Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

September 7, 2012

Dispatches

From staff and news services

WINDHAM

Centenarian dies days before receiving Boston Post Cane

The would-be recipient of the town's Boston Post Cane died Sunday, before officially receiving the honor.

Ruth Grant, 100, was a resident of Windham Center Road for 95 years, until she moved last year to Ledgewood Manor nursing home, where she died. Town Clerk Linda Morrell had planned to present the cane to Grant on Thursday.

Morrell selected Grant as the recipient of the cane after a months-long search for someone who deserved the honor, meant to be given to the town's oldest resident. Although Grant wasn't the oldest, Morrell chose her for her strong ties to Windham, where she lived and worked nearly all her life.

Morrell has chosen another resident of Ledgewood Manor as the new recipient. From searching through voter registration records, Morrell believes 104-year-old Clista Loring is the oldest resident of Windham.

Morrell said she knows of one other person who is 104, but he is three months younger than Loring. She plans to present the cane to Loring on Sept. 19.

RAYMOND

Man who drowned in lake was Massachusetts resident

The Cumberland County Sheriff's Office has identified the man who drowned Thursday in Crescent Lake as William Prouty, 87, of New Hartford, Conn.

Prouty and his wife, Chantel, were closing up their seasonal camp on a small island in the lake when Prouty left to pick up the maintenance van on the mainland. When he did not return, his wife went looking for him. She found him in the water near the island's dock at 9:25 a.m. and called 911. The boat was still tied up.

Police do not consider his death suspicious. The cause will be determined by the state Medical Examiner's Office.

PORTLAND

Police fix error, end access to Social Security numbers

The Cumberland County Sheriff's Office says it has corrected a software mistake that exposed the Social Security numbers of about 180 people who were arrested from Aug. 27 to Sept. 4 on the county's Facebook page.

Sheriff Kevin Joyce said the error was discovered within 45 minutes after a software update was done Tuesday. The error gave about 70 people access to the Social Security numbers of longer-term inmates and people who were arrested, brought to the jail and released on the same day, Joyce said.

The software was updated to enable the sheriff's office to send a weekly arrest report to media outlets and to post arrests to the county's Facebook page. Ten media outlets and about 60 Facebook followers had access to the information during the 45 minutes the numbers were posted.

The software update has been customized and will not include Social Security numbers in the future.

Bowles to speak on efforts, ideas to lower national debt

Former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles will be in Portland this weekend to talk about the national debt and the effort he led to reduce the deficit.

Bowles will take part in a town hall event Sunday at the University of Southern Maine that was organized by the Angus King for Senate campaign. King invited Bowles to participate in the campaign event and has said he agrees with the overall approach of the report.

"While I may not agree on all the details, I think the overall approach ... makes a great deal of sense: cut spending in an intelligent way, simplify the tax code, cut tax rates and eliminate most loopholes to generate additional revenue," King wrote in a statement on his website.

Bowles, a Democrat who served President Bill Clinton, was co-chair of the bipartisan commission along with former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming. The commission was appointed by President Obama and released an outline last year of ways to reduce the national debt by $4 trillion by 2020, mostly through spending cuts.

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