March 14, 1984

Francis Donahue, after 22 years working in the Westbrook police station, is changing jobs. He is launching his next career as a clerk at the Maine Hardware Company in Portland. Donahue is the founder and first president of the Westbrook Rescue Unit. He is also the first president of the Westbrook municipal employees federal credit union, which grew to today’s Family Credit Union in Westbrook. He is a former president of the Policeman’s Union in Westbrook. He said there has been “a certain amount of glamor” to his police work that he misses, but the stress of the job he can do without. “If you can’t see the humor in the whole thing, then you’ll never make it in police work,” he said.

Gerald A. Hillock, 35, of the County Road, Gorham, has filed

nomination papers for state representative from District 35, a new district in Westbrook, Gorham and Windham. He announced his candidacy at the Gorham Republican caucus. This is Hillock’s first try for political office. He gave this short statement of purpose: “To represent a more conservative philosophy in Augusta on major issues of fiscal responsibility, law and order and fair business representation.” Since 1981 Hillock has been general manager of Wassamski Springs Campground off Saco Street. From 1975 to 1981, after taking Navy flight training, he was a U.S. Marine Corps pilot, flying A-4 fighter planes and commanding a G-130 Hercules cargo plane. He left the Marines with the rank of captain.

The Gorham Conservation Commission is offering half-price shade

tree plantings to Gorham residents again this year. The commission selects, orders and arranges for the planting of the trees. Then it totals the cost and divides the cost with participating homeowners. Last year’s trees cost about $40 each, and homeowners paid $20. About 25 homeowners bought them last year.

The Westbrook High School boys basketball team claimed its first

Western Maine Class A championship since 1975 with a stirring 62-54 win over top-seeded favorite South Portland Saturday night at the Cumberland County Civic Center. The Blazers were fresh off a semifinal round victory over a stubborn Edward Little team, 74-59, Friday evening.

The Westbrook High School girls basketball team bowed out of the Western Maine Class A tournament Friday at the Portland Exposition Building, losing in the semifinal round to eventual champion Portland High, 63-54.

March 16, 1994

Superintendent Edward Connolly has repaid the Westbrook School Department for school money his daughter received for writing for a giveaway newspaper, Westbrook School Committee Chairman Martha Day said Monday. Connolly paid Jennifer Huston $636 without the knowledge of the School Committee. Day said some of that was for photo processing and those expenses may not have been repaid. The School Committee has had not a word to say about Connolly’s payment to his daughter, and Day said she doesn’t know whether it will. It was mum on the subject when the committee met Wednesday, its first meeting since the payment to Huston was brought to public

attention.

Superintendent Edward Connolly, ignoring his Dec. 1 recommendation that the junior high school get first priority for Westbrook school improvement, called Wednesday for early action on $5,150,000 work at Canal School and Westbrook Regional Vocational Center. On Dec. 1, Connolly laid out a plan for $10.9 million in school improvements. The most urgent, he said, was a $2,300,000 job to convert the junior high’s open classrooms, in which several classes are supposed to meet at the same time.

Westbrook police notes: At 111 Lamb St., someone smashed out a rear window, possibly with a bowling ball. A policeman stopped to help a driver whose car was off the road at Main Street and Deer Hill at 11 p.m. The driver said he had a dispute with his girlfriend and she walked off. A patrolman headed to Fair Harbor, Emergency Shelter for Girls, Portland, with a person at 2:30 a.m. instead put her on a bus to Hartford, Conn. An automatic message came in at 5:45: The pumping station on Colonial Road was flooding. Mrs. Smith lost her pocketbook and found it. A man was lying in the middle of Forest Street at 9 p.m. He was in front of his home and police put him into it. Animal Control Officer Dave Sparks picked up a goose at the Woodlawn Cemetery

and took it to the Animal Rescue League.

A broken water main sent enough of Sebago Lake into Elmer Welch’s cellar to fill it near 4 feet high. Welch is chairman of the Westbrook City Council’s finance committee, but a broken water main is no respecter of persons. To make matters worse, nobody was willing Monday to pay for the “thousands of dollars” of damage the water did. The Portland Water District, which owns and maintains and fixed the pipe, was calling it an act of God. Welch’s insurance company is saying it was an underground water problem not covered by the policy.

Copy the Story Link