December 1981
A possible new parking lot on State Street in Gorham, and a councilor’s lobbying effort, may revive consideration of the state’s plan for moving traffic through the square. The Gorham Town Council is to meet to discuss the purchase of the Grange Hall property. The town would tear down the hall and use the land for a parking lot. Councilor Lincoln T. Fish said he thought the purchase of the Grange Hall would make the state’s plan more palatable.
Mayor William O’Gara is now “33” on the Westbrook police radio, and his administrative assistant, Jonathan Carter, is “34.” They don’t have police radios, however; the numbers are for their use when they borrow the chief’s or another police car. Chief Leroy Darling said O’Gara or Carter occasionally take his car for an out-of-town appointment. “If it’s available, we’re more than happy to let them have it. It saves the city some money,” Darling said.
Westbrook aldermen refused on a 5-2 vote last week to raise the pay of the mayor and city council for 1982-83. The pay is set by the outgoing council before the end of its term of office.
The mayor gets $3,300 a year, the council president, $1,500 and aldermen, $1,300. The two aldermen leaving the council, Robert Lister and Louis P. Blanchette, offered and seconded the motion to continue the present pay. Bernard Blanchette moved for $700 raises – the mayor’s, $4,000, council president, $2,200; and aldermen, $2,000. His motion died for lack of a second.
The Westbrook School Committee is inviting letters of application from people who would like to serve on a Citizen’s Study Committee. The committee grows out of this year’s thwarted plan to close Forest Street School. Its job will be to come up with recommendations for use of buildings and equipment in view of shrinking enrollments, budget problems and changing courses of study.
December 1991
While competitors fume, Honeywell Inc., is close to getting, without bids, a 10-year, half-million-dollar expansion of its contract to manage heating and lighting in all Westbrook schools. The schools would pay Honeywell $49,342 a year. Honeywell would guarantee fuel and electricity savings of that amount. Francis Amoroso, the school department’s administrative assistant, told the school committee that no one else is interested in the job.
Calling it a “glimmer of light,” Mayor Fred C. Wescott said he is encouraged by word he and co-workers got last week that there will be no layoffs at the S.D. Warren paper mill in 1992, and no shutdown of production facilities. Union President William Carver took the word cautiously.
Shirley M. Cleveland, 55, of 533 Main St., had to be extricated from her vehicle after a noontime collision at Main and Rochester streets, Westbrook. She was pulling away from the curb, westbound on Main Street, when she collided with a westbound truck driven by Harold J. Tardiff Jr, 26, of Limington. Her car had $2,500 damages; his 1985 Dodge pickup had $800 damages.
Cleveland was dizzy after the crash and was recorded as having “possible injury.” She wasn’t wearing a seat belt.
Limits on Westbrook High School Marching Band activities were set in an agreement between Principal William Michaud and Band Director George Bookataub, but were rescinded later, Bookataub said, in favor of a uniform policy that would fit all activities. The agreement said the band would be allowed “one major trip over three to four years,” with practice schedules to be approved by Michaud and “set as far in advance as possible.”
Community leaders in Gorham are mobilizing in an attempt to encourage the growth of existing businesses and to develop the potential for luring others to town. The revitalized Economic Development Committee, which includes three members of the town council, will sponsor a breakfast meeting of “various businessmen and women” at the Gorham Connection Restaurant. The meeting is designed “to discuss what local government can do for them,” said Town Manager Paul Weston.”
Brian Holyoke, a member of the Phi Mu Delta fraternity at the University of Southern Maine, responded to an American Journal article (“Frat Mob Terrorizes Partiers”) to report that he was not present at the confrontation at a Mighty Street residence. Nor was he president of the fraternity at the time of the fracas, as the AJ was told by Dean Walker, who hosted the party that ended in a brawl. Holyoke had been president of the Phi Mu Delta until his term expired in “the second week of November,” he said. Nor does Holyoke condone the actions alledgedly taken by members of Phi Mu Delta fraternity.
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