Published in the Current
Two Cape Elizabeth businesses were broken into and robbed in the past week. The suspects in both cases are still at large, and police are investigating.
On July 6, just before 3 a.m., two or more suspects used an axe to chop a hole in the roof of the Cape Variety. They stole cigarettes and sunglasses, and gained access to the store’s safe and ATM, said Detective Paul Fenton. He did not disclose the amount of cash stolen.
“It appears as though they were interrupted by the owner of the building, who was returning from out of town,” Fenton said. The owner apparently stopped by to bring a sign in from outside. “There was evidence left behind,” Fenton said.
The department is operating out of a new station, and not all of the evidence-processing equipment is set up yet, Fenton said. As a result, he may ask the Scarborough and South Portland police departments to assist him in analyzing items retrieved from the break-in.
Police also tried to track the suspects, who fled the scene on foot, by using a dog, but the closest available tracking dog that morning was in Windham. The time delay may have aided in the escape of the suspects, who have not been apprehended.
That crime appeared to be organized, Fenton said, unlike the July 9 break-in to the Crescent Beach Snack Shack, which was discovered early in the morning of July 10. Fenton said the beach break-in was likely the work of drunk teen-agers returning from a party.
“It’s all connected to kids partying and drinking,” Fenton said. “Anything that’s in their path home will be destroyed.”
The people who broke into the Snack Shack kicked in a window and got away with some cash, a five-gallon tub of ice cream and several items of candy. Fenton said there was a line of candy and wrappers on the path from the shack to Richmond Terrace, as if the people were just eating it along the way.
That break-in, he said, is a class C felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. “The problem with the kids is getting worse,” Fenton said. “They’re committing felonies for candy.”
Fenton said the beach incident is reminiscent of the vandalism at the Little League shack at Lions Field, in which drunk teens have done damage to property they pass. He recommended residents call the police if they see unknown teenagers in their neighborhoods after dark.
“People don’t call us,” he said, but vandalism is almost a given if parties continue.
“If kids party and drink in your area, there will be criminal mischief in your area,” Fenton said.
Thursday, July 11, 2002
Wednesday, July 3, 2002
Conserve Prouts Neck Black Point, residents say
Published in the Current
About 40 residents from Prouts Neck and Black Point gathered at Camp Ketcha June 27 to express their wishes that natural areas in the neighborhoods be preserved forever.
Most were senior citizens, but the youngest resident in the room was only one month old. Her parents, John and Ruth Hughes, were there, Ruth said, to make sure their opinion was heard in the town’s visioning process.
Erik Hellstedt of Planning Decisions, the South Portland firm hired by the town of Scarborough to conduct the visioning program, explained the process. The town is accepting input from residents and will use that information to update the town’s comprehensive plan, Hellstedt said.
“This is a process where the town is really trying to get ahead of the curve,” he said.
Residents were asked to create lists of features they wanted to keep, and their hopes and fears for the future of their neighborhoods and of the town.
Natural features residents wanted preserved included: Scarborough Beach, Ferry Beach, the Libby River, the Cliff Walk at Prouts Neck, Camp Ketcha, Massacre Pond, bird refuges, clam flats, Scarborough Marsh, the Nonesuch River, the Winslow Homer area, and the Eastern Trail.
Some residents were concerned about Dale Blackie’s proposal for a 92-foot tall condominium building on Pine Point, which they could see from their property or beaches nearby.
“I don’t want towers. No one wants towers,” said one resident.
Many residents were especially adamant about protecting views and natural areas. “It’s a pretty unique little place,” said Liz Maier.
Also of concern were traffic and congestion issues. Jake McFadden said the group he was working with at the meeting, “didn’t want the roads expanded to four lanes.”
Development and taxes were the most commonly listed items in the “fears category,” with other issues including jet-skis, lack of beach access, special exemptions to zoning, lack of strong protection for the marsh, limited school capacity, commercialization of the marsh, and improper use of existing structures.
“We hope we do not lose what we have because we have what we want,” said Margaret Wise.
Residents expressed hope that there would be limited growth and more walking and biking trails, as well as conservation and preservation of more land throughout the town. Many people spoke about a town center, but were divided on what that would mean.
Frank O’Hara of Planning Decisions asked a series of specific questions that illustrated the differences of opinion. Some people wanted an activity center that could serve teens, senior citizens and all residents, which might include a pool and other recreational space.
