April 8, 1987

Timothy Plooff, 23, Buxton, escaped from the Maine Correctional Center March 30 by keeping on going on his way to the Dumpster with a rubbish bucket. Plooff, who had three months to go on a one-year sentence for theft, was still at large yesterday. Plooff went down into woods toward the Presumpscot River, correctional center Superintendent James Clemons said, and was believed last seen by the river. Gorham police arrested Plooff in August 1986 after he got in a fight with some Gorham youths and rammed a stolen car into the front door of Gorham High School. He was arrested for this and for numerous burglaries in the area, said Gorham Police Chief David Kurz. He was sentenced to a year at the MCC and two years probation in January, with six months credited from earlier jail time before he made bail. Clemons said they would prosecute Plooff for the escape when they catch him, and this would make his sentence longer.

Two bridges in Gorham, the Gambo Bridge over the Presumpscot River at Newhall and the Mitchell Hill Bridge over the Nonesuch in South Gorham, are likely to be replaced in the next two years. The Gorham Town Council was to vote yesterday on authorizing preliminary Maine Department of Transportation design work, and also for repaving the deck of the North Gorham bridge.

As part of its ongoing exchange program with the Lycee Rabelais in Meudon, France, Westbrook High School is presently host to a three-week visit for 11 French high school students. The program, which runs until April 26, is in the second year of Westbrook’s involvement. In February, five Westbrook students spent three weeks in Meudon, a suburb of Paris, accompanied by James Parr, a French teacher at the high school.

Members of Westbrook’s School Committee, and former members if they’re willing, will dig into their own pockets for $600 of college scholarship money this spring. The School Committee has voted 7-0 to award two School Committee scholarships this school year of $300 each. One will go to a young man and the other to a young woman, who are in the second semester of their freshman year of college. A committee of the School Committee members will pick the winners.

The Gorham Town Council was set to authorize issuing $2,865,000 in bonds for construction of sewer lines and pumping stations for the Village sewer, and $165,000 for repaving parts of routes 25 and 114, totaling $3,030,000 in one lump sum. The sewer money was authorized by referendum in January, and the council approved the money for road improvements March 19.

April 9, 1997

The City Council tabled a request from the School Committee Monday for $85,000 in fees for the architect already at work on plans for enlarging the Westbrook Regional Vocational Center. Aldermen Don Richards and Martin Pizzo took turns raising questions about the fees. Keith Gorman voted no, and Alexander Juniewicz missed the meeting. Martha Day, chairwoman of the School Committee, asked for the $85,000 in a letter to Mayor Kenneth Lefebvre dated March 5. It came before the City Council Monday.

The Gorham School Committee was to have adopted a school budget last night to present to the Town Council April 30. The budget has been recommended by Superintendent Timothy McCormack at $14,592,013, which meets a Town Council request. That’s up 2.53 percent from last year’s $14,152,543 adopted budget.

The Westbrook City Council voted 6-0 Monday to use S.D. Warren “short paper fiber sludge” and sand to give the final cover to the Saco Street landfill. Referred to as “manufactured topsoil,” the mix has been used successfully in Gorham and Falmouth projects, Engineering Director Donald Mannett told the City Council. The sludge used is not sanitary sludge, and if there is a smell it will last only a day or two, aldermen were told. The council order authorizes up to $40,000 for BFI Organics, a company that would haul about 4,000 cubic hands of sand to be bought and trucked to the site by the city. The total cost of the project wasn’t estimated, but using the sludge-sand mix will save the city $144,000.

The office of Westbrook Mayor Kenneth Lefebvre has proposed10 different ideas, a few of them likely to cost big money, for the city. Among the more expensive: A new recreation “facility,” reportedly to take the place of the recreation center if the old high school is sold to the Westbrook Housing Authority. The administration asks the Finance Committee to consider a Capital Improvements Plan and borrowing money through a bond issue to pay for it. It asks the Public Safety Committee also to consider “restructuring” the Rescue Unit.

Gorham Savings Bank President Ron Demers, outlining details about his bank’s proposed operation center off Gray Road at a Planning Board meeting in March, said a daily trip would still be made to the post office – “unless the post office chooses a closer point of delivery to us. That’s up to them.” The bank and post office now are next-door neighbors. But the post office plans to move to an uncertain location and the bank will move part of its offices.

Peter and Debbie Loveitt, Andrew and Katie, Flaggy Meadow Road, Gorham, and Katie’s friend Dawn Brown spent a five-day vacation in March touring Puerto Rico. They made their headquarters in San Juan, where they enjoyed swimming and body surfing in the warm Atlantic. A special treat for Andrew on the flight was to visit with his dad’s friends in the cockpit. Peter Loveitt is a pilot for the airline.

This turn-of-the century photo of Cumberland Street shows the Warren Congregational Church, which was built in 1869 on Warren Avenue at Cumberland Street.  The building behind the church was constructed in 1880 by Samuel D. Warren to serve as a parsonage. In 1957 a brick Parish House was built on Warren Avenue next to the church. The Warren Congregational Church and the Westbrook Congregational merged in the 1970s and built a new church downtown after urban renewal took the old Westbrook Congregational Church. The old Warren church, parsonage and parish house were sold to the city of Westbrook. The church was demolished, the parsonage sold and moved to upper Cumberland Street near the Windham line and the parish house became the Westbrook Police Station. In 2005, a new Public Safety Building was built and the police station was relocated there. The old station and land were sold, the building demolished and now a Maine Medical Center professional building occupies the site. 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.