October 1982
What “everyone knew all the time” came true, and Carmine F. Russo was appointed and confirmed as Westbrook’s permanent police chief. Spontaneous applause greeted the new chief, and a line of well-wishers formed to shake his hand. Russo is 49 years old and lives at 15 Rochester St. He has been Westbrook’s deputy chief since 1978, and acting chief since the retirement of Leroy Darling six months ago. Mayor William O’Gara said he was “proud and confident” to name Russo
and had received “much input” in Russo’s support. He said Russo was the choice also of the Public Safety Commission, which received 89 applications, including a number from out of state.
From the police log: An Oriole Street man reported a suspicious pair in his neighborhood at 3:50 a.m. Soon, a Finch Street resident said someone was trying to steal the outboard motor from his boat. Police didn’t catch the people
but confiscated the car and traced it to a Portland man. The man on the roof of Bradlees at 9:20 p.m. on a Sunday said he
was looking for something he lost.
Sportsman’s True Value Hardware is building a 45-by-50-foot,
one-story addition at the rear of its 60-by-90-foot store at Cross and Central streets, Westbrook, for storage of heavy and bulky merchandise now and sales use later. The main building was erected in 1976 and 1977 after the Westbrook Urban Renewal Authority took the long-time Sportsman’s store (formerly Knights Hardware) on Main Street. Part of
the Main Street building is now a home in Scarborough.
The not-dead-yet Westbrook Urban Renewal Authority has voted to approve plans of Donald J. Metivier to build a Laundromat and dry-cleaning building on city land at Ash and Main streets. Metivier had changed his plans, including adding several windows and recessing the doorways to meet objections raised by the authority earlier. He stressed that his building will be of red brick to match the Westbrook Hardware building on the opposite corner.
Charges that the city helps R. L. Durant led the Westbrook City
Council to hold up on awarding another contract to him to plow
downtown parking lots. Durant was the low bidder among five for each year of the next three. Charges were made by two higher bidders, William Lavigne and John Berry, and by John Marcellino, head of the Public Works Department employes’ union. Speakers claimed to have seen city trucks helping remove parking lot snow and to have seen Durant’s trucks in the city garage and at the city gas pumps.
October 1992
Plink, plank and plink. Jean Hanson figured there must be a belt buckle in the dryer. Then the dryer stopped, but the plinking kept going. She went out on the porch and saw where all the noise was coming from: a yellow-bellied sapsucker was pecking away at the aluminum ladder her husband Roger had holding up staging on the back of the house. The bird kept at it for about 15 minutes, making lots of noise, but no progress. And he came back, again and again – five or six attacks on the ladder a day, for two or three weeks. Lots of noise
every time, but not a dent or scratch on the finish of the ladder. Jean figured her family would never believe her if she just told about the bird, so she took a camcorder and made some videotapes of his visits. She sent the tape to “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” was told later they would be running it and wanted Jean and husband in the audience. They flew out to California for the taping.
Public Cable Co. intends to close its office at 838 Main St.,
Westbrook. The city claims it can’t, under the franchise agreement, and wants monetary damages, on grounds Public Cable hasn’t provided the kind of office it should. Public Cable disagrees. A letter from Jeffrey B. Darrell, Public Cable’s vice president, said,”The idea that the city would present its concerns and yet offer to completely forget them for the outrageous sum of $160,000 is a subject which we believe raises the appearance of some possible impropriety. It is both
surprising and disappointing,” he wrote, “that the City would want to waste obviously scarce taxpayer dollars by legally threatening a company which has served the City and its residents so well.”
A possible chance for opponents to modify or derail a Nov. 3
referendum on a Westbrook School Committee purchase policy passed without discussion. Seconds later, however, citizen Robert Morrell, Conant Street, said he hadn’t been given time to speak. Allowing him to speak then would have required unanimous consent of Westbrook aldermen, and Lionel Dumond objected. In a heated exchange that followed in the City Hall lunchroom, Morrell told Dumond he’d never be elected again.
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