Aug. 24, 1983
Westbrook policemen are seeking retirement after 20 years, instead of 23, according to unofficial word from contract negotiations. By agreement of the city and police, the negotiations are being held behind closed doors. If the Westbrook police were to win a straight 20-year retirement, it would be the lowest among the three city departments in the area.
Don Doane’s well-known Big Band has played its last jazz, and its last rock, and its last sweet stuff. Doane decided,
on a fairly sudden impulse last week, to dissolve the band. Doane himself will continue to do music seven days a week; five days teaching it in Westbrook schools, and three nights making it with smaller groups in the Sheraton Inn. Doane’s Big Band has been playing a couple of times a month on an average, for 19 years.
Westbrook police notes: Three boys wouldn’t leave the yard of St. Hyacinth’s convent at a sister’s request. They did for a patrolman. A dog got into the swimming pool of Mrs. Pat Corey, 12 Independence Drive and refused to leave. He left before a patrolman got there. A Gorham man said he saw a woman passenger in a car at the Chalet Motor Lodge at
noon with a piece of wide tape over her mouth. Police notified
Portland police. A man was said to be testing out his stock car racer on the streets. He was spoken to. Two juveniles confessed to pulling a false fire alarm at Main and Lamb streets at 5:35 p.m. A skunk walked into the garage of Mrs. Weir, 222 Conant St., and made himself at home. Ed Gagne left the door open for him to walk out.
Donald L. Harriman is 47 years old and has been in public school education 25 years. All of it has been in Westbrook Junior High School. Monday night he was named that school’s new principal. However, it is not Westbrook Junior High School anymore. Harriman will be the first principal of the Westbrook Middle School and is a week and a half into the task of making the changes called for in adding sixth-graders to seventh and eighth grades. At the request of Superintendent Edward Connelly, the School Committee gave Harriman the principalship only for the 1983-1984 school year. Connelly said he did not know what would be done after this year.
Aug. 25, 1993
The drug trade is unwillingly subsidizing the cops again. The Westbrook Police Department is getting a new computer with $68,630 in “drug forfeiture” funds from the state. The city is adding $5,909 for the new system. Aldermen have approved the purchase from a Portland company.
Hazel Hawkes, former long-time resident of Westbrook, is turning 99 and will be celebrating her birthday in a
nice way. The Eunice Frye Home, on Capisic Street, Portland, where she now lives, is throwing an old-fashioned lobster bake outside on the lawn in front of the chapel at noon. Hazel’s family will be there, and all the other residents. It’s actually an expansion of the annual outdoor picnic, with lobsters this year instead of the usual hot dogs and hamburgers, donated by a member of the home’s board.
The state is paying Westbrook $92,940 in 1993-94 for maintenance or improvement of public roads. The rate, $1,200 a mile, is fixed by the Legislature, and is the same as last year. The Department of Transportation said Westbrook maintains 78.23 miles of public ways in the winter and 76.66 miles in summer. Apparently figuring that half the year is winter, it
averaged the miles at 77.45 for subsidy.
Westbrook will be without constables for the first time in its history if voters approve a charter change Nov. 2. The change also would change “shall” to “may” in a sentence that calls for a warden and ward clerk for each precinct in elections. The effect would be to allow the warden and clerk to serve more than one precinct when the precincts vote in the same place.
Gorham police notes: A State Street woman said she had eight or nine calls from someone who said nothing. She said she is getting caller ID. A woman asked for an officer to accompany her to pick up personal items from a house at 10:38 a.m. Police were asked to check the well-being of a child after a woman in a maroon 1993 Ford was seen badly beating the child at 4:20 p.m. Witnesses said there were marks on the child’s legs. Bob Wallace reported cows on Burnham Road at 2:47 p.m. A man s topped by the police station to get an opinion on whether a dent in his vehicle had been caused by an automobile or someone kicking it. Publics Works Director Jim Plummer said small kids were camping out at the old cemetery at Little Falls at 4:52 p.m. A Ledge Hill Road woman reported getting obscene phone calls from a man who said he was someone she worked with, but she knew he was not that person.
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