Others wanted a “Main Street” area, with shops, apartments, churches and a real pedestrian-friendly atmosphere.
Looking out about 20 years, residents wanted many changes throughout he town, but few close to home. They hoped to see continued and strengthened environmental protection, increased volunteerism throughout the community, clean businesses, controlled growth, affordable taxes, connections between the different sections of town, and a town transportation system. Some also mentioned the idea of ethnic and economic diversity.
Affordable housing and specific areas for business development were also suggestions residents made.
The next neighborhood meeting will be held Tuesday, July 9, at 7 p.m., in Town Hall for the areas of Oak Hill, Eight Corners and Payne Road.
Following that will be a meeting, at 7 p.m., Thursday, July 11, for North Scarborough, at South Coast Community Church on Route 11 4 .
The final two meetings will be held the week of July 15 for the neighborhoods of West Scarborough and Broadturn Road, and Pine Point and Blue Point.
About 40 residents from Prouts Neck and Black Point gathered at Camp Ketcha June 27 to express their wishes that natural areas in the neighborhoods be preserved forever.
Most were senior citizens, but the youngest resident in the room was only one month old. Her parents, John and Ruth Hughes, were there, Ruth said, to make sure their opinion was heard in the town’s visioning process.
Erik Hellstedt of Planning Decisions, the South Portland firm hired by the town of Scarborough to conduct the visioning program, explained the process. The town is accepting input from residents and will use that information to update the town’s comprehensive plan, Hellstedt said.
“This is a process where the town is really trying to get ahead of the curve,” he said.
Residents were asked to create lists of features they wanted to keep, and their hopes and fears for the future of their neighborhoods and of the town.
Natural features residents wanted preserved included: Scarborough Beach, Ferry Beach, the Libby River, the Cliff Walk at Prouts Neck, Camp Ketcha, Massacre Pond, bird refuges, clam flats, Scarborough Marsh, the Nonesuch River, the Winslow Homer area, and the Eastern Trail.
Some residents were concerned about Dale Blackie’s proposal for a 92-foot tall condominium building on Pine Point, which they could see from their property or beaches nearby.
“I don’t want towers. No one wants towers,” said one resident.
Many residents were especially adamant about protecting views and natural areas. “It’s a pretty unique little place,” said Liz Maier.
Also of concern were traffic and congestion issues. Jake McFadden said the group he was working with at the meeting, “didn’t want the roads expanded to four lanes.”
Development and taxes were the most commonly listed items in the “fears category,” with other issues including jet-skis, lack of beach access, special exemptions to zoning, lack of strong protection for the marsh, limited school capacity, commercialization of the marsh, and improper use of existing structures.
“We hope we do not lose what we have because we have what we want,” said Margaret Wise.
Residents expressed hope that there would be limited growth and more walking and biking trails, as well as conservation and preservation of more land throughout the town. Many people spoke about a town center, but were divided on what that would mean.
Frank O’Hara of Planning Decisions asked a series of specific questions that illustrated the differences of opinion. Some people wanted an activity center that could serve teens, senior citizens and all residents, which might include a pool and other recreational space.
Others wanted a “Main Street” area, with shops, apartments, churches and a real pedestrian-friendly atmosphere.
Looking out about 20 years, residents wanted many changes throughout he town, but few close to home. They hoped to see continued and strengthened environmental protection, increased volunteerism throughout the community, clean businesses, controlled growth, affordable taxes, connections between the different sections of town, and a town transportation system. Some also mentioned the idea of ethnic and economic diversity.
Affordable housing and specific areas for business development were also suggestions residents made.
The next neighborhood meeting will be held Tuesday, July 9, at 7 p.m., in Town Hall for the areas of Oak Hill, Eight Corners and Payne Road.
Following that will be a meeting, at 7 p.m., Thursday, July 11, for North Scarborough, at South Coast Community Church on Route 11 4 .
The final two meetings will be held the week of July 15 for the neighborhoods of West Scarborough and Broadturn Road, and Pine Point and Blue Point.
Littlejohn neighbors meet to control speeding
Published in the Current
Several residents of Littlejohn Road met with Cape Elizabeth Police Chief Neil Williams last month to discuss the problem of speeders on the residential street. About 20 residents had signed a petition asking the police to help with the problem.
