July 1980

Westbrook Mayor William B. O’Gara is appealing to all citizens to press the City Council to raise 30 top city employees’ pay 8 percent. The council wants an $800 lid on raises.

The Million Dollar Bridge, South Portland-Portland, will be closed for repairs Oct. 14 through Nov. 15.

Cora G. Hebert, 100, of Westbrook, now of Swampscotta Nursing Home, Windham, is pictured with her son Leo G. Hebert, grandson, William L. Hebert, and 3-month-old great-grandson Brian W. Hebert, Gorham.

A table of census figures shows these percentage gains, 1970 to 1980: Standish, 82.38; Windham, 68.51; Raymond, 63.47; Scarborough, 42.24; Gray, 41.81; Yarmouth, 31.72; Cumberland, 27.02; Gorham, 26.11; Freeport, 18.11; Westbrook, 2.64, and Falmouth, 0.77. Losers were Cape Elizabeth, -1.34; South Portland, -5.08, and Portland, -6.75. In 1980 population, the top three in the metropolitan area are Portland with 61,572, South Portland with 22,085 and Westbrook with 14,826.

Richard Wolfe wants to sell the two buildings of Wolfe Ford Sales in Mill Creek, South Portland.

In a letter, John R. Newell, former president of Todd-Bath Shipbuilding Co., South Portland, and Bath Iron Works, says “Nuclear power has no place in a civilized society. It will be recorded in the history books of the future (if we make it) as a costly digression in man’s technological progression to a better life.”

Alfred Belisle is asking the city of Westbrook to sell 12 acres the city didn’t know it owns. The land is across the Stroudwater River from the city garage. Belisle owns land on two sides of it.

Daniel Palmieri, Westbrook’s community development director, wants federal housing rehabilitation funds for “Irish Hill III,” between Central and Spring streets.

William J. DiBiase Jr. Falmouth developer, has plans for a federally-subsidized apartment house for the elderly, with first-floor shops, on Urban Renewal land in downtown Westbrook. Mayor William B. O’Gara has doubts.

After a period when most business properties in South Portland’s Cash Corner area were up for sale, most are now filled.

Pine State By-Products, South Portland, agreed to do more to avoid bad odors and truck spills. It makes animal feed from poultry and fish wastes.

Philip W. Boothby will be clerk of the works (construction supervisor) for Gorham’s new elementary school.

After a year as principal of Gorham’s Shaw Junior High School, Eugene Graves is leaving to be principal of Kennebunk Junior High School. He was in Scarborough schools 10 years.

Vandals destroyed a $650 wire fence protecting the mechanism of the Little Sebago Lake Association’s dam.

There’s less and less beach at Higgins Beach, and seawalls are part of the problem.

A new Midas Muffler shop is planned at Larrabee Road and Main Street, Westbrook.

Geoffrey R. Stanwood ’38 has been named assistant to Bowdoin College President Dr. Willard F. Enteman.

Robert Prout, Scarborough, has traced the Prout family back 15 generations to Thomas Prout, who died in 1561 in Bideford, England. Timothy Prout led the way to America in 1644. Another Timothy was the first of many in Scarborough.

Mr. and Mrs. Leon Lavoie, 245 Saco St., Westbrook, marked their 25th wedding anniversary.

Dan Paul, Windham, won a 5-mile road race in Farmington in the morning and a 5.5-mile road race in North Windham in the evening Sunday.

Walker Memorial Library will hold its annual Pet Show Friday.

Eclairs are 19 cents at Dunkin’ Donuts.

The Planning Board, on advice of Mark Eyerman, wants Westbrook to replace sanitary sewers on Glenwood Avenue, Myrtle Street and Pennel Field.

The Sebago Lake Congregational Church will hold a service Sunday in Standish’s Old Red Church.

August 1990

The Maine Central Railroad plans to sell, probably to the state, its 100 miles of track through Westbrook, Gorham, and on to New Hampshire.

Lawrence Smith, who dropped out of school in the sixth-grade, is still active at 75 in the company he founded in 1941 and has led ever since, Windham Electric. Once a $13-a-week WPA worker, Smith owns and drives a 1989 Mercedes Benz and a 1984 Rolls Royce Silver Spur. He owns four hydroelectric generating stations in Maine, two of which were abandoned when he bought them and brought them on line.

Falmouth Town Planner George Thebarge wants to assure Highland Lake landowners that there are no plans to use eminent domain to advance public use of lakefront land.

South Portland Police are charged with unnecessary and excessive force in three separate arrests. Chief Robert Schwarz is among those named in lawsuits.

Dale Leroux and James LaPointe, 1978 graduates of Westbrook High School, are the authors of a new comic book, “Bloodquest.”

Students in Karen Maxell’s second-grade Summer Enrichment School in Westbrook built cardboard models of Maine lighthouses.

The end of Ash Street, the part beyond the telephone switching office, is falling into the Presumpscot River in Westbrook. The city has closed it off until it can be repaired.

BEST – “Business and Education Striving Together” – will sponsor a new program in South Portland, One-by-One, a mentoring program that pairs volunteers from the business community and colleges with students who need help.

A four-member majority of the South Portland City Council promised to support the School Department’s request for a $4 million expansion of Skillin School. It involves closing Redbank School. Councilors Kevin Glynn and Robert Fickett are opposed, favoring renovations.

Windham will host the state Little League Baseball championships, a five-team tournament that you’re in until you lose a second time.

The South Standish Grand Army of the Republic post is raising funds to renovate its hall.

After refusing two weeks earlier, the Westbrook City council voted, 5-2, to guarantee a $30,000 loan to be taken out by the Council of Governments.

Ingraham Volunteers is looking for teenage peer counselors to man telephones.

The Society of Japanese Irises held its annual convention in Portland this year, and one of the eight gardens it visited is that of Audway “Stubby” Treworgy, Flaggy Meadow Road, Gorham.

The Maine Audubon Society is campaigning against pesticides, promoting alternatives such as pest-resistant crop varieties.

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