Jan. 25, 1984

The Gorham Town Council Jan. 3 approved written procedures for

disposing of tax-acquired property, developed by Town Manager Donald Gerrish. Councilor Ernest Cressey suggested deleting a section that would let the owners redeem tax-acquired property by paying all taxes, interest and costs due before the council has determined how to dispose of it. The procedure, without the section allowing redemption, passed unanimously after discussion.

“Someone has to protect the older people, on fixed incomes, from

higher taxes and having property taken from them because they can’t pay their taxes just yet,” Councilor Russell Boothby said.

Councilor Edward Needham, agreed saying the town shouldn’t take homes away from the needy. The change in the proposal will still let an owner buy back his property, but he must wait until the council has decided if the town should keep the land or sell it. If land is offered for sale, the owner can petition the council to let him buy it back, and the council can refuse a higher bid in order to sell it back to the owner.

The Gorham Town Council will “do some more thinking” about

recall, Chairman Philip Hill said last week. Hill said more than one proposal for recall can be on the council’s agenda and that both he and Sherman Gray have proposals. Councilor Edward Needham said recall should be in the charter if “something goes haywire and something legal can’t be done.” He said he hopes “the council would do something before it reached the point of recall, but if the community is really upset then they should have

that opportunity.”

Donald Harriman will not be continuing as principal of Westbrook

Junior High School and the Westbrook School Department is going to be looking for a successor, Superintendent Edward Connolly told the School Committee. Connolly said Harriman has said he doesn’t want to continue as principal, but wants to return to his previous job as guidance counselor at the school.

Gorham Police Notes: A woman was arrested on Route 25 for driving a stolen vehicle. Students pulled the fire alarm in the University of Southern Maine gym, without cause. A 20-year-old man was charged with operating a stolen motor vehicle, two counts of breaking and entering, OUI and eluding arrest.

An employee at Amato’s said someone was calling companies and ordering items in his name. One instance: 2,000 cases of Coke.

A 16-year-old girl keeps running away to her boyfriend’s house.

The mother was advised to contact her lawyer.

Jan. 26, 1994

Pay more and or get less, School Superintendent Edward Connolly is telling Westbrook. When the School Committee meets in the high school, he will ask it which direction it wants him to take as he prepares his 1994-’95 budget requests. “It’s a tough choice,” he said. Connolly blames falling enrollments and rising costs. State aid will go up but not as much as he hoped, he said, and Raymond will pay less in tuition for the students it sends.

Meanwhile, he says in a memo to the committee, “Our committed

expenditures outstrip present and projected revenues.” Connolly offers four remedies. His message doesn’t make clear how many of them he thinks will be needed. They are: Cut present programs, reduce maintenance, increase class size and increase local property tax. He called for “fresh and open public discussion” and the School Committee’s “input into our dilemma.”

Directors will be meeting in Philadelphia today and making a

decision about the S.D. Warren’s Westbrook pulp mill that will be announced in Westbrook Friday. The pulp mill employs about 200, presently, and other jobs depend on it. “We’re all hoping that they’ll decide to keep it,” said a Warren worker who has an ear to the Westbrook operations. Scott Paper already has announced the end of Warren’s sheeting operation, which cuts rolls of paper for sheet-fed presses. The City Council will be studying what the impact of this will be, and also should be ready with its own plans for dealing any further cutbacks.

Brian and Gail Morabito, 102 Seavey St., are asking the

Westbrook School Committee for some liberalization of new home

schooling rules it adopted Dec. 1. They suggest seven changes. Two of the seven would change the word “and” to “or,” allowing

home-schoolers to take art in school classes and use school books that are appropriate for either their age or their grade, but not necessarily both age and grade. Permission for home-schoolers to take part in extra-curricular activities, now required in writing from the principal, would be automatic unless the principal “documents in writing good cause fodisqualification.”

The rules now deny a diploma to a home-schooled student unless

the principal says he-she meets all the requirements. The requested change would make a diploma automatic if the principal says the student meets the requirements.