March 1981
Eighteen percent of the Scarborough Rescue Squad’s calls are for heart attacks, and 2 percent are for cardiac arrest. This prompts Fire Chief Michael C. Anton and Rescue Captain C. Frederick Goodwin to launch the Heartsaver Program, educating people in the signals of a heart attack and what actions to take.
Lisa Blais and Nancy Anthony, stars of the Westbrook High School basketball team, are pictured with Coach Archie Manoogian after the girls won Westbrook’s fourth straight Class A state basketball championship.
Henry Hatte, proprietor of Wimpy’s in Westbrook, is calling for Maine to do as Massachusetts does – fine kids $500 if they try to buy beer when they’re underage. “The fine has made a tremendous difference down there,” he said.
The Westbrook City Council voted 4-3 to buy an IBM computer for $59,764 instead of a Westbrook-built Data General computer for $54,565, on the recommendation of finance director Susan Fitzpatrick.
Data General laid off 250 of its 900 Westbrook workers, the first layoff in the company’s 13-year history. Worldwide, it employs 14,000.
Westbrook aldermen voted 4-1 against selling a 1,200-foot square city lot on Lincoln Street to a neighbor, Edward J. Flaherty. The aldermen want to look at possible future uses of this and other city land nearby.
Westbrook Jaycees will hold a Walkathon to raise funds for the March of Dimes.
Portland city councilors want a 2 percent local tax on meals and lodging. Westbrook aldermen voted 6-1 against any attempt to adopt such a tax in Westbrook.
On Thursday and Friday, five local-area Dairy Queens gave you a second one free if you bought any sundae.
South Portland’s Planning Board voted 5-1 to renew approval of Jackson Brook Institute, a 145-bed psychiatric hospital proposed on the Running Hill Road. Approval had lapsed after a year without construction.
The South Portland school board’s Long Range Planning Committee is studying whether to close any of the elementary schools – Skillin, Hamlin, Roosevelt and Henley.
A South Portland ordinance says that if you put a solid fence on your property line it can’t be more than five feet high. Building Inspector Joe Unnold wants it raised to six feet. “If a landowner wants privacy, he should be able to have it,” said a Planning Board member.
“Wood gasification” is the heating system of the future, an expert advised at a meeting called by South Portland City Councilman Robert Fickett on how to replace oil in public buildings. Bob Henderson, of Northeast Mechanical Services, Inc., described use of wood pellets fed automatically into a 1,700-degree smokeless burner – “slightly more expensive than coal.” Today’s costs for a million BTUs of heat were said to be, electricity $20, Number 6 oil $7, Number 2 oil $9, and coal $2.75-$4.
Calvin R. Hamblen and C. Russell Boothby were elected to the Town Council and Jean F. Ryan was elected to the School Committee in Gorham. Others led in outlying districts, but strong majorities in Gorham Village turned the outcomes.
The Business and Professional Women’s Club of Portland is hosting a wine and cheese party at Westbrook College.
March 1991
Alfred E. Porell and Mayor Fred Wescott asked the Westbrook City Council to change a Planning Board rule that lets the board’s chairman set the agenda for meetings. Porell said the 22-year chairman Charles Henderson has barred from the agendas for 15 years any change in the zoning of Porell’s field at Route 25 and the New Gorham Road, land he considers well-suited for a shopping center. Porell said Henderson still is protecting the Westbrook Urban Renewal Authority’s idea that any new shopping center belongs at Vallee Square. Henderson did not attend the City Council meeting.
An American Journal picture shows the Main Street end of Westbrook’s Central Street, big enough to park a dozen cars but cut off from any access by the Urban Renewal Authority about 1978. It’s “the idlest land in Westbrook.”
John E. Sterling, 222 Pierce St., has been named to the Westbrook Housing Authority by Mayor Fred Wescott. He succeeds Maurice Deshaies, who has moved to Falmouth.
Scarborough citizens will vote April 2 on whether to build a $1.25 million, 12,000-square-foot town hall behind the present one.
For the fifth year in a row, Scarborough High School has won the state’s Academic Decathlon.
Scarborough’s six-year-old Community Services Commission is about to disband. The school board has voted for disbanding and a Town Council vote is expected. It won’t mean any loss of services, leaders say.
Scarborough is buying four police cruisers from Pape Chevrolet, for $48,633.44 plus four trade-ins.
South Portland’s new school budget is $19 million, up 8.5 percent.
John and Loretta Rogan, Westbrook, have sold the former Knowlton Machine property on Dana Street, Westbrook, to Harry and Anne Foote, Portland, owners of the American Journal. Knowlton Machine occupied the property from the 1870s until 1989 when it moved to a new plant in Gorham.
John H. Rich Jr. Cape Elizabeth, the American Journal’s volunteer correspondent covering the Gulf War faxed from Bahrain a report of the experiences of U. S. Navy Ensign Joseph Doherty Jr., Fort Fairfield, when the USS Tripoli, helicopter carrier, hit a mine. It blew a 20-foot hole in the hull just forward (fortunately) of the ammunition storage area. Four crewmen were hurt.
Rich also told of the experiences of Lt. Cmdr. Eric Bateman, a University of Maine alumnus, graduate, who was on the USS Princeton when the ship hit a mine; was transferred to the USS Tripoli just before it hit the mine; and then was aboard the battleship Missouri when it was narrowly able to shoot down a Chinese-made Silkform missile. Bateman, 33, owns property at Friendship.
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