Emotions ran high at last week’s meeting of the Westbrook Council on Adolescent Pregnancy, when for the first time a counter group attended and made plain their belief that day care has no place in a school setting. The group said such a program would glamorize parenting in the eyes of Westbrook’s youth and send them the message that the school system condones promiscuity among high school students. While the group argued that the day care center would inevitably lead to a clinic that would provide advice on birth control, Superintendent Edward Connolly says otherwise. “There’s no way I would advocate or present any day care program that was tied to a clinic,” he said. “The issue is clearly day care. I don’t see promiscuity as an issue.”
Westbrook aldermen won applause from parents Wednesday when they decided to open Westbrook’s summer camp to up to 110 Westbrook children ages 6-12, from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. five days a week for 10 weeks, starting after the end of school. The camp will be held in and around Congin School, and will cost parents $25 a week. The added cost to the city will be about $8,000, based on the expectations that 100 children will attend.
A request to move the Roma house onto the long-vacant urban renewal lots between Maine Hardware and the John Hay funeral home in downtown Westbrook has been rejected by aldermen, who instead want new proposals for moving the house. The city has purchased the land that the historic former Warren Congregational Church parsonage in Cumberland Mills sits on and now the city wants it off.
Westbrook alderman Alexander Juniewicz was elected president of the Greater Portland Council of Governments at its general assembly meeting Thursday. He succeeds H. Nicholas Kirby, a Gorham town councilor.
Brian O’Coin, a kindergartner at White Rock School in Gorham, was a winner of the “Adopt a Caribou” raffle held at a recent fair at the Narragansett School. His prize was a caribou rug made by Valerie Heath. Another winner was Seth Jordan, 11, of Kezar Falls, who won a baseball autographed by Red Sox pitcher Jim Lonberg. Lonberg donated the ball after hearing about the project from the parents of Tami Farrin, teacher at Little Falls School. Farrin says the fourth-graders, who originated the drive to “Adopt a Caribou,” have almost all their $2,000 goal. Gorham Savings Bank has promised to write a check to make up any difference needed when the children are ready for their field trip and seeing the caribou to which they have dedicated themselves.
Majorie E. Messenger, South Street, Gorham, was installed as grand chief of the Pythian Sisters of Maine at a beautiful installation held at Holiday Inn at Augusta.
Attention Westbrook High School Marching Band alumni: You are cordially invited to join the Westbrook High School Marching Band and participate in the Westbrook Together Days Parade on Saturday, June 18. For more information, contact George Bookataub, director of music.
Telco Federal Credit Union has made 10 parking spaces available free of charge for Westbrook City Hall employees during construction of the Walker Memorial Library addition. Almost all of City Hall’s parking space has been taken over for the library construction equipment and supplies. Telco and City Hall are on opposite sides of the library. Telco is “trying to cooperate and be good neighbors,” said John Coolidge, general manager.
June 3, 1998
A Westbrook Student Council trip to the state Student Council meeting at Maine Maritime Academy in Castine tuned scary Friday when the van carrying the seven students and a teacher narrowly averted a serious car accident near Belfast. The hero of the day was the van’s driver, Elaine Green, a volunteer emergency medical technician for Westbrook Rescue, who swerved and avoided the accident. Then she took control of the rescue scene until an ambulance arrived, checking on those in both vehicles and helping an injured driver. Tim Gillis, an English teacher at the high school who accompanied the students, said he and the students watched as a woman pulled out of her driveway without looking and struck a car traveling along the road. The woman’s car flipped over a ditch. Green pulled the van over, got out and checked on the woman and her dog. Both were fine. The driver of the other car, a young man, was trapped behind the wheel.
Leo LaPointe, manager of Hub Furniture’s Westbrook store for the past 11 years, died unexpectedly June 2 in a Portland hospital. He was 43. Energetic, dynamic, involved – that was LePointe, president of downtown’s West End Committee, member of he Downtown Revitalization Task Force, worker for Mission Possible, Rotarian, Democratic election warden. His sudden passing shocked the community.
A proposal to make the Spring Street end of Monroe Avenue one way for a four-month trial will get first reading at the Westbrook City Council meeting June 15. Residents from Monroe Avenue and surrounding streets packed the City Hall annex Monday night for the Council Highway Committee’s second discussion of the request by Monroe residents to dead-end their street. According to James Bennett, administrative assistant, about 1,900 cars a day travel Monroe, compared to around 800 for a typical residential street. The city’s options include dead-ending the street, installing a diagonal diverter and increasing police presence.
More than 50 organizations and a number of floats will take part in the parade at 10 a.m. Saturday that is part of the 19th annual Westbrook Together Days. Caren Michael, parade chairman, said Westbrook’s four school bands, including the national known Westbrook High School Marching Band, will be joined by the Westbrook City Band in the parade. Two-dozen booths will sell food and fancies beginning at 6 p.m. Friday and continuing through the day Saturday. There will be breakfasts Saturday in the Congregational Church and in a tent in the park. Dinner will be served at the nearby Dunn Street Legion Hall Saturday night. The parade grand marshal will be Dr. Bruce Dyer, honored for his work as president of the Mission Possible board. He’s pastor of the First Baptist Church.
The Gorham Planning Board gave final approval this week for Phase II of Patrick Estates, which will add 12 new lots to the subdivision off Dingley Spring Road. The expansion was proposed by Susan Duchaine’s SoLD Inc. She also won preliminary approval for a 4-lot subdivision and private way in Forest Estates, off South Street.
Gorham has $500,000 in its accumulated reserve available toward the $1.5 million expansion of Baxter Memorial Library, but the town can’t spend it until the voters say so. The Town Council voted this week to ask them Nov. 3. The town’s charter says that all expenditures above $250,000 have to go to referendum.
Gorham High School’s top 11 seniors have been announced. Starting with No. 1, they are: Sally Curran, who will attend Smith College; Quinton Johnson, who will attend Northwestern University; Andrew DiFazio, who will attend Lafayette College; Rachel Grover, who will attend the University of Maine; Philip Ashley, who will attend Tufts University; Nikki South, who will attend New York University; Kristina West, who will attend University of Southern Maine; Andrew Houlihan, who will attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Brian Huynh, who will attend Ithaca College; Rhianna Meadows, who will attend Sarah Lawrence College; and Bonnie Sullivan, who will attend University of Southern Maine.
On June 6, Hub Furniture will observe 100 years in business with a big celebration at the Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland. Hub Furniture has been in Westbrook more than 50 years. Hub started in Westbrook on Main Street at Brackett Street in the old Brackett/LaFond Block. Urban renewal moved the business into the Scates Block so that the Brackett/LaFond Block could be demolished. Hub Furniture was the last tenant in the Scates Building, left, before it was demolished. Hub Furniture is now located on Main Street near Mechanic Street in a building the company constructed. The Brackett/LaFond block was recognized as being part of the underground railroad during the Civil War. The Scates Building was once the home of the U.S. Post Office, Westbrook City Hall, Westbrook Municipal Court and Temple Lodge No. 86 A.F & A.M. The Westbrook Historical Society congratulated Hub Furniture on its 100th anniversary. To see more historical photos and artifacts, visit the Westbrook Historical Society at the Fred C. Wescott Building, 426 Bridge St. Inquiries can be emailed to westhistorical@myfairpoint.net. The website is www.westbrookhistoricalsociety.org.
Hub Furniture
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