LOOKING BACK

Jan. 27, 1988

Over the coming months, the Westbrook School Committee will consider budgeting $207,751 for 11 new positions for the 1988-89 school year. The committee will decide whether to approve funding for six full-time and two part-time teachers, one administrator, one full-time janitor and one teacher’s aide, and two teacher stipends. Each position will be considered individually beginning at the panel’s Feb. 8 meeting. Superintendent Edward Connolly stressed the need for more teachers during this week’s meeting. “We can’t teach Spanish one year and not the next because we don’t have available teachers,” he said.

Plans for Woodside, the controversial student housing project for the University of Southern Maine’s Gorham campus, have apparently been put on a very distant back burner due to the school’s decision to lease the Best Western Executive Inn on Congress Street in Portland to solve its immediate student housing problems. “The availability of immediate housing in the Best Western facility has reduced the need for the rapid conclusion of negotiations on Woodside,” said Samuel G. Andrews, USM’s vice president of administration. “We will need some time to evaluate the impact of the Best Western proposal on the demand for student housing on the Gorham campus.” Andrews said that USM has told the developers, Burleigh H. Loveitt and John Alden of Gorham, that “we would like some time to consider” how to motel plan affects the dorm plans.

A revised Plan 6 for a no-access superhighway across the middle of Westbrook appears to have gained favor with the advisory committee on the westward extension of the Maine Turnpike. It faces strong opposition in Westbrook, although Mayor Philip Spiller is noncommittal. Plan 6 would send the new road across the Westbrook farms of Llewellyn Randall, Stroudwater Street, and City Clerk William L. Clarke, Spring Street. It would turn north beyond Saco Street, cross Route 25 west of Mosher’s Corner, and pass north of Gorham Village, entering Route 25 at Brandy Brook Hill. The revised Plan 6 also has a connection to the Westbrook Arterial with a new twist. Running eastward from the S-curves to an interchange with Larrabee, the arterial would cross the Maine Turnpike (no interchange), then turn sharply right and connect with the new superhighway at an interchange on the Peter Rogers property at Westbrook Street and the Maine Turnpike in Portland. City Council President Donald Esty said the plan does nothing for Westbrook – “no benefits at all.” Farmer Llewellyn Randall also plans to fight the road, which would cut through the farmland about 200 feet from his barn. “It would lay all that land to waste,” he said. Clarke said the plan would “cut Westbrook in two.”

Because a capacity crowd of 900 fans is expected, basketball tickets will be sold in advance for the rematch Feb. 5 between the Westbrook High School Blue Blazes and the Portland High School Bulldogs. After a 2-point defeat by Portland in a Friday game at the Expo, the Blazes will host the rematch in the high school gym. Both teams were undefeated prior to the Expo game.

Jan. 28, 1998

Fifteen-year-old Megan McCarthy of Westbrook has a lot to be happy about these days. The daughter of Larry and Cathy McCarthy of Puritan Dive, she is a freshman at Carrabassett Valley Academy, and on Dec. 29, handily defeated more experienced skiers, winning both runs in the women’s giant slalom of the Dax Brown Memorial Race at Sugarloaf by 2 seconds. McCarthy’s primary coach, Martin Gray, is impressed with her recent trends and thinks she has a realistic shot at achieving many of her goals, including a spot on the U.S. Skiing Team and a hopeful run at the Olympics as soon as 2002.

Both American National Power and Gorham’s town engineer, Bill Taylor, say that the company’s proposed 900-megawatt, $400 million, gas-fired generating station will be a state-of-the-art, closed cooling facility that will not rely on the Presumpscot River for either water draws or wastewater release. Andrew Gilmore, spokesman for the company, said the proposed plant on the Ross Grant property near the bank of the river will draw only about 45,000 gallons a day. That water will come from the Portland Water District and will be recycled in a closed cooling system. By comparison, he said, a water-cooled system, which costs less to build and operates more efficiently than closed systems, would require 5 million gallons a day. “American National Power didn’t want to touch the river,” said Gilmore.

The Westbrook Police Department has received an order of 5,250 new parking tickets, costing $1,147, from George Business Forms in Portland. Police Chief Steven Roberts said the new tickets were needed only because the department was in low supply. Neither parking rules nor charges for violations had changed.

The Westbrook engineering department will get $70,000 from the city, the required 10 percent of the total cost necessary to begin reconfiguring the Elmwood Avenue entrance to Route 302. The City Council gave preliminary approval to the funding Wednesday. Engineer Donald Mannett said he hopes to begin working on the project by spring. It will provide turning lanes and change the angle of where Elmwood Avenue enters onto Route 302. Goals are improving safety, traffic capacity and drainage. The state’s cost estimate for the project is $700,000, of which Westbrook would be responsible for only 10 percent.

The Woodland Development Partnership brought its proposal for a nine-lot subdivision to be located off Dunlap and Plummer roads to the Gorham Planning Board on Monday. The proposal is in its preliminary stages. Meanwhile, the board gave final approval to Gateway Commons, a proposed 76-lot subdivision off lower Main Street in Gorham. The developer may build up to 15 homes a year for five or six years. Homes will cost from $135,000-$185,000.

Richard F. Lunt, Lincoln Street, Westbrook, received a retirement plaque and watch from Westbrook Public Works Director George Goodings. Lunt worked for the city for 31 years, from 1966 to 1997. The department held a retirement party for him, and more than 60 people attended another party for him at the Westbrook Eagles Hall.