September 1980
Joseph C. Aube, of the Westbrook School Committee, called for switching from No. 2 and No. 4 heating oil to No. 6 oil at the high school, junior high and Canal School saving 20 cents a gallon – about $50,000 a year. Russell Fearon, the school administrative assistant, said switching would mean costly new equipment, and that switching to gas is a possibility.
Murray Benjamin quit as Westbrook’s code enforcement officer when he got a letter from Harold Parks, administrative assistant to Mayor William O’Gara, saying that Parks was taking over the operation and responsibilities of Benjamin’s department. O’Gara then disclosed that he has asked all city department heads to report to Parks, enlarging Parks’ duties.
Before Westbrook aldermen voted on the city’s 1980 appropriations, each got a notice from City Assessor Robert Libby of how much his or her tax bill will go up.
The new Bradlees department store at the Windham Mall will open Nov. 3.
U. S. Senator William Cohen and wife Diane have bought a three-quarter share in a condominium at Promenade East, Portland.
Anchelina Vickery, who was born in Cambodia and now is a 16-year-old South Portland High School senior, is translating for Cambodians fleeing the Pol Pot atrocities who have been brought to South Portland with the help of Peoples United Methodist Church.
Owners of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant are asking the nation’s electricity users to pay the $160 million cost of its accident. U. S. Senator George Mitchell is opposed. No one, he writes, helps Maine pay the $20 million cost of the Maine Yankee shutdown ordered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for earthquake protection.
The Appalachian Mountain Club’s Maine chapter will climb the 2,000-foot Pleasant Mountain, Bridgton, via the abandoned 5-mile MacKay Pasture trail. Soren Christensen and Malcolm Deane are trip leaders.
Westbrook aldermen voted a $500-a-year car allowance for the assessor and code enforcement officer and raised the mileage allowance for all city employees from 18 to 20 cents.
The Westbrook Kiwanis Club honored John W. Flaherty on his 80th birthday. A former Kiwanis president, he has 37 years of perfect attendance. He and his wife Veronica live at 6 Myrtle St.
The U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has loaned $235,669 to Westbrook Friends of the Retarded for six housing units.
Jerome C. Simpson is resigning as District 4 member of the South Portland City Council because he is moving out of the district.
The second annual Downeast Boat Show was held Thursday-Sunday at the new Spring Point Marina, South Portland.
P. Samuel Hoffses has resigned as Gorham’s code enforcement officer after three years.
Loretta Sharpe, South Portland, has been appointed to the National Transportation Research Board. She is head of Regional Transportation Programs, Inc., of Cumberland County. RTP is federally funded. It buys more than a million dollars a year of bus tickets on Metro buses and also runs its own small buses. It serves the elderly, handicapped and underprivileged. She will be on a national committee looking into federal rural transportation.
Scarborough is selling its airport industrial park for $300,000 to the Greater Portland Building Fund.
Members of the Class of 1950 gave a new flagpole and flag to Westbrook High School at their 30th reunion. A plaque dedicates the pole to Capt. Charles Sinclair, USA, who was killed in World War II.
The S. D. Warren Co., Westbrook, has given new leadership roles to (not in order of rank) Howard Reiche, Carl Bloom, Len Whiting, Ray Pinette, Phil Brown, Karl Dornish, Larry Finkelman, Roy Barry, Erl Wentzell, Steve Kehl, Bill Currier, Rina Gordon, Bill Hilfrank, Monty Henderson, Ted Clayton, Art Perrin, and Bob Opalka. They were announced by new vice president and mill manager Henry Roehner.
Tiny radio transmitters that are swallowed or implanted soon will monitor bodily functions, says the American Chemical Society.
September 1990
Westbrook’s City Council voted 4-3 to adopt an ordinance subjecting rents in The Hamlet mobile home park to the control of three members to be appointed by the mayor.
John Mikolay hopes to rally other abutters of Westbrook’s Beaver Pond in a joint effort to clean it and bring it back to the swimmable condition it held 30 years ago.
Mary Brewer and Palmer Hinds, Boothbay Harbor speaking to the South Portland Taxpayers Association, said state school aid should be tied to the number of students, not property values. They said the people of Maine endorsed and confirmed that position when they repealed the Uniform Property Tax, but the Legislature overcame that vote, circumventing it by tying school subsidies to property values. Brewer and Hinds said one of the consequences is that taxes are driving coastal people, many whose families have lived there for generations, to sell out to rich newcomers.
South Portland sewer rates are going up 25 percent.
Rich Tool and Die, a fixture in South Windham for 25 years, has purchased 7.5 acres in the Gorham Industrial Park and intends to build a 50,000-square-foot building.
Owners of 10 expensive new homes on Lunt Drive, off Brook Street, Westbrook, are in a fix. The developer left their street in such condition that the city won’t accept it.
Westbrook’s new tax rate is $38.18, up 9.7 percent.
Philip Mason, a senior, and Becca, a freshman, son and daughter of Craig and Ann Mason, Dingley Spring Road, Gorham, are starting the school year at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has fined the 60-member Shaw Acres Community Association, Standish, $1,000 for letting road gravel wash into Sebago Lake.
Cumberland County taxes went up 40 percent in 1989. This year’s amount will be unveiled in a public hearing Sept. 27.
The Lyric Theater will present four musicals this season – “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” “Hans Christian Andersen,” “My One and Only,” and “Man of La Mancha.”
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