(Editor’s note: Looking Back is a weekly column including news items reported 10 years ago in The Current, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in September 2011.)

Issue of Feb. 7, 2002

The Town Council could ban video and casino gambling in town, potentially blocking a state referendum that would bring video gambling to Scarborough Downs.

Approximately 60 people packed council chambers to oppose the proposed ordinance. The ordinance would ban video gambling, casino gambling and off-track betting in any business in town.

If a referendum allowing video gambling at Scarborough Downs passed, some councilors were concerned Scarborough would be perceived as a gambling friendly town, according to Town Manager Ron Owens. They were especially concerned that gambling operations might be attracted to Haigis Parkway.

“They just want to make sure the town isn’t turned into a gambling center,” said Owens.

The ordinance would not prohibit betting on simulcast racing, which is already being done at Scarborough Downs. It is not considered off-track betting because Scarborough Downs has a track.

Many of the people who opposed the ordinance at the meeting were employed by Scarborough Downs. They argued that adoption of the ordinance would be the end of Scarborough Downs if the referendum passed because they would lose business to Bangor Raceway.

It will be months before Scarborough knows if it is a good match for the Y, and if so, years before anything gets built, organizers and Y officials said. But within two months, Y organizers could be asking town residents for as much as $300,000 to further develop the project.

According to Dave Thompson, executive director of the Greater Portland YMCA, it will be at least six weeks before a study of Scarborough’s feasibility as a host community for a YMCA will be complete, and another six weeks or so before the analysis of that information is completed by the national Y organization.

If a Y is approved, supporters will be looking for between $250,000 and $300,000 to offer some Y services in town, and to begin planning a capital campaign that could take two years to kick off, and which could last as long as five years.

The Cape Elizabeth School Board and Town Council officially discussed for the first time this past week the construction and renovation projects slated for the town’s schools – a project estimated to cost between $5 million and $6 million.

Councilors will be asked to approve a plan that would have working beginning at both Pond Cove and the high school in the summer of 2003.

And though funds have yet to be approved, and plans are not yet even in draft form, architect Bob Howe, of HKTA in Portland, has been visiting the Cape Elizabeth schools to explore the buildings and learn from school staff about issues that should be addressed during the renovation.

The school renovation has as its ultimate goal the grouping of grades together, with kindergarten through fourth grade at Pond Cove, fifth through eight grades at the Middle School, and grades nine through 12 at the high school, Howe said. Right now, the kindergarten is in the high school, occupying space that will be needed in coming years. To keep the grades together in the future, Howe said, the kindergarten needs a new home.

Cape wants to compromise with well-known businessman, Eric Cianchette, on a plan to restore the wetlands on his property.

An environmental firm hired by Cianchette determined he had cleared vegetation from wetlands, but he hadn’t harmed them. In response to the report, Bruce Smith, Cape’s code enforcement officer, offered a compromise: let the plants grow back, as opposed to replanting.

“I think a logical approach is just to let it grow,” said Smith. “I think, because roots are still there, it will grow back in two or three years.”

The compromise would save the town the trouble of going out and getting another environmental firm to look at the property.

Gene Chaplin of the Scarborough Middle School used to be called the shop teacher. Now he’s being honored with Maine’s 2002 Teacher Excellence Award for Technology Education and he is more interested in lasers and computer animation than he is in drill presses.

Chaplin said he was encouraged to apply for the teacher’s award by fellow technology education teacher, Roger Lord, who teaches in Gorham. “I had the opportunity to apply for a similar award years ago, but I never completed the appropriate paperwork. This time around I was strongly encouraged by my friends and colleagues to apply,” Chaplin said. “The process made me take a good look at myself. I think I learned a lot about myself and that in itself was worth it.”

He also gets the chance to attend the International Technology Education Association’s annual conference in Columbus, Ohio, in March.

Chaplin has been teaching in Scarborough schools for the past 36 years. “When I first started, what I teach was called shop, then it became industrial arts and now it is known as technology education,” he said. What does Chaplin teach? He teaches eighth graders not only the traditional shop skills such as using a drill press or painting with an airbrush, but the process of product manufacturing and how to use technology.

“What we offer these kids is tremendous enrichment,” Chaplin said.