Roughly 60 percent of the people who responded to a WCHS Channel 6 survey this week said they support the idea of video gambling at horse tracks, one of the gambling referendum proposals certified Tuesday by the state to go on the November ballot.

“Obviously they didn’t call anyone here in Scarborough,” responded Town Councilor Mark Maroon, perhaps the town’s most ardent supporter of the local ban on slot machines and video gambling. “I really don’t think there is much support for gambling in Scarborough.”

A make-or-break meeting on bringing a YMCA to town will be held on March 6 when club officials will determine whether Scarborough can really raise the money to build a facility.

A YMCA could meet the needs of the town’s senior citizens, who addressed the Town Council last week and said they want a community center, but don’t want their property taxes to go up.

“Their theme screams YMCA,” Town Councilor Mark Maroon said after a presentation by three members representing Senior Voices, a recently formed advocacy group of seniors with 100 members.

“A Y could be a solution for seniors and kids. A partnership with the YMCA may meet a lot of needs without any impact on the town. We’re really at the point of go or no go. This meeting is really make it or break it,” Maroon added.

Scarborough state Sen. Peggy Pendleton, a Democrat, has decided she cannot vote in favor of a resolution now pending before the Legislature that would call on President Bush to seek diplomatic solutions to resolve the Iraq crisis before sending troops into battle.

Pendleton announced her decision Tuesday. She had previously supported another version of the current resolution, but when it came back from the House, she had already made up her mind to change her vote. Democrats say her vote could kill the resolution in the Senate where they only hold a one-vote majority.

When contacted by the Current, Pendleton said it is more important to actively support the troops by not voting for the resolution than it is to oppose the war. She said she did not want to help create the perception that the state of Maine does not support the armed forces. “I’m not saying by my vote that I think the president is doing the right thing,” Pendleton said.

Before Lester Hashey passed away in December, the well-known World War II veteran featured in “Band of Brothers” had a suggestion for his buddies at the American Legion in Scarborough.

“Lester said that we should show ‘Band of Brothers,’ and he would narrate his experiences,” said Ken Dolloff, a legion member and friend of Hashey’s. “It was the last thing he said to us.”

Starting this Sunday, Dolloff and the rest of the Libby Mitchell Post will follow Hashey’s direction and show all 10 hours of “Band of Brothers” in two-hour segments each Sunday in March. The segments start at 2 p.m. at the post on Mason Libby Road.

Hashey’s widow, Anna Hashey, will introduce each segment of the HBO miniseries produced and directed by Tom Hanks. Anna will give insights into her husband’s wartime experiences.

Hashey was a paratrooper in the 101st Airborn Division. On Sept. 17, 1944, his division dropped into Holland, on what was expected to be a week-long mission. They ended up on the ground for nearly three months, and at one point were pinned down for 10 days by German troops.

Amelia Wiggins, a junior at Cape Elizabeth High School, is an artist in the making and she was rewarded for her abilities when she recently won the Congressional District Art Award.

The award means that her self-portrait will hang in Congressional Hall in Washington D.C. for a year, beginning this June.

Regionalization of services is the current buzzword out of Augusta and Cumberland County Manager Peter Crichton believes libraries could be good candidates for sharing under the county umbrella.

“ The cost of government services is a big concern in Maine right now. We need to look at ways to create operational efficiencies and share information. We should also be able to provide better customer service,” Crichton said in an interview with the Current.

Facing a $486,000 cut in state education funding, the Cape Elizabeth School Board is proposing a 2003-2004 budget with no new programs, and the superintendent is warning that Cape schools are “ falling behind” in their ability to meet the community’ s high expectations.

In an awards ceremony held Tuesday, the Scarborough Rotary Club honored James Beattie, a senior at Scarborough High School, and Erin Dumas, an eighth-grader at Scarborough Middle School, as the students of the quarter.

Beattie is the son of George and Rosemary Beattie of Libby Street. Dumas is the daughter of Peter and Debra Dumas of Olde Colony Lane.

The 50 sixth-graders in Sharon Larando’s social studies classes at Scarborough Middle School put on a medieval fair earlier this month to show off what they had learned about the Middle Ages in Europe during the preceding six weeks.

This is the fifth year that Larando has run the Middle Ages program as a supplement to the required curriculum.

“ It ties in nicely between our study of ancient civilizations and our section on Africa,” she said. “ The students also seem to really enjoy themselves. They do a marvelous job,” Larando added.

As the Goodwill Industries trucks roll across the state of Maine, their new designs are thanks to a Cape Elizabeth man, who has found a way to make money from the sides of trucks. Don Mackenzie has founded Mobile Marketing Solutions, which sells space on what are, after all, basically moving billboards.

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A so-called “ hunting ranch” in Scarborough has been spared from a proposed law that would have banned the hunting of game animals inside enclosures like the 200-acre Bayley Hill Hunt Park here. The bill, proposed by Rep. Tom Bull, D-Freeport, and Rep. Matt Dunlap, D-Old Town, failed in a legislative committee Monday.

“ Fortunately, (Monday) it was completely squashed,” said Nick Richardson, manager of the Bayley Hill Deer and Elk Farm and the adjoining hunt park. “ It was really a storm in a teacup.”