Dec. 29, 1982

The Gorham Town Council last week approved the purchase of a new fire truck for $95,658, a rescue unit vehicle for $57,090, and a solid waste trailer for $10,000. The expenditures are part of the 1982-83 capital improvements budget approved by the Rown Council in June. Both trailer and rescue unit will be paid for with federal revenue sharing money. Bonds will be issued for a maximum of five years to pay for the fire truck.

Westbrook’s Board of Assessment Review has the first job in its

nearly five-year history It will decide whether Westbrook is fair in taxing the wood chip storage building at the S.D. Warren Division, Scott Paper Co. It’s an $82,000 decision, but affects only 1982 taxes. The city has conceded that future taxes on the building (but not on its equipment) are barred by a state decision that it’s for pollution control and non-taxable. City Solicitor James Gagan said the Board of Environmental

Protection’s rules don’t require it to notify the city, and so

Westbrook had no chance to be heard when the BEP decided that the chip building is for pollution control.

The Westbrook High School girls basketball team improved its record to 3-0 last week with wins over Deering and McAuley high schools on the road. The Blazes breezed past the Ram, 83-40.

Mayor William O’Gara said he’d look into the question of whether Casco Bank has guaranteed the rent on the Finard Block’s vacant stores. Roger Welch, the chairman of the Westbrook Urban Renewal Authority, said, also in response to questions about that agreement, that he doesn’t recall ever reading anything about the level of Finard rents, or about a Casco Bank-Finard agreement about the rents, nor

has he heard anything about them. The Finard building was the first one built on land cleared by urban renewal in downtown Westbrook Its three stores face Westbrook Common, the central plaza in the Westbrook Urban Renewal Authority plan.

Dec. 30, 1992

The Westbrook High School Marching Band left Westbrook in two waves Sunday, and about 200 Westbrook adults have gone or will be leaving at once to be on hand when the band marches in the Tournament of Roses parade before a world TV audience in Pasadena, Calif.

In 36 years as a resident of Pasadena, Bill Cary has seen a lot of bands march down Orange Grove Boulevard in Tournament of Roses parades. None has thrilled him the way one will Friday. Bill graduated from Westbrook High School in 1951. He’ll be applauding the Big Blue Marching Band at every step it takes as it passes his accustomed parade-watching spot. In Westbrook High School circles, Bill Cary is well-remembered 41 years after his graduation. He was a star of the 1951 basketball team, state big-school champions and undefeated until it lost to a Massachusetts team in the New Englands. He was also a pitching star of the state championship baseball team.

Westbrook’s ex-mayor, Philip Spiller, was in a Christmas week

accident in South Portland. Spiller, 70, of 767 Sawyer Road,

was driving east on Market Street in his 1987 Ford pickup

when Eric C. Young, 37, of 82 Bowdoin Ave., South Portland came out of the Shaw’s lot in front of him. The police accident report said Young failed to yield, and Spiller hit Young’s 1992 Ford pickup, owned by Peter J. Fontaine, Yarmouth. Both drivers were wearing seat belts. Neither was hurt.

Joel Hawkes retired Monday, bringing to an end 86 years in which his family owned and operated Westbrook Star Laundry Inc. The new owner is Cintas, of Cincinnati, Ohio. Cintas also is a family-owned business, but bigger. Westbrook becomes the 92nd facility it owns in the U. S. and Canada. “Star” is a word often used in conjunction with laundries, Hawkes said, carrying the sense of rightness, and this one had been named the Westbrook Star Laundry since George Perrin founded

the business in 1894.

Eight-year-old John Burke did just what his father told him to do Christmas morning, but his actions had nothing to do with opening presents. Instead, the plucky Gorham youngster is credited with snatching his 20-month-old brother, Kevin, from his crib and bringing him downstairs to his mother, Kathy, who had just called the fire department. No one was injured in the 3 a.m. blaze, which gutted the first floor of the Sunset Lane home. The rest of the home received extensive smoke and water damage. Just about all of the family’s belongings were destroyed and the dog was lost.

Panelists of Channel 10’s Saturday evening “Media Watch” program were discussing the state election ballot question again this week, stating that Maine newspapers were still ignoring the many questions involved. Al Diamon spoke up, saying that a weekly, the American Journal of Westbrook, was one paper that had done an in-depth review of the question. Other panelists asked how this paper found so much information. Diamon said it was due to the editor, and

to the reporters making many phone calls to people involved. Praise is sweet!