May 1981
Gorham gets Westbrook’s assessor Robert Libby. Philip Hill is retiring from the Gorham job.
Margo Greep became editor of the American Journal Thursday. She succeeds Harry Foote, editor since 1965, who continues as publisher. Raymond M. Foote became assistant publisher. He has been on the staff since 1965, in multiple duties. Greep, a graduate of Westbrook High School and Smith College, has been on the AJ staff two years.
In South Portland, a survey of 70 homes in Ferry Village finds that most lose a lot of heat through doors and windows. The Energy Conservation Program of the Ferry Village Neighborhood Improvement Association, of which Sara Saunders is director, has done the survey.
A man lost four fingers in a power saw accident at the S. D. Warren paper mill in Westbrook. All but the little finger were re-attached by a Rhode Island surgical team.
Mayor William O’Gara blamed the Westbrook resignations of his assistant Harold Parks, Assessor Robert Libby and Assistant City Solicitor Michael Cooper on City Council President Charles M. Roma’s resistance to O’Gara’s proposal budget. His budget calls for raises of 8 percent (now 9 percent) for the 41 non-union city employees. Roma and a council majority favor a flat $900, similar to last year’s flat $800.
A sewer is plugged at Brown Street and Cumberland Street, Westbrook. The city says it’s a private sewer. Residents say it’s the city’s.
Alderman Bernard Blanchet wants Westbrook to rebuild Brown Street between Myrtle and Bridge Streets.
A service in Westbrook’s First Baptist Church Sunday honored by name the 170 Westbrook persons who died in the previous year.
New higher dockage fees at the Spring Point Marina have been approved by the South Portland City Council. The city owns the marina, but leases it to Commercial Marine (formerly Port Harbor Marine).
Sunset Squares, a city-sponsored square dance group, has given a 19-inch color TV to the South Portland’s Recreation Center.
Sheriff Martin Joyce, speaking to the South Portland Taxpayers Association, described the county jail’s work-release program under which selected inmates are allowed out of the jail to return to previous employment or take new jobs.
The West Broadway underpass under the railroad in South Portland was closed yesterday until October or November while the road is lowered to increase the clearance, now 10 feet, to 15 feet. The work is difficult because of the high water table, marine clay subsoil, and seven utility lines.
A review committee of the Maine Health Systems Agency voted 5-4 to approve plans for a 145-bed privately owned psychiatric hospital, Jackson Brook Institute, on the Running Hill Road, South Portland.
In Toronto, Westbrook High School’s band, competing with 37 other bands, won nine trophies. The band’s director is Terence White.
Gorham’s Town Council voted 6-1 to favor of a resolution supporting President Reagan’s economic programs. Lincoln Fish and Sherman Gray introduced the resolution. Opposed was John Emerson.
Windham’s School Committee elected Robert B. Nunley to replace Karen K. Lothrop who resigned as a member after serving two years, one as chairman. Nunley was a close third in the recent election of two School Committee members.
Dennis Ela is new principal of Windham’s Manchester and Arlington elementary schools.
The Polynesian Restaurant, Westbrook, will open a branch Monday, Polynesian Village North, in the North Windham Shopping Center.
Charles L. Arey, Portland, is musician of the Sovereign Grand Lodge, IOOF, the first Maine man to serve in an international office of the Odd Fellows.
An advertisement invites the public to an auction Sunday in the Eastland Hotel, Portland, of Persian rugs and Oriental carpets. Sellers said to be “under pressure with the bank.”
Scarborough’s Town Council and its Finance Committee told the Board of Education to hold any budgets increase to 4.4 percent.
Mr. and Mrs. Stanwood Williams and his mother, Mrs. Marion Williams, Gorham, are back from an eight-day cruise aboard the Queen Elizabeth II to Bermuda, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
Mark Harvie and Sarah MacDuffie are winners of the annual S. D. Warren scholarships at Westbrook High School.
A fried clam dinner Friday in the Westbrook-Warren Congregational Church is $4.
The American Dental Society says tooth decay has been cut 50-70 percent by introduction of fluorides in drinking water. It says 110 million Americans now have fluorides in their water.
May 1991
South Portland’s Board of Education has approved asking banks and credit unions if one will open a branch in South Portland High School. Lewiston’s vocational training center has Maine’s only in-school bank.
After 27 years as superintendent of parks and cemeteries for Westbrook, Richard M. Dunbar is retiring. He is 70. The city’s three cemeteries are, as usual, “neat as a pin” for this Memorial Day, under Dick’s direction.
Westbrook’s Zoning Appeals Board approved a plan of Goodwill Industries of Maine to establish a home on Arlington Avenue for up to eight mentally retarded adults.
Supermarkets, department stores, malls and other big stores will be open on Memorial Day for the first time this year, thanks to the citizens’ vote to let them open on Sundays. That vote also ripped up the protection of legal holidays.
Mary Maloney-Ferman, 23, of Anthoine Street, South Portland, was crowned “Mrs. Maine” Saturday in the Augusta Civic Center, winner among nine entrants. She is a former state champion gymnast, wife of Jerry Ferman of the U. S. Coast Guard, and mother of Mikayla Ann, 21 months. She will compete in the “Mrs. America” pageant, which may be in Hawaii.
Jacky Herbert rides a bicycle (in right weather) between her home in Windham and her travel agency in South Portland. Now she plans to bike across the country, and to open a bicycle travel agency.
Westbrook’s Planning Board and Zoning Appeals Board have rejected proposals for expansion and improvement of single mobile homes, on Methodist Road and Rochester Street.
State Rep. William Lemke, D-Westbrook has received the $1,000 Dana Foundation Award for outstanding teaching, scholarship, and community involvement. He is an associate professor in St. Joseph’s College, Standish, currently on unpaid leave to serve in the Legislature.
Hutchins Trucking and Hutchins Transportation plan to convert a former Fassett Baking building on Cash Street, South Portland, to warehouse use and expand it.
Allen Tozier, Cape Elizabeth, plans an $80 million plant in Claremont, N.H., to recycle newsprint. Earlier, he considered a site in Windham.
Proposals being considered in the Route 25 corridor Study: Five lanes through the middle of Gorham, North and south bypasses of Gorham Village, and widening of Westbrook’s Wayside Drive to six lanes.
Nine Windham school employees are taking early retirement.
Gorham’s Planning board and representatives of Regional Waste Systems failed to agree Monday on dimensions of the landfill RWS is considering for the former Ross Grant land at Route 25 and the Mosher Road.
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