there to give kids everything they want. They are there to give students a quality education at a price area taxpayers can afford. Taxpayers, in a referendum last month, told the board they can’t afford the proposed budget, and what did the board do? They threw the budget back in the residents’ face, with the added insult of a dollar decrease. That’s like leaving a 5-cent tip for a waitress. Shameless. Psychologically, at least, it would have been better to propose no decrease at all.
Standish residents, along with the other member towns, shouldn’t be seen as deep pockets that the board can dip into any time they want. The board should have listened to the people who put them there. A dollar decrease is a slight, an insult, and it’s just amazing so many board members went along so quickly with Cram’s proposal.
But residents will have another chance to argue their case at an informational meeting on July 18 at the middle school. The referendum vote on an amended Article Four is scheduled for July 26. Round three starts then. Stay tuned.
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