Oct. 18, 1989

Data General says it is dickering with buyers for both parts of its Westbrook operations, predicts that they’ll be sold before the end of December and says it hopes the new owners will continue to employ many of the plant’s remaining workforce of roughly 400 people. An unnamed international electronics maker is a potential buyer of the disc and file division of the plant. A group of local executives is moving toward buying the metal fabricating operation, which mainly makes computer frames and cases. Forty-five employees were laid off, one day after workers were told of the plant’s pending closing and potential sale. The Westboro, Mass.-based computer maker opened the Westbrook plant in 1975, seven years after the company was founded, with a projected employment of 500 people.

The Westbrook School Committee, faced with a lack of funds, on Oct. 10 tabled the issue of what to do about the high school’s home bleachers that collapsed about three weeks ago. “It’s a real issue and it’s real tough to get around. There isn’t any money,” said Westbrook School Superintendent Edward F. Connolly. He added that the only source might have been a contingency fund built into a renovations package for the high school, but he said he did not think that money should be touched. Connolly said it would cost about $15,000 to repair the bleachers, which sagged on the home side during a band concert. If the school had the work done by an outside firm and not its own crew, it would cost between $85,000 and $100,000, the committee was told. Meanwhile, the high school marching band hosts its fall show Oct. 21 at Olmsted Field.

Westbrook’s Planning Board is ready to approve the Springbrook nursing home on Spring Street. Forty feet high, with 15,000 square feet on each of three floors, it will be one of the city’s biggest buildings. The board received last week a second traffic study promising no undue traffic hazards, settling a major concern. It also appeared to concede that 5 of the site’s 15 acres can be reserved for other future use. The proposal has been before the Planning Board for months.

The 1934 graduates of Westbrook High School had a 55th year class reunion recently at Verillo’s Restaurant and Convention Center. Placemats were made from a class picture of the graduates taken in front of the high school on Main Street. On the planning committee were Henri Cote, who was the class president; Lorraine Gaile VanTassell, Eleanor Griffiths, Jeannette Chase Greene, Theresa McFarland Tourangeau and Royden Leighton.

Oct. 20, 1999

Seventeen conference championships, eight Southwestern titles, five state championships, and now, one very special honor for the man who molded much of Gorham High School’s athletic program over the last half of the century. Twenty-five years after stepping down as Gorham’s cross-country coach, Dean Evans is being inducted into the Maine Running Hall of Fame. Friends, colleagues and his former team members will gather to honor Evans, 67, in a special ceremony Nov. 6 at the Sheraton Tara Hotel in South Portland.

Gorham housing developer Susan Duchaine and her company, Design Dwellings Inc., along with three partners in SOLD Inc., are suing the town of Gorham for an unspecified amount of money. In the suit, filed Oct. 7, Duchaine said she and the two firms have been treated unfairly by the town planner, assistant town planner, planning clerk and the code enforcement officer. She said undue delays of the town’s review of her projects and the necessity to hire attorneys has resulted in a loss of revenues. Among numerous other charges, she said she has been discriminated against because she is a woman.

Westbrook’s City Council gave first-reading approval Monday to granting a tax increment financing district to HMW Inc., the local holding corporation for Pegasus Broadcasting’s WPXT-TV, Channel 51, for an 8.48 parcel on Ledgewood Drive. Under the deal, the station would get back a quarter of the value of its property taxes for 10 years. The remainder would be paid into the city’s general fund for the City Council to vote on spending, as with traditional tax revenues. The station will come in three pieces – first the building, then moving in some digital equipment immediately, then over the years more and more equipment added until the entire effort is digital.

Police will shut down part of Main Street in downtown Westbrook between Church Street and Mechanic streets from 3:30-6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 29, for the Chamber of Commerce’s “Halloween on Main Street” trick-or-treating program. A new addition to the event this year is a Halloween parade that will begin at 4:30 in the CVS side of the city parking lot.

The Peoples Regional Opportunity Program, having bought and renovated the once-troubled apartment house at 198 Brown St., Westbrook, plans a ribbon-cutting ceremony and an open house to show it off on Oct. 26. The building has two apartments on the second floor and a community room and one apartment on the first floor.

This photo shows the lower end of Church Street, between Main Street and Wayside Drive, now William Clarke Drive, before the buildings were demolished by urban renewal. The church steeple visible in the photo was the old Westbrook Congregational Church on Main Street at Brackett Street. The area today is a parking lot. To see more historical photos and artifacts, visit the Westbrook Historical Society at the Fred C. Wescott Building, 426 Bridge St. It is open Tuesdays and Saturdays, 9 a.m.-noon, and the first Wednesday of each month at 1:30 p.m., September-June. Inquiries can be emailed to westhistorical@myfairpoint.net. The website is www.westbrookhistoricalsociety.org.