Nov. 17, 1983
The proposed new town’s charter for Gorham won support of voters in the village precinct, 719-581, but lost in the rest of the town and was defeated, 1,445-1,373, in last week’s referendum. Frances Harriman, the only member of the Charter Commission who opposed the charter, said she thinks another attempt to write a new charter might be useful, but, added, she appears to be the only one who thinks so. “The strangest thing about the whole thing is that nobody’s saying
anything,” she said. “Nobody’s gloating, nobody’s crying foul, foul foul – it’s so darned quiet!” She herself feels the same way, and said, “I’m going to be a political recluse – at least until February. Harriman said she apparently set some kind of town record when she submitted a minority report on the charter. So far as she can determine, study groups always previously have been unanimous.
The Gorham Board of Zoning will meet to hear two appeals, and possibly a third. Mr. and Mrs. Kurt Becker want to build a house on a lot they had an option at Webster Road, Buxton, with 12.61 acres in Gorham in a rural zone and 2.34 acres in Buxton. There is 495.12 feet of frontage on Webster Road in Buxton but no road frontage in Gorham. Shaw Moody wants to expand a non-conforming use by selling used cars at his Narragansett Street body shop in a suburban residential
zone, and is making an administrative appeal of the board’s previsous refusal to allow the expansion. He says he will present new evidence showing that the board granted another appeal for the same use in a residential zone on Feb. 5, 1981, and granted another non-conforming use to the same party Oct. 20. If the board grants the administrative appeal, it will then re-hear Moody’s appeal for the sales use.
Changes in some of the Westbrook’s department heads are a
possibility in the wake of last week’s city elections, Mayor-elect
Phillip D. Spiller said Monday. He said he will give advance notice to anybody he feels he should not re-appoint. Spiller’s easy victory was a surprise to many, but not to Spiller.
Nov. 16, 1993
In 1979, it was Elaine Francoeur, 515, Beverly Morin, 515. They held a new election Dec. 18 in Westbrook’s Ward 3 alderman race and Morin won, 499-333. That was said to be the first special election since Westbrook achieved city-hood in 1907. Now, hard to believe, Ward 3 has done it again: Don Richards, 420, Florence Libby 420. There was no third candidate in 1979, but this year Brian Cramer, also was running and received 219 votes. That makes this year’s
original election total 1,059 as compared with 1979’s 1030.
The water main on Huston Road in Gorham is being extended to reach the town garage and for surrounding private homes. The Department of Environmental Protection is paying 90 percent of the $125,432 cost of the extension and the town will pay the remaining 10 percent. The extension is needed to provide potable water to the town garage, located on the site of the old landfill. The well is contaminated with “volatile organic material,” according to Town Engineer Bill Taylor.
“It is the result of the decomposition of different material in the landfill.
Westbrook policemen put down their razors yesterday in hope their beards will put pressure on the city to speed up a new contract. They’ve been working under the old one since June 1992. They’ll have time to get full beards. Mayor Fred Wescott said the contract is headed to mediation, but the mediator hasn’t been chosen yet. “It looks as if it will go to the next City Council,” the mayor said.
Someone took the scissors to the mustache and whiskers of Cruiser, the Westbrook police station’s black-and-white cat. Capt. Schmidlin admonished the unknown clipper; cats need those hairs for balance and for measuring their way in tight spaces, he said.
Westbrook Police Chief Ronald Allanach has confirmed that a Westbrook police patrolman is under investigation for theft. Asked about the report, Mayor Fred Wescott said, “No comment.” The first report came to the American Journal by a reader.
Gorham police notes: Police prevented two groups from fighting in the 7-Eleven parking lot at 10:15 p.m. The police gave the crowd a warning and they dispersed. A Patio Park woman said her ex-husband was going through her car and looking under the hood at 12:29 a.m. A drunk was
bothering the Sunoco and Mobil Service stations on Main Street. The police sent him on his way.
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