Dec. 14, 1983

Good paperwork has helped Westbrook police clear up about 50 crimes over a period of three months. Almost all are committed by juveniles. Patrolman Charlotte Adams, working in chiefly off duty hours, cataloged the series of crimes, spotted similar items and went after additional information. With this material, police then carried out a series of interviews that led them to the people they wanted.

Patrolman Ronald Allanach listed these among the incidents: Two boys, 11 and 13 years old committed a strong-arm robbery in Cumberland Mills. An adult committed a strong-arm robbery on Brown Street; a warrant has been issued and he is being sought. Three juveniles were charged with ringing a false alarm apiece and a fourth with ringing two.

No fines will be charged for overdue books brought in to Walker

Memorial Library, 800 Main St., Westbrook, during December, regardless of the due date. But on Jan. 3, fines will go up from the present 2 cents to 4 cents a book a day, with a maximum charge of $2 a book regardless of when it was due.

The fourth draft of a proposed zoning amendment specifying several permitted changes in nonconforming uses is being reviewed by the Gorham Board of Appeals and will be returned to the Planning Board with suggestions and recommendations before its Jan. 9 meeting. It would need Town Council action to become law. The amended code would let the board approve many changes from one nonconforming use to another, something that is now a rarity in municipal zoning ordinances. Nonconforming uses are usually allowed only to continue or lapse, and very rarely to expand.

Westbrook police notes: Johann Brower asked police to be on the

lookout for Natasha, wearing a green collar – her golden retriever. An hour later Bonnie Wright, 246 Main St., asked police to be on the lookout for her golden retriever. Union pickets at Shop ‘n’ Save were protesting Cole’s Express trucks. They went away after the store protested. A man, age 52, was taken to the Maine Medical Center after a midnight fight at the Westbrook American Legion Post on Conan Street. No one wanted to sign a complaint.

A new skating area behind the municipal building in Gorham froze hard enough to get its first use this weekend. The rink, a joint project of the Gorham Recreation Department and the Athletic Boosters was started with an anonymous contribution to the Boosters in memory of David Smith of Gorham, who was killed in a plane crash in July 1982.

Dec. 15, 1993

Superintendent Edward Connolly is asking the Westbrook School Committee for a consensus on making his daughter’s job permanent. Jennifer Huston, his daughter, is the Westbrook schools coordinator of volunteers. The job was created Feb. 12, 1992, with $25,000 given by Scott Paper Co. It has been continued in 1992-93 and 1993-94 with the help of $4,728 given by other businesses. Huston has held it since July 1992.

“The plan presented to the School Committee called for the program to become a part of the regular operating budget in 1994-95,” Connolly wrote to the committee before its meeting Dec. 1. “In order to include this in the administrative budget, the administration requested the School Committee to give it some direction in this area.”

R.J. Grondin and Sons, Gorham, is the low bidder on a major

contract to rebuild a portion of Broadway in South Portland. It’s

preliminary work associated with the new Portland-South Portland bridge.

“We feel great,” Robert J. Grondin, president, said of his firm’s winning $2,790,523 bid. Grondin outbid H.E. Sargent Inc. of Stillwater, which submitted a $2.94 million proposal; another Gorham company Shaw Brothers Construction Co. Inc., with a bid of $3.14 million; and Bridge Construction of Augusta, at $3.53 million.

“Good morning,” said Mr. Plant’s fifth-grade class in Village

School, Gorham.

“What’s the matter? I can’t hear you. Try again.”

They do, and the classroom is filled with the sound of young children yelling in unison. The man in the front of the class, Gorham police Detective Wayne Drown, smiled. He was at the Village School telling the students about the DARE program.

Although DARE starts in sixth grade, Drown, or “Poochie,” as he

tells the kids to call him, provides an introduction to the program to fifth-graders. “We like them to know what’s happening in DARE and to get them interested, he said.

The children are interested. Every time he asked a question, hands would go up from all over the classroom to answer him. They know what DARE stands for: Drug Abuse Resistance Education. They named drugs both legal and illegal. They know that Tylenol, cocaine, marijuana, heroin and cigarettes are all drugs.