September 1981
Westbrook aldermen got a letter they weren’t supposed to get, and learned from it that the city’s non-union, non-management employees have formed a union and joined the AFL-CIO. Mayor William O’Gara then acknowledged knowing about the new union.
Kids again were throwing things at cars from the Westbrook Arterial’s footbridge.
As the school year begins, Westbrook enrollment is 2,957, down 156 from a year ago.
Westbrook city firefighters voted 18-4 to switch their union from AFL-CIO to the Teamsters.
The First Baptist Church of Westbrook will host the annual convention of the American Baptist churches of Maine Oct. 15-17.
The Cumberland Farmers Union will hold the 110th annual Cumberland Fair, Sept. 27-Oct. 3, with 11 days of harness racing.
Elizabeth Giguere of the Westbrook School Committee protested the extra $2,500 stipend William Folsom gets for his work as athletic director. Folsom said the work is demanding and the pay is too little. His teacher salary is for two physical education classes, reduced from four.
Michelle Labrecque and Margerie Bibber, fifth-graders in Gorham’s Village School, are pictured jumping rope at recess.
The American Lung Association is pleading for a ban on smoking in airliners.
Tickets for games at Westbrook High School are raised. Student tickets were 75 cents, now are $1. Adults’ tickets were $1.50, now are $2.
Neal Strange’s car, a La Dauphine four door sedan by Renault, has been getting 48 miles to the gallon since 1962. He drives it regularly to his work teaching auto mechanics at Portland Regional Vocational Center. You have to shift down on hills or when carrying passengers, he said, because of the low power of its “itty bitty” engine. Renault couldn’t find buyers in the U.S., he said.
Anne Elizabeth Milton and Charles Pierrie Shepard were married in the Westbrook-Warren Congregational Church.
Raymond “Buck” Cote asked U.S. Sen. George Mitchell for a law requiring foreign auto makers to make parts available at competitive prices. Cote made the request at Mitchell’s “town meeting” in Westbrook.
In a full-page ad, the Gorham IGA Foodliner announces it is closing and sends customers to IGAs in Gray, Cornish and Yarmouth.
September 1991
The Windham Town Council has appointed Roger Preney to the planning board seat held for eight years by Clayton Haskell. Preney is a former chairman who has moved back to town.
The Board of Assessment Review has ordered Westbrook to give back to Scott Paper Co. $342,000 in property taxes. The same board is considering Scott’s appeal for $900,000 more, and possibly twice that.
Denise Maurais, Standish, and Julie Wilson, Bromley, England, pen pals almost 30 years, met for the first time at the Portland airport. Maurais’s husband Tom and children, Erica and Conrad, were there to greet Wilson, her husband, two sons, sister and nephew.
The Reece Corp., bought by AMF, is relocating to AMF headquarters in Richmond, Va., from Gorham.
Standish Town Council has voted to buy the Ralph Marean house on Route 25 for $60,000 as the first step in developing a new town hall costing maybe $1 million.
Nancy Murdoch, a 49-year-old grandmother, of Westbrook, and Lucy Meyers are pictured after their first parachute jump. It’s something Nancy’s husband don has done a lot – he was in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division.
Junior Achievement of Southwestern Maine reports that $22,000 is missing. A warrant charging a woman with embezzlement has been issued.
State Rep. Don Rich (R-Windham) got a raise of $750 from the state and has donated all of it to the Maine Audubon Society.
The Postal Service is moving further into the use of machines that read addresses and sort the mail. Two Westbrook carriers have been taken off routes and handle bulk mail.
The Portland Water District wants a 13 percent increase in rates to pay for a $43 million disinfection plant.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