Meeting organizer, Peter Hollingsworth, said he has seen people go by at speeds up to 50 miles per hour. The street’s speed limit is 25 miles per hour.
“It’s just a matter of time before something serious happens,” Hollingsworth said, though he noted that no people have been hit on the road. A dog was killed a couple of years ago.
“I don’t want to be here saying, ‘I didn’t do anything,’” Hollingsworth said.
Hollingsworth put up a sign in his truck, parked near the street, asking drivers to slow down.
Williams said it was a productive meeting, and the police will cooperate.
“As in most neighborhoods, the people there did understand that it was an issue because of their own creating the speeding,” Williams said.
And, he said, “it’s not kids in this area. It’s adults.”
Williams said the department will continue to do speed enforcement patrols in the area, and perhaps pull over more speeders to warn them they are going too fast.
“Speeding is an issue” throughout the town, Williams said, and no law enforcement agencies have come up with ways to control speeding permanently.
Williams commended the residents’ willingness to work together to solve the problem, but noted that people with complaints about traffic in their neighborhoods don’t need to petition the department for action to be taken. “Just come in and see me,” he said.
Several residents of Littlejohn Road met with Cape Elizabeth Police Chief Neil Williams last month to discuss the problem of speeders on the residential street. About 20 residents had signed a petition asking the police to help with the problem.
Meeting organizer, Peter Hollingsworth, said he has seen people go by at speeds up to 50 miles per hour. The street’s speed limit is 25 miles per hour.
“It’s just a matter of time before something serious happens,” Hollingsworth said, though he noted that no people have been hit on the road. A dog was killed a couple of years ago.
“I don’t want to be here saying, ‘I didn’t do anything,’” Hollingsworth said.
Hollingsworth put up a sign in his truck, parked near the street, asking drivers to slow down.
Williams said it was a productive meeting, and the police will cooperate.
“As in most neighborhoods, the people there did understand that it was an issue because of their own creating the speeding,” Williams said.
And, he said, “it’s not kids in this area. It’s adults.”
Williams said the department will continue to do speed enforcement patrols in the area, and perhaps pull over more speeders to warn them they are going too fast.
“Speeding is an issue” throughout the town, Williams said, and no law enforcement agencies have come up with ways to control speeding permanently.
Williams commended the residents’ willingness to work together to solve the problem, but noted that people with complaints about traffic in their neighborhoods don’t need to petition the department for action to be taken. “Just come in and see me,” he said.
Piping for pleasure
Published in the Current
Doug Campbell may have the most understanding neighbors in all of Cape Elizabeth. He is a bagpiper who practices at home.
Sometimes – rarely – he plays the instrument in the back yard. His neighbors tell him they enjoy it, but he worries that could come to an end.
More often, he practices inside, where his family has become so accustomed to the loud noise that nobody bats an eye when he starts to play.
Sometimes, Campbell practices at Fort Williams, but he finds that can be more trouble than it’s worth. When he’s practicing, people come by and consider it an impromptu performance.
They wonder why he’s not wearing his kilt, or why he’s playing one section of a song over and over.
But repetition is the key to perfection, and “it’s hard to do that when you’re outdoors,” Campbell said.
The bagpipe is a deafening instrument indoors, by design. “It’s intended to be played outdoors,” Campbell said. “It demands attention.”
The bagpipes, he said, have a connection to the spirit somehow, and instruments with an air reservoir can be found in many cultures across the globe.
As a result, bagpipes have a unique role at ceremonial functions, including funerals and memorial services. “I played at services after 9/11,” Campbell said, including a service in front of Portland’s City Hall. He also played at Cape’s Memorial Day celebration this year.
His playing started at age 13. And though his last name is Scottish, he wasn’t raised with an appreciation of his Scottish heritage. Instead, he learned about the bagpipes from a friend of a cousin and fell in love with the instrument.
“It sort of came up unbidden,” Campbell said.
He also played guitar at the time, and that ended up taking more of his time. He stopped piping for about 20 years. When his family moved to Maine about 12 years ago, he picked it up again.
“I’d always regretted having stopped,” Campbell said. Though it wasn’t easy, starting over wasn’t as hard as he had feared. “The fingers remembered the patterns,” he said.
He called around and found a teacher in Winchester, Mass., who comes to Maine every two weeks.
