June 1980

Westbrook Mayor William B. O’Gara has retired from teaching after 23 years, the past 19 teaching American history at South Portland’s Mahoney Junior High School. It isn’t fun any more, he said. He is 48, and may look for a job in personnel or public relations.

Two men have been found drowned in the Presumpscot River in Westbrook this year, and Police Chief Leroy Darling would like to see higher railings on the Bridge Street bridge, fearing they fell over.

In the primary election to choose the Republican candidate for state representative from Westbrook, it was Russell R. Day with 437 votes and Marion L. Broaddus with 171.

Westbrook’s Rescue 1 helped Portland’s Medcu by taking a 29-year-old man to the Maine Medical Center for treatment of a drug overdose.

Westbrook’s school budget figures gasoline at $1.25 a gallon. The state advises $1.75, and some are using $2.

CDs pay 9.5 percent at Portland Savings.

“PLEASE GO SLO ON OUR OLD BRIDGE,” reads a sign at the South Portland Filling Station on the approach to the Million Dollar Bridge.

A judge gave Hallie and Laska Warren permission to put their mobile home on their lot on Gorham’s Highland Avenue. The town, which has been fighting them two years, may appeal.

Sixth-graders at Johnson Elementary School, Standish, have launched 200 balloons, each with postal card attached, to learn more about the weather.

The $280,000 renovation and expansion of South Portland City Hall is now complete.Three band concerts are among a day-long series of events arranged by the Community Improvement Committee of the Westbrook Woman’s club for the Westbrook Together ’80 festival Saturday.

Westbrook Masons will observe St. John’s Sunday.

John Ayers, Gorham, a student at the University of Maine at Orono, rode his bike 400 miles in four days, to St. Stephen, New Brunswick, and Campobello.

Westbrook City Council President Charles Roma said the school budget’s $234,000 for “Special Education” is misleading because it’s only a part of special education costs. Yes, he was told by School Finance Director Russell Fearon, and next year, by order of the federal government, they’ll all be shown in one place.

June 1990

Nothing will grow in a 15-by-25-foot area in Scarborough where water was pumped onto the ground that had leached out of the Regional Waste Systems balefill. The state is testing the soil and will decide what must be done with it.

Westbrook’s younger police dog, Taro, is guilty of two or three bites and is being sent to the penitentiary in Storrs, Conn., for guard duty, said Police Chief Ronald Allanach. One of those bitten was a child of Taro’s handler, Sgt. Mike McCaffrey.

In a letter urging that independent voters be allowed to vote in primary elections, Westbrook’s William Lemke argues that the Democratic Party, “the oldest continuous political party in the world” wouldn’t be threatened by the change. Nor would the Republican Party, he says.

The Westbrook Planning Board approved last week the plans for a new Saturn auto agency on the Saunders Brothers dowel mill site, James Caruthers, engineer, said planning for the agency’s expansion already is under way.

In South Portland, 30 businesses are named as inviting everyone to the 9th annual “Spring Point Festival” with a stage show sponsored by Marriott, Hannaford, UNUM and Portland Pipe Line.

Patrolling in the old shipyard at 2 a.m., South Portland Policeman Michael Savard came upon three men and a woman making a deal for more than two ounces of cocaine. He arrested them and seized the cocaine.

Michael Freeman, 23, of Windham, was fishing from a rubber boat on the Presumpscot River in Gorham when three men in two power boats beat and robbed him after knifing a hole in his boat. He got to shore, ran to a phone, and police arrested the three, who are Westbrook brothers.

The Council of Governments has lost money every year since 1984 and is asking towns and cities to loan it a total of $200,000 so it can keep operating. Westbrook’s City Council voted, 5-2, to loan it $30,000. John Bubier, COD’s acting director, blamed slow payments by the state for part of the problems.

James Dyer resigned from the South Portland Board of Education after a petition signed by 1,064 voters called for repeal of a city council order exempting him from the ordinance that bars elected officials from doing business with the city. He wants to run the Willard Beach concession stand this summer.

On June 7, students and teachers moved into the new science wing of Westbrook High School.

Susan Duchaine and Robyn Flaherty-Dahms are partners in Cradles and crayons, a 60-child daycare center under construction on Route 25 in Gorham.

Jack Clements, 21, is the newest Windham police officer, under Chief Rick Lawsen.

Lenora Bangert and a committee writing a South Portland history are looking for the city’s six oldest houses.

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