April 4, 1984

The lingering hope that some of Paul Leighton’s eight severed fingers could be saved by Boston surgeons flickered out Sunday, and the 22-year-old Westbrook man “took it pretty hard, according to a close family friend. He was warned that surgeons considered the reattachment a failure, and he was scheduled for more surgery April 5, when the reattached fingers will be taken off. Leighton had both hands in the way when a metal-bending press at Data General closed down on them with tons of pressure early last week, and all eight fingers were squeezed off close below their second joints. His expecting wife Edna is at his bedside in the Boston hospital. About the best that could be said for Leighton’s hands this week was that he has two good thumbs and at least part of each of his eight fingers.

It will be Tuffy Laffin against William B. O’Gara for the privilege of opposing Russell Day. Charles Malcolm Roma announced reluctantly yesterday that he would withdraw his name from the race for the Democratic nomination for the District 33 seat in the Maine House of Representatives. An unexpected opportunity for advancement in his employment forced him to choose, Roma said. He couldn’t, in good conscience, go after the job knowing that the election to the Legislature would take him away from it, he said. Roma is a salesman at Haverty Buick, Portland.

Led by Mayor Philip Spiller, aldermen retreated Monday from

appropriation of $700 for rings for Westbrook High School’s state

basketball champions. Spiller said he hoped private plans to honor the team will be continued but asked for a delay in spending tax money until he has a chance to review the whole idea with School Supt. Edward Connolly.

Long-term substitute teachers will be paid higher pay from the

first day they teach, under a policy recommended to the Westbrook School Committee recently.

Gorham police notes: After several students asked a night clerk

at 7-Eleven to change a $50 bill and the clerk refused, they became mouthy. A telephone operator told police she had received a phone call from a woman who was upset and asked for the police. The operator got her number, but when police called her, she said no help was needed, and hung up.

April 6, 1994

Westbrook’s acting mayor, Kenneth Lefebvre, was in Pensacola,

Fla., Monday through Thursday last week. His business trip produced an explosion of charges from Alderman Don Richards in Monday’s City Council meeting. Then came talk of censoring and suing Richards. Richards insisted that the city charter requires that the mayor put someone in his place when he leaves the city. He accused Lefebvre or his administrative assistant Jeff Grossman of lying to him about whether Lefebvre did that. Grossman said he’d be talking to a lawyer about whether he can sue Richards for his Monday remarks. Lefebvre and City Solicitor Michael Cooper said Cooper advised Lefebvre that he didn’t need to name an acting mayor. Lefebvre also said that he left Alderman Elmer Welch in charge for anything that needed immediate attention.

The person who took their money may be escaping prosecution, but people who paid cash in Westbrook may not have valid auto

registrations. The need for firm evidence may stand in the way of any court charges against the still-unnamed city Finance Department employee suspected of pocketing registration fees.

Mark Vokey died Dec. 31 of acute alcoholism, a prescription drug

and heroin, the state medical examiner’s office said Friday. Police Chief Ronald Allanach was present when Vokey was carried out of

The Bus Stop, a downtown Westbrook bar. He believes one individual provided heroin to Vokey there. The investigation has been turned over to federal agents, Allanach said.

With misgivings, the Westbrook City Council voted Monday to let

Marshall Mack dig up Longfellow Street to replace electric heat with gas in his 90-apartment Longfellow Place. Mack said his annual light bill has gone up $27,000 since he bought the property in 1988. He said he can use the savings of gas to provide more services for tenants.