December 1980
In the late stages of Westbrook school employee contract negotiations, someone turned to harassment. Hang-up phone calls during sleeping hours were made to School Committee members, the superintendent, his assistant, and the schools’ lawyer. An administrator’s car was offered for sale in a fake newspaper ad. School Committee members’ homes were offered for sale to realtors. Orders were placed in school administrators’ names for gravel, wood, and 11 rooms of carpet. A Portland florist was convinced to deliver a bouquet to Superintendent Carl Knowlton.
By federal law, all electric utility companies now have to offer a residential conservation service.
A LaVerdiere’s pharmacy Christmas page shows 24 items, from a 99-cent Slide-a-boggan to a $99.99 cassette car stereo. Seavey’s page advertises a Christmas close-out 4-hour sale with a 12-inch TV as door prize.
Edward C. O’Leary, Bishop of Portland, has been elected Northeast Chairman, National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Philip E. Lippincott is new president and chief operating officer of Scott Paper Co.
The South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Rotary Club has honored Ray Frost, 88, who founded the club 19 years ago. He is the former owner of Frost Mimeograph Co.
Ray and Ethel (Libby) Cummings, Nash Road, Windham, were honored on their 50th wedding anniversary.
The Widows and Widowers Outreach Program will hold a Christmas party at St. John’s School, South Portland.
Westbrook Mayor William B. O’Gara was elected chairman of the Maine Conference of Mayors at the annual meeting of the Maine Municipal Association.
The George C. Shaw Co. is breaking ground for its store in the Pine Tree Shopping Center, Portland.
Ready for approval in Westbrook are school employee contracts with Teacher pay raises of more than 10 percent this year and 8 to 10 percent next year, plus higher extracurricular stipends, more sick leave, credit at retirement for unused sick leave, and higher health care benefits. Months of negotiations have been entirely secret, under a state law that requires approval by both sides for making them public.
Central Maine Power Company may loan to customers the money for improvements that would cut their use of electricity.
The Department of Environmental Protection will hold a public hearing on plans of Merrill Industries, Inc., for a new coal wharf in Fore River upstream of the Million Dollar Bridge. Merrill has begun marketing coal in stores, packaged in blue bags as PEMCO brand coal.
Windham is deciding whether to allow mobile homes in the Farm/Residential zoning districts.
Westbrook’s Walker Memorial Library has been entered in the National Register of Historic Places.
Lisa DiRenzo, 15, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph DiRenzo, 547 Main St., Westbrook, is a finalist in the Miss Maine National Teenage Pageant.
Cora Hawkes, of Country Flowers, Gorham, got a box of holly from Oregon. With it was a card advising her that the grey dust on the leaves was from the eruption of Mount St. Helens, and was inert. Cora wiped the leaves clean.
Paul McCarthy, a Westbrook Police patrolman since 1972, was promoted to sergeant by Mayor William O’Gara and given command of the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift by Police Chief Leroy Darling.
December 1990
On-the-street interviews with five citizens about Saddam Hussein and Iraq find one confident of no war, one sure of war, and three worried that war’s coming.
Robert Connor, who bought the Windham Mall in June, told the Windham Planning board that Hannaford Bros. Plans to expand its Shop ‘N Save, and other enlargements are coming.
In revaluing property for real estate tax purposes, Westbrook is pressing business owners to tell how much money they make. Revaluation is an added income tax in disguise, some owners complain.
Westbrook aldermen raised the city’s fee for a restaurant liquor license from $200 a year to $500. Mayor Fred Wescott was for the increase, citing liquor’s cost to taxpayers; 80 percent of those in state prison got in trouble due to liquor, he said. Alderman Ken Lefebvre, with hotel management experience, said the hotel’s profit on two drinks is more than it makes on a dinner.
Heavy rain flooded underground Westbrook fire alarm lines, but after it was notified the phone company was able to switch such calls to the police system. Most cables are jacketed in waterproof plastic, but some still have older paper jackets. The phone company put police on cellular phone service while it fixed the problem.
Scott Paper Co. and Westbrook still are in dispute about the taxable value of Scott’s new Low energy Pulping System as of April 1, 1988. Scott says it was of no value because it is not working yet. The city says Scott’s investment was its value.
The Jordan Marsh Store Corporation is involved in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings that give it the right to South Portland city licenses it can’t at the moment pay for, the City Council was told.
Gorham Town Manager Paul Weston said three candidates are in the running to succeed David Kurz, who resigned as police chief. One is Lt. Ron Shepard, who is acting chief. He didn’t name the others.
Outside crews are putting orange polyethylene cable in Westbrook phone conduits for future use, “innerduct” underground in Westbrook to carry future fiber optics phone lines. Fiber optics cable already carries all Westbrook calls to the phone company’s central office computer in Portland. It transmits signals digitally through pulses of light.
Westbrook is getting a roof over the parking area at its police-rescue headquarters on Harnois Avenue, with materials donated by the S.D. Warren Co. and labor of the Maine Army National Guard. It will protect cars from snow and from paper mill fall-out.
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