February 1981

Four Westbrook city department heads notified the City Council that they have been selected to talk about salaries and benefits for all non-union city employees. They were elected in a meeting attended by 41. The four are Recreation Director Bruce Doughty, Assessor Robert Libby, Fire Chief James Rulman and Finance Director Susan Fitzpatrick.

Three developers have joined forces to apply for a Farmers Home Administration loan of $1.5 million to build congregate housing in Gorham village for the aged or handicapped. They are Clifford and Mark Plummer and Ernest Cressey. They are looking at land on the New Portland Road.

Arno Noack, 70, of Longfellow Place, Westbrook, was taken to the Maine Medical Center after suffering a possible heart attack.

U. S. Senator George Mitchell will speak at a Democratic fund-raising supper in St. Mary’s Church hall.

Charlie Kilbride received a Jefferson Award for his community services, which include serving as Santa Claus the past eight Christmases in the Paperworkers’ Union hall in Westbrook.

New trustees of Westbrook Community Hospital are Jean (Mrs. Dana) Childs and Richard F. Libby, Westbrook, William Hilfrank, Falmouth, and Maurice Gleckman, Portland.

Westbrook is amending the ordinance that regulates mechanical pinball machines to cover also electronic games, which are coming in.

The South Portland City Council voted 4-3 for a $458,789 drainage project at Calvary Pond, necessary for rebuilding the underpass that takes Broadway under the railroad tracks.

Candidates for the Town Council in Gorham are Russell Boothby, Allene Bowler, Thomas Connor, Calvin Hamblen and Janet Waterhouse. Two will be elected. Candidates for one School Committee seat are Jerry J. Larrivee, Jr., and Jean F. Ryan.

In a time when many small colleges are in financial difficulty, Saint Joseph’s College, Standish, Maine’s only Roman Catholic college, is thriving. Enrollment has grown to 500 (men and women), course offerings are expanding, and the college is planning a new library-learning center. Anthony R. Santoro is president.

Windham High School has returned to mandatory traditional English courses for juniors and seniors, abandoning a policy of the past several years that let students choose from a number of non-traditional electives. Among courses being dropped are “journalism,” “film study,” “teenage literature” and “literacy research.”

More than 800 people gathered in the Windham Community Center to honor Sidney H. Branson, M.D., and thank him for his 40 years of service in Windham.

The Scarborough Sanitary District is asking for approval by the Department of Environmental Protection of its plan for a 20-inch outfall pipe into the ocean from its $27 million sewage treatment plant at Prout’s Neck.

Gorham girls beat Cape Elizabeth 56-50 to win the Western Maine Class B basketball championship.

Scott Paper net income for year was $133,500,000, down from last year’s $137,085,000.

The American Journal printed the names and 1979 salaries of Westbrook school employees who made more than $10,000.

February 1991

Company and union officials are denying a rumor that the Scott Paper Co. has sold its S. D. Warren mill in Westbrook.

Frigid weather was just right for Scarborough’s Winter Carnival. A 10-foot-high jolly snowman topped with stovepipe hat presided over the doings at Wentworth School grounds.

Westbrook is asked to pay $50 a meeting to the cable TV reporter at city meetings.

The Westbrook City Council has given first reading approval to lending $112,500 to the Sandy River Group as part of the financing for a $1,161,204 project to turn waste newsprint into packaging materials. The work would be done in a 10,000-square-foot plant in the Glass World Industrial Park. The Small Business Administration and Coastal Enterprises, Wiscasset, also are to help in the financing.

A swap of town land for school land should help get state funding for expansion of Gorham’s Shaw Junior High School.

The state is planning to widen the Payne-Gorham Road in Scarborough to five lanes to take care of an increase in traffic expected from the opening of what is described as “Sam’s Discount Warehouse,” which is affiliated with Wal-Mart.

Scarborough’s Charter Commission is proposing a limit of two consecutive terms for members of the Town Council and Board of Education.

The Sebago Lake Ice Fishing Derby will be Feb. 22-24.

Goodall Marine was welcomed to Windham, moving from Portland.

At a cost of $1 million, Windham will close its landfill, which is used now for demolition debris. The Department of Environmental Protection has ordered closing it.

By the end of March, Scott Paper will lay off 125-150 salaried workers at its S. D. Warren mill in Westbrook.