June 29, 1988
Aldermen hope to hold Westbrook’s tax rate increase to $2, Finance Committee Chairman Fred C. Wescott said this week. But he added at once that it will be hard to do it. The school budget alone would raise the rate $2.40. Wescott said aldermen have made some cuts (and some increases) in the city budget that would bring an expected 50 cent increase down to 40 cents or less. But that still leaves an expected increase of $2.80. One possibility for further cut is to switch some spending into borrowing instead. The Finance Committee will meet tonight to consider a long list of expenses the city may borrow money for.
Now that she’s won the title of Miss Maine, Lisa Kent, 21, of Gorham says she has accomplished one of her two major goals. The other one, says the University of Southern Maine student, is to complete in one of the equestrian events at the 1992 Olympics. She is hoping to compete in the dressage event, which she describes as gymnastics on horseback, and is training a 1-year-old horse for the event. She operates a riding stable out of the Fort Hill Road farm where she lives with her parents, David and Phyllis Kent. But this week, she is basking in the joy of her victory Saturday at the Miss Maine Scholarship Pageant at Portland City Hall. The former Miss Cumberland County, who won out against 12 other contestants, will join contestants from around the nation at the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, N.J.
Westbrook School Superintendent Edward Connolly told the City Council last week that he thinks Westbrook schools were charged or 40,000 gallons of heating oil that was delivered somewhere else. The value would be at least $20,000. “The response of the oil company was that they couldn’t have done it,” he said. “But we had very poor control at the point where it was being delivered. Nobody monitored it.” The schools have taken steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again. “Nobody delivers oil now unless our own man is there,” he said.
Six emergency calls within the space of an hour kept the Westbrook Fire Department hopping after midnight Wednesday as lightning strikes played havoc with alarm systems and struck a Forest Street home during a ferocious storm.
When he was a boy, his mother told him he’d have his own business in Westbrook some day, and at age 51, he has. Ronald and Brenda Stultz, Barstow Road, Gorham, have bought the building at 937 Main St., remodeled it extensively and made it the home o his company, Hydraulic Hose & Assemblies Inc., which sells and services high-strength hoses for machinery and industrial uses. His mother, Pauline Stultz, wife of Harold Stultz, died May 1 – the day Ronald opened the doors for his business at his new Westbrook location. “I’m glad to say she lived to see that we were here and ready to go,” he said. Ronald Stultz is the grandson of Howard Stultz, founder of Stultz Electric Works.
The Gorham Planning Board turned a cold shoulder this week on the Shaw Brothers Construction Co.’s plans for an apartment-townhouse complex on 8.5 acres off School Street across from the University of Southern Maine access drive – despite the company’s willingness to drop the number of units from 76 to 64 and reduce the steepness of a slope on the site. Town Planner Keith Moe said later he felt the Planning Board had given as negative a reading as it could on the plans short o absolute denial. “They wanted to give Shaw Brothers an opportunity to come back to the board with something different,” said Moe. “But if they come back with the same thing, I suspect they’ll deny it.”
July 1, 1998
Robert W. Hall will be retiring after one more year as Westbrook’s school superintendent, he has told the School Committee. Hall, 54, has worked in a succession of jobs in the Westbrook schools since he graduated from Farmington State Teachers College 33 years ago. He has had a smooth three-and-a-half-year career at the Westbrook schools’ helm, shepherding ever-higher budgets through City Council approval with a minimum of trouble, and presiding over the development of plans for an expansion of the Westbrook Regional Vocational Center and over their approval by the state and by citizen referendum.
William Michaud is leaving after 11 years as principal of Westbrook High School to be superintendent of School Administrative District 16 in Hallowell-Farmingdale. His resignation will be read to the School Committee tonight.
History teacher John Drisko, 40, has been nominated as Gorham High School’s next principal. The School Committee is expected to make the appointment tonight. Drisko was nominated by Dr. Irene Bender, the superintendent chosen last week. Bender is still at her job as assistant superintendent in the Lower Merion, Pa., school district, and will not assume her position until August. She interviewed Drisko by telephone and in one o her three visits to Gorham. If confirmed, Drisko will start immediately.
While high school football is coming to Gorham, the Grizzlies and Junior Grizzlies youth football programs aren’t leaving. Gorham Football Inc. will pay for all three. Grizzlies (grades 7-8) and Junior Grizzlies (grades 4-6) will play their games on Sundays. The Juniors will play an eight-game season; the Grizzlies, seven. The coach of the Junior Grizzlies will be John Lestage. Rob Grover will coach the Grizzlies. About 60 kids have signed up so far for both teams. Under the school contract, Gorham Football Inc. will fund the high school program 100 percent. Should it fail, the school could discontinue it.
Gorham residents Kristin Lee Frazier and Elizabeth Janas Hillman compiled 4.0 grade point averages for the spring semester at the University of Maine. Frazier is studying psychology and anthropology. Hillman is an English major.
Matthew Arnold, son of the Rev. Linwood and Judy Arnold, Gorham, graduated in May from Emerson College, Boston, with a degree in communication disorders. He plans to continue at Emerson in September for a two-year master’s degree in speech therapy.
The first session of the Performing Arts for Children program at Warren Memorial Library in Westbrook begins July 8. Students meet every Monday and Wednesday. A children’s story hour on July 2 features “Pigmania,” with stories, poems and games about pigs.
The new Westbrook Regional Vocational Center will be equipped with a $26,000, 230-kilowatt Detroit Diesel generator capable of powering and heating both it and Westbrook High School, including the gym. The Westbrook City Council approved $3,965 on first reading this week to install a 4-inch underground cable connecting the high school’s central electric area to the boiler room of the existing WRV. When the tech center is built, the cable will be connected to its electrical room, where the generator will be.
In the early 1960s, Stop & Shop Corp. of Braintree, Mass., purchased a large tract of land on Main Street at the Portland line. The company constructed a large building on the north side of the property to be occupied by a Bradlees store in one half and Martin’s Discount Foods leasing the other half. Tenants occupying a building on the south side of the lot were Cinema City Theatres and Bartlett Radio and TV. The area became known as Westbrook Plaza Shopping Center. Several other tenants leased small space in both of these buildings. Maine National Bank, Lum’s Restaurant and Sofspray car wash also constructed buildings on the site. Cinema City and Bartlett’s went out of business and that building was converted into several smaller shops. Martin’s Foods became Shop ‘N Save, and then Hannaford, before moving to a new building. Bradlees went out of business and that building remained vacant until some new investors purchased the plaza. The buildings have been renovated and expanded with Kohl’s and Shaw’s Supermarket as the anchor stores, and other businesses occupying the rest of the plaza, now known as Westbrook Crossing. This photo shows the building on the south side of the plaza (originally Cinema City and Bartlett’s) occupied by several businesses before renovations. 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. Photo and research courtesy of Mike Sanphy Send questions/comments to the editors.
