October 1981
A March referendum is the new target of those who want a vote on changing the Gorham town charter to permit recall of town council and school committee members. Petitions for a November vote failed for lack of enough valid signatures, said Town Clerk Brenda Caldwell. Munson White, Jerry Larrivee and Tom Hawkes are quoted as among sponsors of the petitions.
A big pig was running loose on the Westbrook property of Gail Brown, 259 Hardy Road. Paul Robinson, its owner, came for it.
Rivermeadow Golf course, which is on the Presumpscot River, advertises that it has canoes for rent.
In two years, Westbrook’s school lunch program has gone from a $32,000 surplus to a $5,000 deficit.
The Gorham Planning Board and the Maine Department of Transportation want to require curbing on both Route 25 and the Bartlett Road at the Amoco station, which has no curbing now. The station’s owner, William B. Pescosolido, is opposed.
B. J. Girard, 5, and his sister Bonnie, 4, children of Mr. and Mrs. Bruce W. Girard, 8 Ledge Lane, Gorham, will hold a walkathon to raise money for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. In a walk last year, B. J. raised $965 for St. Jude.
An advertisement signed by the Gorham Chamber of Commerce and three other groups calls for Gorham to reject a plan of the Maine Department of Transportation “to change the heart of Gorham Village from a ‘Square’ to a ‘DOT’.”
Gorham has 16 cemetery associations. The town council plans to get them together to adopt uniform fees and rules.
In a speech to the Windham Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Sen. George Mitchell called for a federal law banning any increase in pollutants that cause acid rain and requiring a 40 percent reduction in them over the next 10 years. He blames sulfuric and nitric acid from factories in the Midwest.
The Scarborough Town Council has renewed the license for Crystal Springs Mobile Home Park.
Sunday sale of alcohol, turned down by Scarborough voters in 1978, may be back on the ballot.
The Maine Federation of Republican Women will meet for luncheon in the Marshview Restaurant, Scarborough.
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Kimball, Ossipee Trail, Gorham, are home after a month’s camper-truck trip to Alaska.
The Maine Audubon society invites the public to pick apples Sunday from the hundreds of wild apple trees on its 150-acre sanctuary and press them for cider.
Shaw’s advertises the opening of its Pine Tree Shopping Center supermarket in Portland.
October 1991
Revaluations of Westbrook property underwent review, and many were lowered. However, when notices of the revisions were sent out, many were wrong. Assessor Jim Jessen said there was a computer mixup. He invites taxpayers to check their figures.
In the South Windham-Little Falls area, seven cases of giardiasis, a form of dysentery or severe diarrhea, have been diagnosed. It’s not from Portland Water District water, says the PWD.
Gorham wants Rich Tool & Die for its industrial park. Rich has been in Windham since 1964, making airplane parts. Windham is asking Rich’s president, George Merkle, to keep it in Windham.
In the past quarter-century, Maine has seen 242,317 injury accidents (some injuring more than one person) on its highways. The number killed is 6,046. An editorial calls on the state to do more to reduce this toll – including much wider availability of bus and train travel.
Global Zero Inc., manufacturer of “a prototype of audio-visual equipment,” will occupy part of the Westbrook space of the former Data General Corp. It expects to be “a significant employer.”
September paper orders at the S. D. Warren mill in Westbrook were 131 percent of expectations.
Shingles are being replaced to stop leaks in the Gorham Municipal Center. The work will take up to a month.
Cheryl Flanagan, Gorham, a former holder of national records in cross-country and marathons, has designed and is marketing nationally a line of women’s sports bras.
Two wetland properties are being donated to Windham as nature sanctuaries: 16 acres off Mount Hunger Shores Road, given by James Price, Cumberland, and 41 acres off River Road, given by Easter Rolfe of Rolfe Road.
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