Nov. 24, 1982

Alderman voted 4-3 to take the Public Safety Commission out of the choice of a future police chief or fire chief in Westbrook. It’s a victory for Mayor William O’Gara, who said the commission didn’t take him or the aldermen into its confidence enough when it was choosing three finalists for police chief this fall. The commission’s refusals to keep the municipal officers up to date on details of its selections was “very close to insulting,” O’Gara charged. Since 1963, the Public Safety Commission has been charged under the city ordinance with

picking the final three chief candidates. From those three, the mayor appoints one.

From the city police log: Bill Welsh, 91 Central St., reported at

11:30 p.m. that someone shot at him an hour earlier of Central Street. He believes he knows who did it. The crossing signals and bell were on at the Seavey Street railroad crossing at midnight for no apparent reason. Trees around the high school were decorated again with toilet tissue.

A woman on horseback came upon two men with shotguns in the woods off Saco Street and warned them against hunting in the city. Two hours later police got a report that hunters were firing in the same woods, and notified a game warden.

The Gorham School Committee expelled a student from the high school, but wouldn’t say who it was or why. The expulsion took place in executive session. State statues allow school committees to “expel any obstinately disobedient and disorderly scholar, after a proper investigation of his behaviors, if found necessary for the peace and usefulness of the school.”

The Gorham field hockey team, Class B state champion, will lose six players to graduation. Five of these, Cindy Philbrick, Denise Caron, Katrina Northrop, Tammy Mountain and Kim Boothby, were consistent starters. Lisa Marone played wing.

Nov. 25, 1992

Bringing demolition debris, tree stumps and white goods to a

proposed Regional Waste Systems landfill in Gorham may cost $113 a ton to dump, but half of that fee would likely be subsidized by the haulers, who use the RWS incinerator in Portland. “This is a project that has been driven by state regulatory concerns. And there are some significant risks associated with it,” said Eric Root. He is RWS’s project manager for the Gorham site. The RWS board agreed

unanimously to proceed with plans to build the dump on land off Route 25 known as the Ross Grant tract. The first phase would be five acres.

Kids, who used to dump their white milk, now drink their chocolate milk. “There is some extra sugar and caffeine in it, but they’re getting the calcium,” David MacDowell, director of school food services, told the Westbrook School Committee. ” Before, a lot of milk was going into he garbage. Now, they’re drinking it,” he said. “Maine was the last state in the nation to approve chocolate milk,” he said. “We do use low -at milk for it, though.”

From the city police log: Three men were arrested for disorderly conduct and taken to the Cumberland County Jail from the Pockets. “A large fight” in the area of the bar was reported at 9:45 p.m., and one of the men, age 30, was arrested then. Sheriffs were looking for him on another

charge. A Seavey Street man surprised a man prying a

screen off a window on his porch at 11 p.m. At 8 a.m. a man said his wife had assaulted him. Dennis West, 142 Forest St., said his son woke up to find a burglar in the house. The burglar ran out. A man came home at 64 Austin St. at 5 p.m., and found that his house had been gone through and things were missing. At midnight, a patrolman found that someone had broken a hole in the front window at Oxford Bank.

Deer may know they can’t be shot in Westbrook, where shooting is against the law, but apparently many of them haven’t heard about cars. David Russell of Sweetser Road, Cumberland, Westbrook Police Sgt. Kirkwood L. Malloy, Arthur W. Bourn, Parker H. Jones, Howard G. Yeaton Sr., Jane E. Faulker, and Kristine Dorion, all hit deer in Westbrook

during hunting season.

Without advance public notice, the Westbrook School Committee voted 7-0 to hold the 1993 Westbrook High School graduation exercises in Portland City Hall. Principal William Michaud, who strongly favored the move, said he was “85 percent sure” that the hall would be available on Sunday, June 13. He said he wanted to reserve it as soon as possible.