November 1981
The Maine Department of Transportation has refused to accept the Gorham Town Council’s plans for village square traffic changes. In a letter to Town Manager Donald Gerrish, George N. Campbell, state transportation commissioner, said the state will withdraw money allocated for improvements to the routes 25 and 114 intersection unless Gorham changes its mind by Jan. 1 and accepts the state’s proposal.
Aldermen voted 4-2 to write, but not send just yet, a letter taking Westbrook out of the Greater Portland Transit District. They hope their vote will bring a new expense-sharing formula that will cut the cost of city buses to Westbrook. “We’re not only subsidizing the Transit District but also the City of Portland,” said Alderman Norman Conley just before the vote. He referred to the way the costs over revenues are divided among the three member cities. Portland pays 62.10 percent, South Portland, 22.81 percent, and Westbrook, 15 percent – based on Census Bureaus estimates of their populations.
Llewellyn Randall has some issues about Westbrook police that he took to the city council, including especially these two: Police didn’t tell him that 60 feet of his fence were down, inviting 65 cattle to roam; and they did nothing about a Westbrook policeman trapping on his Stroudwater Street farmland without his permission.
Meanwhile, Randall held hostage for most part of the week a trespassing truck that knocked down the fence. Randall said he could tell by the tracks that the driver “couldn’t make it the first time, so he backed up and hit it again and went through, and also took down two snow fences.”
There was a fight on Webb Street at 1:28 a.m. with $300 vandalism to a car. Sgt. McCarthy’s back was injured when police were sent to control the situation, and he was off work for two days.
Enforcing an Urban Renewal rule, Westbrook Code Enforcement Officer Thomas Wakefield has ordered Phil’s Pizza not to put any more signs in his window. At least seven other businesses in the area had signs in their windows this week. Wakefield said he is looking into what the other businesses are doing and will apply the rules uniformly. He said he acted only after a complaint of Phil’s Pizza “looking like a circus.”
The Gorham School Committee decided against the reinstating a late school bus. Fearing that students have less time to get extra help this year, the board made plans to research this issue. Superintendent of Schools Woodbury Saunders told the committee that the bus would cost approximately $15 a day for gasoline and most of the labor could be provided by rescheduling drivers’ time. He said that the total cost for one day a week for 18 weeks would be $270.
The Baxter Memorial Library in Gorham recently received special recognition for its idea of celebrating National Children’s Book Week with a storytelling festival. The library will receive150 adult, young adult and children’s books from the Maine State Library. The festivities were directed by Baxter children’s librarians Cynthia Verrill and Chris Crawford. It was designed to involve elementary schoolchildren in the art of storytelling without the use of books, notes or props.
November 1991
To reduce its debt, Scott Paper Co. sold its 50 percent share of Sanyo Scott Co. Ltd. to Sanyo-Kokusaku Pulp Company Ltd., its joint venture partner, for around $63 million. Sanyo Scott manufactures and markets consumer and some commercial sanitary tissue products in Japan. The sale also includes a new agreement for Sanyo Scott’s use of consumer trademarks on consumer brands in the Japanese market.
Types of shelters used by Native Americans were the focus of a pre-Thanksgiving program at Westbrook’s Saccarappa School.
Around 160 parents and boosters of the Westbrook Marching Band rolled up their sleeves Monday night to look for ways to raise $200,000 within a year’s time to finance their weeklong trip to the Rose Bowl. The next morning the first donation came: $1,000 from Frank Gaziano, president of National Distributors of South Portland. “He wanted to be the first to congratulate us and see us on our way,” said a beaming band director, George Bookataub. Westbrook was one of 22 bands in the country invited to take part in the parade.
The Gorham School Committee is scrambling to find ways of coping with a reduced budget if funding cuts proposed by Gov. John McKernan become reality within the next few weeks. A variety of budget-slashing options presented by Commissioner of Education Eve Bither in response to McKernan’s proposed $21 million cut in school funding may reduce Gorham’s share by up to $256,000
The town of Gorham has established a municipal recycling committee and charged it with a wide range of duties, from promotion and publicity to encouraging the formation of international markets for recycled materials. The move comes nearly two years after Gorham first organized and sought volunteers for a recycling committee. That effort eventually fizzled.
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