Aug. 30, 1989

Cianbro Corp. proposes to build a $125 million gas-fired electric power plant in Gorham. The huge plant would generate at least 117 megawatts of power, over a third as much as Central Maine Power Co. now gets from Maine Yankee’s total projection. The Pittsfield-based firm has joined forces with Besicorp Group Inc. of Kingston, N.Y., to develop plans for the facility, to be built on around 15 acres owned by CMP directly abutting the Gorham Industrial Park. The land, at the end of Hutcherson Drive, is home to a CMP substation on a high-tension power line leading west from its Cousins Island power plant. “We like the Gorham site,” said Cianbro’s Peter Vigue. Plans for the project were expected to be unveiled in a workshop session of the Gorham Town Council Tuesday. The project has been a tightly kept secret among town officials since June. If accepted, it would be completed by the last quarter of 1992 and would mean a tax boon for the town.

Pledging more openness, an S.D. Warren spokesman acknowledged Monday that a new stink is coming from the Westbrook paper mill, but promised relief. “By November, I think we’ll have it under control to the point it won’t be an issue any more,” said Ray Pepin, the mill’s director of environmental controls. Pepin appeared before the Westbrook City Council and Mayor Philip Spiller at Spiller’s invitation, he said. “We’re finally getting our act together after a couple of months of problems,” Pepin said. “We won’t necessarily eliminate it, but we will substantially reduce the odor coming from the mill. The old smell, hydrogen sulfide, rotten eggs, has been reduced significantly. We’ve reduced the methyl mercaptan, which smells like the cabbage in a boiled dinner. But we did not anticipate the new system at the mill could be generating more dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide, which have sharper and more pungent odor.”

Advertisement: Coming Sept. 6-9: Kiwanis Karnival, Riverbank Park, Westbrook, with Billy Burr’s Funorama. Gigantic midway, 101 attractions. Laughs, thrills, excitement for everyone. Proceeds benefit Westbrook Kiwanis Club’s local charities and projects.

Three couples have joined together to open the new Gorham Laundry Center in the site formerly occupied by CarQuest Auto Parks in the Village Mall Shopping Center. The owners are Joseph and Antoinette Madjerac of Portland, Enda and Ralph Foster of Gorham and Shirley and Gary Work of Hollis. Ralph Foster is manager, though all are sharing in running the business.

A surprise 35th wedding anniversary party honoring Mr. and Mrs. Arnold C. Eames, 22 Waltham St., Westbrook, was held July 30. It was given by their daughters and their husbands. The former Marjorie Burnell and Mr. Eames were married July 31, 1954.

Sept. 1, 1999

“The intent is to clean up the site,” David Elowitch said yesterday, explaining Storage Realty’s plans for the former manufacturing plant of Maine Rubber International, between Main Street and William Clark Drive in downtown Westbrook. The buildings have been vacant for a few weeks, since Maine Rubber moved to a modern building off Bartlett Road in Gorham’s industrial park. A sign on the building for months has promoted it as a “Future Pad Site,” an evident reference to demolition before reuse.

Ruthie Noble moved over Aug. 9 from the city finance department to be the new deputy to Westbrook City Clerk Barbara Hawkes. Noble has worked for the city for about a year after a 19-year career in insurance, most of that time for Clark Insurance. She and her husband Kirk live on the County Road in Westbrook.

As the fight over last year’s rent increase lingers unresolved in Superior Court, the bell has been sounded for Round 2 in The Hamlet mobile home park’s fight against its tenant association and the Westbrook Rent Justification Board. Tenants’ attorney Tina Schneider and Rent Board members Pat Peoples and Chris Harvey scolded The Hamlet’s out-of-state owners for not showing up at a preliminary meeting Thursday on the park’s request to raise rents by $39 a month. In a 2-0 vote, the board declared that it would automatically find in favor of the tenants and reject the rent increase unless Hamlet owner Richard Kellam, of Virginia Beach, Va., provides a stack of detailed financial documents by Sept. 9. The meeting was an extension of a May 25 meeting, in which Kellam asked for an extension to gather financial documents. Schneider said she was “appalled” that Kellam asked for an extension and then failed to produce the documents he promised. “It’s the height of arrogance,” she said.

The Westbrook School Committee got its first look Wednesday at a proposed floor plan for new superintendent’s offices at the building known as the Castle, located near the high school, and questions arouse over whether the building might require a costly elevator installation to provide handicapped access to second floor special education offices. Bad air and water problems have forced the school department to relocate two employees in a portable outside the existing superintendent’s offices at 596 Main St. The Castle was chosen as a possible site for the superintendent’s office because the building is already owned by the school department. It has been used for the culinary arts program and the Vocational Center but will be vacated in December when the new, $6.9 million Regional Vocational Center is scheduled to open.

A newsletter published by Morgan Dental Care, 94 Main St., Gorham, warns that chewing ice, whole popcorn kernels or pens could lead to a cracked tooth. Morgan advises people not to clench or grind their teeth, to wear an athletic mouth guard while playing sports and to consider wearing a similar mouth guard if you tend to clench or grind your teeth while sleeping.

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50 YEARS AGO

The Westbrook American reported on Aug. 26, 1964, that the railroad bridge on South Street was removed by the state, with the town paying $3,000 of the $9,817 cost.

In Buxton, Larry Wilson of Bonny Eagle Pond was visiting in Weymouth, Mass., for a week.

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The Salvation Army operated from a building at 10 Fitch St. for many years.  This undated photo shows some of the members, staff and children standing in front of the building. The Salvation Army closed this location and for a brief time the building was occupied by a Counseling Service for Teenagers. In 1975 the building was demolished by urban renewal. The site of the old building is now a section of the parking lot behind the Family Dollar Store. 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.