Jan. 31, 1990

Without much audience notice, the Gorham Town Council passed a rule change Jan. 23 limiting public input at meetings and suggested holding comments to 5 minutes per person. The rules apparently give the chairman the power to rule someone out of order for not keeping to the topic. The rules also apply to the Planning Board and Board of Appeals.

After 27 years, the Rev. Harold L. Shepard, Gorham, retires tomorrow as minister of the Westbrook-Warren Congregational Church. He was honored at a surprise party and reception at the church after his final service Sunday. He came in 1962 as pastor of the Westbrook Congregational Church and stayed through the merger with the Warren Congregational Church in the 1970s. He was involved in the planning and building of the present building. He is retiring from the full-time ministry, he said. The Rev. Robert D. Fiske of Contoocook, N.H., has been called to be interim pastor.

Renovations have begun on the water-damaged Prides Corner School in Westbrook. The School Committee authorized Coastal Deflooding and Restoration of Portland to go ahead on the job, at a cost of $94,603. The school suffered severe water damage in four separate incidents during the construction of a new pitched roof over an occupied section of the school. Ironically, the new design was intended to avoid further problems with roof leaks.

Westbrook’s administrative assistant to the mayor, Peter Eckel, and his wife Jennifer, are the parents of their first child, Eleanor Jeannette, born Dec. 30, 1989 at Maine Medical Center.

The Annie Louise Cary Club will present “Parade of America” at 8 p.m. tomorrow in the Corthell Concert Hall at the University of Southern Maine Gorham campus. The program will include music for two pianos and vocal solos. It is free and open to the public.

Feb. 2, 2000

The Gorham Town Council was expected to sign a 30-year agreement last night with a gas-to-electricity power company that will bring millions of dollars to the town’s coffers. The tax increment financing agreement cements a financial arrangement between the town and American National Power, the British subsidiary that will build a $400 million, 500- to 825-megawat electric power generating plant on Route 25 on land currently owned by Regional Waste Systems. Some 90 percent of the taxes owed to Gorham by American National Power will be used for specific town improvements, mostly infrastructure and projects that the town leaders say would benefit the company as well as the town. Among those would be a $4 million access highway around the south and southwest periphery of Gorham Village. The town will get $6 million to do with what the council agrees to, as an outright gift from the power company.

Westbrook High School got by for four hours without water in the main building yesterday because of trouble fixing a break in the water line feeding the school. The new vocational school, fed by its own line, had water and toilets, uninterrupted. Classes at both buildings continued without a break.

The traffic roundabout in Gorham’s Little Falls neighborhood has cut down the average rush hour delay for Route 237 commuters from 55.8 seconds to 5.1 seconds in the morning and from 39.1 seconds to 7.4 seconds in the evening, according to a study by Per Garder, a University of Maine professor who helped design it. He also reported that there hasn’t been a single personal injury accident at the routes 202-237 intersection since the roundabout opened as Maine’s first in July 1997. There were six injury accidents in the three years previous to the roundabout.

Carolyn Watkins is celebrating her 20th year as director of Walker Memorial Library in Westbrook. “It was kind of a little place when I first lived here. That was before the addition,” she said. Watkins said she was “ecstatic” when she was chosen for the positions. She applied because she was looking for library jobs and it was close to home. “It’s proven to be one of the greatest jobs. I couldn’t have had a nicer job. People are so nice in Westbrook,” she said.

Brushing aside concerns that the process was rushed and left no time for analysis or public input, the Westbrook School Committee voted 5-1 (Ed Symbol opposed) Wednesday to approve curriculum changes for the next school year. The committee was provided hundreds of pages of new curriculum to review just four days before the vote. It will be put into use on a trial basis next year.

About 80,000 tires that were pulled out of the Gorham landfill before it was capped several years ago have been removed by the Department of Environmental Protection. The tires had created a stockpile and a public safety concern, according to the DEP. The tires were chipped up and recently used in the construction of the Crossroads Landfill in Norridgewock as drainage material.

These buildings once stood on Main Street just west of Bridge Street. The building on the right was 881 Main St., with George’s Barber Shop (George Belanger) and The Smoke Shop (Mabel Shapiro) on the first floor, Margaret Shane operated a rooming house on the upper floors. The large building in the center was the L.W. Knight & Son Hardware Store, which was owned and operated by Leland W. Knight and his son Robert. The next building at 885 Main St. was Pete’s Diner, owned and operated by Pierre Z. Gaudreau. The Smoke Shop later became Kit’s Smoke Shop (Kit Nadeau) and the giner became Len’s Diner (Lenny Jacques). During urban renewal, 881 Main was demolished, Knight’s Hardware building was dismantled and moved to Scarborough and the diner was moved to Windham. A parking lot now occupies the space where these buildings once stood. 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. Photo and research courtesy of Mike Sanphy