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

Issue of Oct. 25, 2001

Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth are among the most-wired towns in the U.S. Some of it is due to demographics, while part of the two towns’ connection to the Internet came by accident.

When TimeWarner Cable introduced its RoadRunner highspeed Internet access over cable television wires here in 1996, it was not because the company was looking for a test market, or even had much of a plan for the Portland area.

The system the company ordered for installation in San Diego was too small for that city. Scrambling to find a home for equipment it couldn’t otherwise use, TimeWarner looked at Portland, and brought RoadRunner to Maine, according to Maine’s RoadRunner general manager, Rick Preti.

That ordering mistake kicked Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth into the elite bracket of highspeed, easy-installation Internet access early in the Internet boom, according to analyst Antony Parchment of Internet Commerce Systems in Scarborough. The relative affluence of the two towns meant people could purchase Internet access. High educational levels of town residents meant they wanted to see what was out there on the newly dubbed “information superhighway.”

Imagine starting third grade at a school that has just under 800 students and which is about two acres in total size. That is what students entering Scarborough’s Wentworth Intermediate School face. The school is the town’s largest, housing all students in grades three through five.

The school is 78,700 square feet, with 52 classrooms, and can be quite an intimidating building to find your way around. The administrative staff joke about providing all visitors with a site map, but in the labyrinth that is Wentworth, it’s not such a bad idea.

For $5.7 million the town of Scarborough could have a nuts and bolts community center and park built at the former drive-in property off Route 1 and adjacent to Town Hall.

On Election Day residents will be asked whether they approve of the expense or not. Community Services Director Bruce Gullifer said he thinks the project will pass, “but it may be by a very slim margin.”

Gullifer’s department would be responsible for running the community center and his office would move from Town Hall to the community center, if it’s approved. The property was purchased by the town about four years ago after voters approved an $800,000 bond for that purpose. Nothing has been done with the property since then.

Pratt-Abbott dry cleaners on Route 1 will clean American flags for free. The company said it has always done so at all of its stores around the area, but has begun publicizing the service since Sept. 11.

With Election Day approaching, “Teen Talk” decided to ask students from Cape Elizabeth, “What is your opinion on voting and the elections?”

“I never would want to pass up the opportunity to change something.”–Evynne Morin “I’d be more informed if I were registered.” –Lucy Swope “It’s important to have more diversity in Maine.”–Emily McNeil “I’d definitely vote. You can’t really complain if you don’t.” –Nora Gross

———————–

A Massachusetts developer is trying to decide what his company will do with the land surrounding Scarborough Downs – one of the largest and best commercial locations in the state – after snatching it from the clutches of a New York development company. But whatever the company decides, the land will almost certainly become home to a big box store.

Eastern Development, a company based in Woburn, Mass., signed a 99-year lease for the property in late September. The company had been working on the deal for more than a year, according to Brian Kelly, the principal of Eastern Development. But at the same time another company, Feldco Development, based in Long Island, N.Y., had a contract to negotiate the sale or lease of the property.

Feldco had already done a wetlands study, a geotechnical study and had begun work with utility companies. Feldco was planning to pay the bills by filling part of their one million square feet of mixed-use space with a Wal-Mart Supercenter and a Sam’s Club as their anchor tenants, according to Eugene Beaudoin, a partner with Feldco.