October 1980
Two weeks after Mayor William O’Gara asked Westbrook city department heads to report directly to his assistant Harold Parks, Parks was appointed city manager of Rockland. Parks, 39, has been in the Westbrook job since 1973. He gets $25,000 in Westbrook; the City Council recently capped a raise at $800 for non-union personnel, rejecting O’Gara’s request for 8 percent.
An electronics company to employ 300 is expected to build in Gorham’s industrial park. Already there are the Reece Corporation, Claremont-Gorham, Inc., Hill Acme Co., and Henry L. Hanson, Inc.
Maine Surgical Supply Co. is buying land on the County Road, Westbrook, from Louis P. Blanchette for a warehouse and distribution center to cost $1 million. Blanchette, a Westbrook alderman, was excused from voting as the City Council approved a $900,000 revenue bond issue (to be paid by Maine Surgical Supply) for the building.
In the past month, Westbrook has issued similar revenue bonds for Maine Rubber International, Main and Saco Streets; Unitrode-Maine, Eisenhower Drive; and Scott Paper Co., pulpwood handling facilities. They total $5.7 million.
Osmond “Bud” Bryant retired last week after 14 years as the watchmaker-watch repair chief at Day’s Jewelry, Westbrook, which followed 10 years of watch work at the Portland Day’s. It’s a skill he learned from his father.
Scarborough Coal Co. is advertising that it will deliver coal “by the ton or by the bag,” including nights and weekends.
Roof repairs at the Prides Corner Fire Station and the recreation wing of the old high school were 90 percent completed when the City Council was asked to approve them. No bids were asked. Harold Parks, the mayor’s assistant, said he skipped those steps because the work might have been delayed too long.
Jeffrey Lagasse, 14, of 146 Bridge St., Westbrook was one of the winners in Maine’s moose-hunt lottery, the first legal moose hunting in Maine in 40 years. His moose is a bull shot in Kokadjo by his father, Philip.
Mayor William O’Gara issued a statement at opposing 24-hour stores with housing for the elderly on the former site of the Men’s Shop in downtown Westbrook. It’s a poor combination, he said.
The month-long closing of the Million Dollar Bridge, South Portland-Portland, starts Monday.
Maine Secretary of State Rodney Quinn of Gorham is running a contest among high schools of each county, for participation in the Nov. 4 election. Each high school is asked to report how many students are eligible to vote, how many are registered and how many actually vote. He hopes it will become national.
Scott Paper employees in Mobile, Ala., ended a 12-week strike with a three-year contract and 8 percent wage increase each June.
IGA ice cream is $1.29 a half-gallon at the Gorham Foodliner.
A year ago, South Portland High School beat Biddeford in football when a Biddeford touchdown was disallowed because the pass receiver’s mouthpiece was out. This year a fired-up Biddeford team, with last year on everyone’s mind, beat South Portland 45-0. A banner showed a Biddeford player with mouthpiece dangling.
Bridge Construction Co.’s low bid, $483,517, won the state contract for lane changes and a new intersection of Rte. 302 with Rtes. 35 and 115 at North Windham.
The Greater Portland Building Fund will start construction next week on a 40,000-square-foot speculative building in the Scarborough Industrial Park.
In Fire Prevention Week, emphasis this year is on woodstoves, which are newly popular.
Uncle Sam will pay up to $1,000 of anyone’s cost to buy or install woodstoves or insulation in certain neighborhoods and up to $15,000 for home repairs if you have no more than moderate income.
October 1990
Five unions representing South Portland city employees plan joint appeals to the public for a new contract.
A fireball explosion of LP gas injured Richard Winslow, Windham, and Donald Pinkham, Gorham, in an apartment they were finishing at 470 River Road, Windham.
Steve Waterhouse, president and the Scarborough Chamber of Commerce will take down its blockhouse and kiosk for tourist information on Rte. 1.
Gorham’s Masonic Hall is available for sale, says Alan Wolf of Wolf Associates. Built in 1906 for Charles H. Allen, it was sold to the Masonic Building Corporation for $1 “and other considerations,” then in 1985 to Dowd Associates, Portland, for $300,000; then to Wolf Associates in 1987 for $500,000.
Jessica, 2-year-old daughter of Jeff and Karen Bettney, Standish, wandered away while playing in the yard of her grandmother on Mahlon Drive, Gorham, and it took the help of two tracking dogs, Fritz and Renegade, from the Maine Correctional Center, Windham, to find her walking through a field a mile away. Nearly 50 men were involved in the search. Paul Charland and Russ Kelly were the dogs’ handlers.
In 1979, Russell Fearon succeeded Francis Amoroso as Westbrook’s assistant school superintendent for finance. Now Amoroso is succeeding Fearon, who resigned this spring to return to New Hampshire. Amoroso, who left to become a full-time officer in the Maine Army National Guard, must end his 34-year service in the Guard in March at age 51. He is a full colonel. He is a long-time (and continuing) Scarborough resident and a former chairman of its Board of Education and its Town Council.
Alderman Don Richards wants the Westbrook City Council to cut other city spending to make up for the higher costs of oil and gasoline.
Maine will vote Nov. 6 on whether to let big stores open Sundays. An editorial urges a “No” vote on grounds that it will be a death blow to neighborhood stores, and that such stores are more convenient, actually save shoppers’ money, and are essential to rural areas.
Steve Drew, 24, of Westbrook, bagged a 175-pound buck deer off Bridge Street, Westbrook, hunting with bow and arrow.
Westbrook is mounting a collection drive for unpaid Rescue bills; about $60,000 is due.
Phil and Nancy Curran were awarded the American Tree Farm Family certificate at the S. D. Warren Tree Farm family picnic at Sandwich, N.H. They designated 35 acres of their property on Duck Pond Road, Westbrook, as undeveloped tree farm for managed cutting.
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