April 22, 1987

Westbrook developer Paul “Bucky” Holloway and partners David and Tom Metivier are planning an 87-lot subdivision at Day Road and South Streets, Gorham, for “upper price range” houses on 110 acres. Their plans may call for an extension of the planned Gorham sewer. “It’s all real tentative now,” said Holloway, of the plan proposed by the men, doing business as Congin Group. He said they put the land under option a year ago, planning 50 lots, but added to that after considering the possibility of a sewer extension down South Street from the Weeks Road. He said the sewer idea is being negotiated with the town. Congin Group has offered to pay for the $1.2 million extension and a pumping station.

A citizen told us this story Monday: A group of East German diplomats had been staying at the Chalet Suisse Motor Inn on Brighton Avenue at the Westbrook line. The FBI had asked the management not to throw away any of the trash they left behind, but to hold it for their experts to study. When an American Journal reporter heard that, he trotted off there with camera in hand, hoping for a newsy shot of the top-secret trash bag. He told the story, and asked if a picture could be taken, the desk clerk said, fairly believable, that he hadn’t heard any such thing. Then the manager came out of the back room, and stood there eyeing the reporter. “Maybe you heard what I was just telling him,” the reporter volunteered, and repeated the story. The manager listened, then said, carefully and slowly, “I don’t know anything about it.”

R. J. Grondin Co., Gorham, recently bought the 70 acres of unsold land in the Gorham Industrial Park, and plans to expand the park, building a 1,500-foot road off the other side of Bartlett Road from the present Hutcherson Drive. They also plan to build a 20,000-square-foot speculative building, for lease to perhaps several tenants, on a 5-acre lot, in partnership with builder George Frederick, under the name Eight Corners Co. The steel building will look like new, but almost all of the steel beams for it will come from a former China clay storage building on West Commercial Street in Portland, taken down last year.

Paula Wehmeyer, 6 Kathryn St., Gorham, saw Victoria Boothby and her two children lying on the side of State Street in Gorham right after they were hit by a car Saturday. That sad sight prompted her and Donna Begley, 29 Green St., to circulate a petition calling for better crossing signals in the center of town. Local businesswoman Vickie Lloyd also plans a petition, asking police to enforce traffic regulations in the center of town. Wehmeyer and Begley presented their petition, with 129 signatures, to Town Manager Donald Gerrish. They also met with Police Chief David Kurz and Town Councilors Philip Hill, John Emerson, and Richard McKeil between Saturday and Tuesday. “They said they would work on it.”

Gorham Police Chief David Kurz said they are still looking for two suspects in the shooting of Patrolman David Gray last week, one of whom is about 6 feet tall with dirty blond hair. They were last seen heading north on Route 114 in the Sebago area in a maroon Firebird or Camaro early April 14. “His prognosis is very good,” Kurz said of Gray, who was shot in the palm of his hand while trying to grab a gun from a suspect.

April 23, 1997

Police and prosecutors were in conference yesterday on whether to charge Albert R. Rogers with homicide in the death of Jeffrey L. Young Saturday after police say Rogers kicked Young in the head in Westbrook and slammed his head to the pavement Friday. Young suffered a broken skull and died in the Maine Medical Center. Rogers was being held on a charge of aggravated assault, by Westbrook and state police, and prosecutors from the Maine Attorney General’s and district attorney offices were weighing all the circumstances. A charge of homicide had been a possibility since Friday afternoon when the gravity of Young’s injuries became apparent. The two men had been drinking in Andy’s Tavern, at Brown and North streets, Westbrook. Though described as friends, they began arguing.

Westbrook’s Deputy Police Chief Paul McCarthy wants to retire but return to the position of deputy chief, it’s reliably reported. That’s the “pending resignation” that the City Council went into executive session April 7 to talk about. Nobody was saying so officially this week, but nobody was denying it.

Westbrook’s Planning Board is called on to say yes or no in the next weeks for a new Portland Welding Supply gas-handling plant that Koala Child Kare Learning Center says could put it out of business and neighbors on Spring Street say will put more water into their basements. Portland Welding would receive, store and fill smaller tanks with flammable, as well as non-flammable, gases. Koala takes care of 150-160 children a day in a twice-expanded building that sits behind the homes along outer Spring Street. Its driveway is at 969 Spring St. It has an indoor swimming pool as well as indoor and outdoor play areas. Portland Welding’s plant would be 700 feet away. “I don’t see how I can stay open if there’s a tank farm there,” Larry DeRoche, a Koala official, told the Planning Board at its April 1 public hearing on the site plans of Portland Welding.

Westbrook High School graduate Ronald E. Hurd was honored in Leominster, Mass., with a Community Service Award for his work in behalf of that area’s Multi-Service Center, a broad-based social agency. Hurd, son of Edward Hurd, Westbrook, and the late Mrs. Hurd, graduated from WHS in 1964 and from the University of Maine. He also holds an associate degree in architecture from Wentworth Institute ofTechnology. His Wife, Dorcas, is the daughter of John and Effie Hay, Westbrook. They have four children and three grandchildren. Hurd is president and CEO of the Fitchburg Mutual Insurance Co. and has other business affiliations.

Jack Gordan, Mighty Street, Gorham, is now home, hoping to enjoy some spring weather on the farm after three months in Texas with sister and husband Donna and Del Morrell, in Del City. He also enjoyed traveling to Arizona, California and New Mexico. His wife Carol joined him during her February vacation week from her duties in the Gorham school cafeteria. Jack came home in March with his travel trailer, stopping for a week in St. Cloud, Fla., and Greenville, S.C.

The Rocky Hill School, 570 Bridge St., was built in 1916 as a four-room school. This building replaced the old one-room school built in 1875 and located a short distance away at the lower end of Methodist Road. The building served as an elementary school and later as Rocky Hill kindergarten before the city closed and sold it in the early 1980s. The building is presently an apartment house. To see more historical photos and artifacts, visit the Westbrook Historical Society at the Fred C. Wescott Building, 426 Bridge St. Inquiries can be emailed to westhistorical@myfairpoint.net.