Dec. 20, 1989

Scott Paper Co. paid the other $458,506.18 of its Westbrook taxes Monday and is taking its case to a board appointed by the governor that hears appeals from town and city assessments on business property worth more than $500,000. Scott thus far has said it will go to the state board only on the question of what its LEPS (Low Energy Pulping System) buildings and equipment at the S.D. Warren paper mill were worth on April 1, 1988, when they were incomplete. It may ask the state board to rule also on what the whole mill was worth on April 1, 1989. The city is holding secret the actual language of the agreement, announced Monday night after the mayor and City Council held a secret meeting with City Solicitor Michael Cooper.Cooper brought to the meeting the Scott check, drawn on a Tacoma, Wash., bank, and delivered it to City Council President Donald Esty Jr.

It lacks the antiquity of Oxford and Cambridge, perhaps, but the bell ringers of Westbrook High School have a tradition of 24 years that harkens back to Westminster and the shires of the English countryside. Since 1965, the Westbrook boys have been performing with bells. They rang them yesterday for the Westbrook Woman’s Club and Thursday for the Senior Friendship Club. The original 16 of Westbrook’s 42 bells were bought in Holland for $375. Capable of playing portions of four octaves, the entire set today would cost somewhere around $4,000 to replace, according to Walter Hayes, bell-ringing instructor and high school math teacher.

Westbrook’s new Officer Friendly, Dave Roubo, is an all-around good guy with a clean-cut look and a smile to capture the hearts of children. Roubo, 26, was recently selected from the ranks of Westbrook’s finest to re-activate the presence of Officer Friendly in the schools. Roubo’s official titles, a newly created one of school liaison officer, actually combines two other responsibilities. He will also handled juvenile cases coming out of the schools and will replace Officer Shawn McDermott as the teacher in the DARE program.

Willing hands who’ve felt the blessing in giving of time and energy fit right into the picture of Christmas. This is the second year that the Gorham Merry Makers 4-H Club has raised vegetables for the hungry in Greater Portland. This year over 2,500 pounds of food was planted, weeded, picked and distributed. Twenty 4-Hers and nine parents helped raise the produce, which was distributed at the welfare department, St. Anne’s Senior Citizens meal site and EFNEP. One week’s produce fed 27 families in Greater Portland through the EFNEP program, which works with low-income families.

John Macarelli has been Gorham town manager only a short time, but already he has plans for the town. “I want to develop a long-range capital improvement program that will facilitate achieving municipal as well was school program needs,” he said. Marcarelli, 34, moved Oct. 29 from his home in Pennsylvania, and assumed his Gorham duties Nov. 1. He said there are building expansion needs for both the schools and the town, including expanding the Municipal Center, the public works garage and high school and junior high school. “I also see the need to have a regular program for road construction and maintenance,” he said.

Dec. 22, 1999

Westbrook’s municipal officers have set a public hearing for Feb. 7 on a liquor license application for Andy’s Tavern, 212 Brown St. The application is in the name of a new owner, Mark Edward Merrill, 165 Duck Pond Road. No paperwork about the application was in the meeting packet provided to this newspaper, and City Clerk Barbara Hawkes said none was provided to any councilor.

Road construction has already begun in Susan Duchaine’s proposed 19-acre subdivision, Sewell Farms, off Queen Street in Gorham. When the road is completed in five or six weeks, she said, she plans to begin constructing houses. The road was started less than two weeks after the subdivision was approved, with conditions, Dec. 6 by the Planning Board and immediately after the Board of Appeals decided Thursday against a neighbor’s appeal of subdivision approval.

John Hay was honored Thursday at Walker Memorial Library for his 46 years of service as a member of the library board of regents. Roy Robinson, also long active in library matters, was honored for recently giving the library his late wife Anne’s Chickering spinet piano. They were feted during the library’s annual Christmas party, which drew a bigger crowd than in any prior year in memory.

Maritimes and Northeast has completed a 205-miles gas pipeline between Westbrook and Baileyville as part of a 650-miles line from gas fields off Nova Scotia to Massachusetts. The company described the Maine part in a letter to state Rep. Ronald Usher, D-Westbrook. “More than 1,500 Maine people helped build the stretch. Maritimes and its contractors spent $49 million utilizing the services of close to 800 Maine businesses. The pipeline was completed on schedule in just over five months. During that time, we successfully crossed more than 400 bodies of water and 150 roads.”

B2B Explorer, a start-up Internet company, will open in the former Dana Warp mill in Westbrook this week. It expects to employ 20 people. Meanwhile, Harvard Net has leased 10,679 square feet behind Blockbuster Video at the Larrabee Complex, 100 Main St., Westbrook, it was also announced this week. Tommy L. Andrews, Gorham has been named CEO of B2B Explorer. He is a former senior vice president at Wright Express, South Portland. The company was launched in July by Jeffrey S. Taplin, Cumberland, who serves as president. Michael Liberty, Gray, is a founding partner. Harvard Net is a Boston-based company providing Internet and web design services to businesses. It is relocated from Portland.

Westbrook music director George Bookataub collapsed at work at the high school yesterday morning and was taken by rescue ambulance to the Maine Medical Center, where he was in the cardiac intensive care unit at press time. Bookataub has been preparing to lead the high school band in an appearance in the Orange Bowl parade on New Year’s Day in Orlando, Fla.

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50 Years Ago

The Westbrook American reported on Dec. 16, 1964, that Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Willis served on a committee that organized the Christmas supper and tree for the Gorham Social Club.

Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Libby of West Buxton opened their home for a party honoring The Rev. and Mrs. L.D. Campbell, who were relocating to a church in Burnham.

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The Westbrook Municipal Parking Lot was located on Main Street opposite Central Street, which once connected to Main Street.The parking lot bordered the Presumpscot River, and the city Public Works Department had a snow dump at the rear of the lot to dump snow into the river. This lot served the downtown merchants for many years. Urban renewal took the property and developed it into Saccarappa Park, the Bridge Street traffic spur and a small parking area. The building shown here is the Dana Warp Mill, which is located across the river on Bridge Street. To see more historical photos and artifacts, visit the Westbrook Historical Society at the Fred C. Wescott Building, 426 Bridge St. It is open Tuesdays and Saturdays, 9 a.m.-noon, and the first Wednesday of each month at 1:30 p.m., September-June. Inquiries can be emailed to westhistorical@myfairpoint.net. The website is www.westbrookhistoricalsociety.org. 

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