June 1981
Renovations are planned at Westbrook City Hall. City Clerk William L. Clarke, commenting in the American Journal, asked for changes in the plans. Mayor William B. O’Gara responded by inviting Clarke to run for mayor. Clarke then invited O’Gara to run for clerk. O’Gara is in his fourth term; Clarke is in his 14th.
Maine Rubber International has put into operation its new tire burner in downtown Westbrook, burning 1,300 to 1,600 tires a day to make steam for its manufacture of new tires. In start-up, it emitted noticeable smoke only twice, and that won’t happen in the future, technicians said. The first in the nation, it’s modeled after ones doing in Germany. Old tires litter the landscape.
Brascan, Ltd., now is the owner of the largest block of stock in Scott Paper Co.
Kevin McGuirk, a Westbrook 7th grade student, is pictured with seven two-week-old dalmatian puppies.
Ceremonies marked the registration of Westbrook’s Walker Memorial Library in the National Registry of Historic Places.
Susan Fitzpatrick, a Westbrook High School junior, represented Maine in a weeklong conference of the Distributive Education Clubs of America in Anaheim, Calif. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Allen Fitzpatrick, 27 Webster St.
Howard F. Stultz, Sr., 102, visited the outpatient clinic at the Maine Medical Center last week for a minor ear problem. He said he hasn’t been sick a day since he was born on the shores of the Bay of Fundy in 1879. He founded Stultz Electric in Westbrook.
Gorham will vote July 7 on an advisory referendum to add $70,000 to the school budget. Town Councilman Ernest E. Cressey, who opposes the increase, said students are given extra credits if they speak for it in hearings, and a speaker has warned that rocks will be thrown through Cressey’s windows.
The state stores road salt in a shed on Libby Avenue, Gorham. Neighbors who depend on wells for their water want it moved.
Gorham High School girls won state Class B championships in softball and track.
Westbrook Postmaster Leo Pinette says that Sturbridge Yankee Workshop’s new store on outer Congress Street, Portland, will use the Westbrook Post Office. Sturbridge is national and a big mailer.
Ocean Carriers Corporation, California, is outfitting a two-masted schooner to prove that modern sail technology can replace oil. As an oil tanker in southeast Asia, the ship can save half million dollars a year, they estimate.
Westbrook High School girls won the state Class A softball championship.
Boys’ and girls’ basketball teams from Maine will compete with teams from the Republic of China in South Portland Thursday. Tom Jackson and Lisa Blais of Westbrook will play.
The Cumberland Mills Post Office will close July 1. Stained glass and solid oak of from the 1900s will be saved for some symbolic use by the Postal Service.
June 1991
Westbrook’s City Council voted 4-3 to buy paving mix through the council of governments rather than seek its own bids. Yes votes were Kenneth Lefebvre, Francis Donahue, Terry Quinlan, and Paul Leconte. No votes were Don Richards, Elmer Welch and William Loring.
School friends failed to force a Windham referendum to restore $125,000 cut from the Windham school budget by the Town Council, petitioners didn’t get enough signatures.
Roger Knight has offered to move Scarborough’s blockhouse replica to his Smiling Hill Farm on Route 22 in Westbrook. The Scarborough Chamber of Commerce no longer wants it on Route 1.
Michele McCabe and Dolores Lymburner of Standish took part in a “War On Waste” rally in Augusta, part of a nation-wide rally against incinerators and landfills and for recycling and the reduction of waste and toxic waste.
Carol Kontos was moderator of Windham’s town meeting Saturday, the first woman in history to preside over the annual meeting.
A woman and two men collected items donated from Westbrook merchants as donations to the Westbrook Together Days auction but never showed up with the items.
Rollin Ives, Maine’s commissioner of human services, warns that Maine is the 11th most heavily taxed state and can’t afford “current levels of spending for all these human service programs.”
Westbrook Memorial Post, American Legion, has a new firing squad and color guard.
Girl Scouts won the $100 prize for the best float in the Westbrook Together Days parade. Blessed with lazy sunshiny weather, Together Days raised $5,000 for the sponsoring committee through booth rentals, T-shirt sales, and the annual auction.
Kristin Frazier, a Gorham High School freshman, set a new school record for the 800-meter run, 2:26:04, placing third in the state finals. She broke a GHS record set by her sister Kelly, who is now a Bates College sophomore.
Philip Spiller Jr. is valedictorian and Leigh Palubinakas is salutatorian at Westbrook High School. Spiller expects to study aeronautic engineering at Cornell University.
Scarborough’s Town Council voted to increase from $10 million to $20 million the amount of property value in the Eight Corners Tax Increment Financing District. Taxes from that district don’t pay for town services, schools, roads, etc, they go for costs of improvements at Eight Corners.
Gorham High School students have cleared a jogging trail behind the Municipal Center. The town provided a chipper.
Priscilla and Harold McFarland, West Pleasant Street, Westbrook, caught two 10-pound togue within a half hour, fishing from a boat on Sebago Lake.
More than 100 gathered for a surprise party for Ethel Verrill, Windham on her 90th birthday.
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