(Editor’s note: Looking Back is a weekly column including news items reported 10 years ago in The Current, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in September 2011.)

Issue of May 10, 2002

Voters in November will be asked to change the town charter to allow the Town Council to spend an estimated $3 million to put public utilities in along Haigis Parkway.

The council originally thought it had the right to approve the expenditure under exemptions listed in the town charter for capital expenditures. Under the current charter, all capital projects over $400,000 have to be approved by voters with the exception of town streets, sidewalks, or storm or sanitary sewers. But there is no exception for the construction of public utilities.

In order to provide all the services needed to develop the Haigis Parkway into a high-end business area, town officials hope to put in a new sewer and a host of underground public utilities such as electricity, telephone, fiber optics and cable.

Public utilities would cost an estimated $3 million and sewers, which the council can approve on its own, would run $4 million.

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Town Council’s Ordinance Committee, Councilors Mark Maroon, Suzanne Foley-Ferguson and Sylvia Most agreed to seek a change to the charter instead of asking for voter approval of the $3 million.

Dick Anderson gazed out at the rocks and invasive plants covering the marsh from his perch on Blue Point Road, where in 1996, the worst flood the town had ever seen washed the bridge out. The flood took the life of a man who tried to cross the bridge in his truck.

It also scarred the surface of the marsh that stretches between Blue Point Road and the Scarborough Marsh Nature Center on Pine Point Road known as Cascade Brook. “When this washed out it just went out with a big woosh,” Anderson said, raising his hands toward the marsh.

Anderson and other members of the Friends of Scarborough Marsh announced a plan Tuesday night to restore what may be the most severely damaged section of the marsh. This second marsh restoration project will be the most complex project the group has undertaken.

A student at Cape Elizabeth High School passed a counterfeit $10 bill in the school cafeteria last month, Cape police say. A lunchroom staff member accepted the bill as genuine. It was later discovered to be a “very bad” fake.

School Resource Officer Paul Gaspar said the staff member was not willing to help police identify the student who passed the bill, for fear of “retribution.”

Gaspar said the bill was a “very bad” copy of a real $10 bill. The student remains unidentified, and police say they have seen no additional fake currency in town.

For artist and graphic designer Karla Whitney of Cape Elizabeth making maps is a way to keep on thinking and learning something new every day. Whitney’s maps are not the type one would find in a schoolbook on geography, but the type one might find when opening an old book or manuscript.

Whitney’s whimsical, fun and informative maps are on display at the Thomas Memorial Library in Cape Elizabeth throughout the month of May.

Whitney uses pen and ink, watercolor and gold leaf, among other materials, to make art of her maps.

“These maps don’t answer all the questions. They really open up conversations between people.

That’s the part of it that I really love,” Whitney said. Whitney and her husband also do all of the framing and matting of her maps that range in color from sea green, to gold to ocean blue.

Scarborough residents soon will have a chance to shape the future of the town – how it should be developed and at what pace – and to identify the natural and historic resources that are the most important.

Starting the week of June 17, neighborhood meetings will be held all around town by Planning Decisions, the firm hired by the town to find out what people are thinking and what their vision is for Scarborough.

This “visioning process is a different approach to updating the town’s comprehensive plan,” said Frank O’Hara of Planning Decisions in an interview. “Scarborough is looking to update the comprehensive plan which was last looked at in 1994.

Usually hard facts such as population, types of housing, land use and changes in the economy would be collected first. But the visioning process starts with the end product of what do, you, the citizens want the town to be. We are asking people to share their vision, their values and their hopes not just for their own neighborhoods but also for the town as a whole,” O’Hara said.

The Cape Elizabeth Barbecue Team is in what one captain calls “a rebuilding year.” Started last year by two seniors, the torch of leadership has now passed to three senior captains, and the brother of one of the team’s founders.

The team performed well at the Special Olympics track meet, held at CEHS May 3, grilling up hot dogs and hamburgers for hungry fans and athletes. It was the first foray into spring sports for the team. “So far it’s only been a fall sport,” said captain Kevin Scesa, describing outstanding performances on the sidelines of Cape football games.

“It’s our first barbecue in a while. We’re a little rusty,” said Brett Cary, brother of team founder Chris, as he warmed up the grill for the event.

In an adventurous foray, the team not only heated meat products over three charcoal grills, but branched out. “We’ve never toasted buns before,” Cary said. It wasn’t a big success, with the first few bread products blackening in the heat.