The American Red Cross installed 696 free smoke alarms in Greater Portland on May 12 as part of Sound the Alarm, the organization’s national safety event. Jim Bouchard, executive director of Central and Mid Coast Chapter of the Red Cross, left, is pictured with Douglas Carr of Westbrook. Seniors wrap up season Westbrook Senior Citizens […]
Southern Forecaster
South Portland and Scarborough news from The Forecaster.
Posted inLakes Region Weekly, Southern Forecaster
$29M SAD 61 budget heads to polls
NAPLES — Voters in the soon-to-be three-town SAD 61 School District will vote next week on a $29 million budget for the coming fiscal year, which is down nearly $1 million from the current budget. Bridgton, Casco and Naples residents head to the polls Tuesday, May 22, for the district’s budget validation referendum, where they will […]
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Posted inSouthern Forecaster, The Forecaster
2 South Portland Democrats seek party’s nod in House District 32
SOUTH PORTLAND — Two Democratic candidates with histories of community activism are seeking their party’s nomination in the House District 32 primary. Richard Rottkov didn’t plan to be a legislative candidate this term, but when four-term Rep. Scott Hamann announced he was not seeking re-election, Rottkov said he decided it was now or never. Christopher Kessler previously […]
Posted inSouthern Forecaster
Matching grants available for downtown facelift
WESTBROOK — Economic Development Director Daniel Stevenson hopes the recently launched downtown facade program is the boost downtown businesses need to improve the look of the city’s center. Stevenson, who joined the city staff in October, said he started the program not because of any particular downtown site or issue, but because he saw how […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Southern Forecaster
Contract dispute about time, not money, teachers say
WESTBROOK — Teachers, guidance counselors, librarians, nurses and social workers in the Westbrook Education Association, working without a contract since the beginning of the school year, took to the School Committee last week clad in red to urge action. Contract negotiations, which started in March of 2017, have failed and are now in the hands […]
Posted inSouthern Forecaster
Politics & Other Mistakes: Sign off
The term “A Modest Proposal” has had a negative connotation ever since Jonathan Swift used that title for his 1729 essay on dealing with poverty in Ireland. Swift suggested poor parents sell their babies to the rich as food. Swift was engaged in satire, but you know how touchy people are about cannibalism. You so […]
Posted inSouthern Forecaster
Here's Something: Portland’s homelessness not a pretty picture
The front-page photo in the May 6 Maine Sunday Telegram deserves an award. Captured by staff photographer Ben McCanna, the image showed a woman picking up litter beside a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk near the Preble Street Resource Center. The man had one arm extended on the sidewalk and one leg dangling off […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Southern Forecaster
60 years and 46 houses later: Successful program continues to build students’ hands-on experience in the trades
WESTBROOK — Students in the building trades program at the Westbrook Regional Vocational Center were working last week on the roof of their latest house, the 46th constructed since the program started 60 years ago. The house, at 33 Declaration Drive, is expected to be ready for sale at the end of the next school […]
Posted inSouthern Forecaster
Student's parents file discrimination complaint with state
GORHAM — Alleging racial discrimination, the parents of a Gorham Middle School student have filed a legal complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission. “We have alleged race discrimination – in violation of the Maine Human Rights Act – on the part of the Gorham School Department for their failure to respond to the Moores’ reports […]
Posted inSouthern Forecaster
The Universal Notebook: Do the right thing
Last week, folks in Scarborough resoundingly voted to send three School Board members packing in a recall election that was nominally about their competence, but actually about their support for the superintendent of schools in a policy dispute with the high school principal. Students, faculty and voters all lined up behind the principal. The recalled […]