Sept. 7, 1983

William O’Gara’s announcement Friday that he will not seek a sixth term as mayor of Westbrook has been followed by speculation that a big political appointment may be coming his way. An associate had let it be known in advance he expected O’Gara to announce his immediate resignation Friday. That didn’t happen. But why someone expected it to happen remained a mystery. In mid-summer, it was reported that O’Gara was a candidate to succeed Harold Raynolds as Maine’s commission of education. O’Gara told the American Journal at that time that he knew nothing about it. However, it was reported again this week that O’Gara was a candidate; that he reached the final 10, but that he was eliminated

when the candidates were narrowed to six. The new commissioner has not been named yet. In his announcement the mayor said he has “goals that cannot be reached for while I am still mayor” and “endeavors I am considering.”

Ronald Usher, who has served four terms in the state Legislature, the last three in the state Senate, said Monday he will run for mayor of Westbrook if he can get transferred to daytime work at the S.D. Warren paper mill. He said he

would expect the support of outgoing mayor William B.

O’Gara, and is the person O’Gara referred to when he said in

announcing his withdrawal Friday that he preferred a particular

candidate who would be announcing soon. Usher, who will be 45 years old this month, is a bulldozer operator in the wood yard section of he Warren mill and a member of the Carpenter’s and Joiners’ union.

The croon was unmistakable, though it was coming through a telephone wire, not a megaphone. Yes, it was Rudy Vallee, 82, the most famous man ever to come from Westbrook, speaking from his Hollywood, Calif., home. “Is there somewhere in Westbrook now that can seat 1,000 or 1,500 people?” Vallee asked in a friendly voice. “I don’t want to play a place with 5,000 or more, because I do a concert with a screen show,

and if there are that many in the audience, they can’t see the slides. My show runs two hours. I’d like to play in Westbrook or Portland,” the singer-actor said. “I could do it in the Portland City Hall if it’s still in good working condition.” As a Westbrook youth, Vallee, whose real name is Hubert Prior Vallee (he borrowed the “Rudy” from his saxophone-playing idol, 1920s great Rudy Wiedoeft), was known as the boy with the singing saxophone tone. Vallee’s radio fame, movie career and popularizing the “Maine Stein Song” is show business history,and Vallee will surely bring it back to life if and when he returns to Westbrook for the first time since 1970.

Sept. 8, 1993

Earlier this year Gorham residents successfully circulated budget recall petitions in front of the town’s Shop ‘N Save supermarket. That drive resulted in a second hearing that lopped some $115,000 off the town’s proposed expenditures. However, when a new petition drive began recently to place the question of a line item veto for the School Committee on the Nov. 2 ballot, its principal supporter was asked to leave the store’s property. That organizer, Jack Critchley, claims

that he was asked to leave as a direct result of pressure applied to the store by the school department. Critchley said that although the superintendent himself may not have approached Shop ‘n Save, someone from the school department did. He also alleged that they were” helped by Carol Day, a former politician who is apparently a politician again.” In addition, Critchley charged that the school department coerced teachers and other employees not to sign the petition. “It was

all a way to keep the issue off the November ballot,” he said. Officials from the Gorham School Department and the supermarket all deny any conspiracy.

Superintendent Edward Connolly has named Saccarappa School’s principal, Deborah Peck, to succeed Nicholas Kakitis, retired, as director of special education for the Westbrook schools, and Sharon Bookataub, adult education director, as acting principal of Saccarappa School. He has not picked an adult education director yet to serve during Bookataub’s absence from that job.

The fate of a proposed year-round skating rink on Westbrook’s Lincoln Street appeared somewhat clouded by doubts this week. There were those led by Mayor Fred Wescott, who

saw the rink as a remedy for teen-age troubles. There were others who saw it as a magnet for teen-age troublemakers. The Cornelia Warren Foundation offered the city $35,000 to build the rink nearly two years ago on city land that had been used as an ice-skating rink for years. It would be flooded for ice-skaters in the winter and used for in-line and roller skating the rest of the year. “People will be coming down the river and be making trouble. It’s not like the Little League, where parents are there to supervise. I hope we’re going to notify people in the neighborhood that it’s going in there,” warned

Alderman Don Richards.