“It’s very important to find a good instructor on a bagpipe, because it’s about your technique,” Campbell said.
Breathing to fill the bag, squeezing to create sound, and fingering to make the music are all important and complex. And they have to be coordinated – any error can make a bagpipe squeak and squeal.
“So few people hear (bagpipes) played really well,” Campbell said. “You have four reeds going simultaneously. ”
There are three drones, which make constant tones that serve as the background to the medley, which is played by the chanter.
Keeping the airflow out of the bag steady is the especially difficult part of playing the bagpipes, he said, because it involves keeping pressure on the bag when blowing into it.
In most wind instruments, breathing is crucial to the music. “Your phrasing is connected to your breath,” Campbell said. Not so in a bagpipe. A piper can choose to take short breaths or long ones to keep the bag full. The key is to keep air flowing out of the bag consistently.
If there is too little pressure on the bag, the music starts to sound bad.
Other factors can also affect the quality of the sound, including temperature and moisture changes in the air either inside or outside the bag. When the instrument is not being played, the reeds can dry out.
At most services, Campbell said, the piper plays at the beginning of the service, waits through the rest of it, and plays at the end. After all that idle time, the instrument can sound very strange when it first starts up again.
Practice is the best way to learn to control the bagpipe, which Campbell called “an organism.”
Pipe bands are often a good way to get experience in a group and learn from other pipers, he said, but “there’s nothing in Portland, which is kind of surprising.”
“I enjoy playing solo,” he said. When he needs a group, he can call on his three sons, who are also studying the bagpipes.
For a couple of weeks each summer, the whole family travels to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, to intensively study music and dancing.
The island, Campbell said, is a truer representation of traditional Scottish culture than in Scotland, because it is an isolated island to which whole communities transplanted themselves in the 17th and 18th centuries to escape English persecution.
Doug Campbell may have the most understanding neighbors in all of Cape Elizabeth. He is a bagpiper who practices at home.
Sometimes – rarely – he plays the instrument in the back yard. His neighbors tell him they enjoy it, but he worries that could come to an end.
More often, he practices inside, where his family has become so accustomed to the loud noise that nobody bats an eye when he starts to play.
Sometimes, Campbell practices at Fort Williams, but he finds that can be more trouble than it’s worth. When he’s practicing, people come by and consider it an impromptu performance.
They wonder why he’s not wearing his kilt, or why he’s playing one section of a song over and over.
But repetition is the key to perfection, and “it’s hard to do that when you’re outdoors,” Campbell said.
The bagpipe is a deafening instrument indoors, by design. “It’s intended to be played outdoors,” Campbell said. “It demands attention.”
The bagpipes, he said, have a connection to the spirit somehow, and instruments with an air reservoir can be found in many cultures across the globe.
As a result, bagpipes have a unique role at ceremonial functions, including funerals and memorial services. “I played at services after 9/11,” Campbell said, including a service in front of Portland’s City Hall. He also played at Cape’s Memorial Day celebration this year.
His playing started at age 13. And though his last name is Scottish, he wasn’t raised with an appreciation of his Scottish heritage. Instead, he learned about the bagpipes from a friend of a cousin and fell in love with the instrument.
“It sort of came up unbidden,” Campbell said.
He also played guitar at the time, and that ended up taking more of his time. He stopped piping for about 20 years. When his family moved to Maine about 12 years ago, he picked it up again.
“I’d always regretted having stopped,” Campbell said. Though it wasn’t easy, starting over wasn’t as hard as he had feared. “The fingers remembered the patterns,” he said.
He called around and found a teacher in Winchester, Mass., who comes to Maine every two weeks.
“It’s very important to find a good instructor on a bagpipe, because it’s about your technique,” Campbell said.
Breathing to fill the bag, squeezing to create sound, and fingering to make the music are all important and complex. And they have to be coordinated – any error can make a bagpipe squeak and squeal.
“So few people hear (bagpipes) played really well,” Campbell said. “You have four reeds going simultaneously. ”
There are three drones, which make constant tones that serve as the background to the medley, which is played by the chanter.
Keeping the airflow out of the bag steady is the especially difficult part of playing the bagpipes, he said, because it involves keeping pressure on the bag when blowing into it.
In most wind instruments, breathing is crucial to the music. “Your phrasing is connected to your breath,” Campbell said. Not so in a bagpipe. A piper can choose to take short breaths or long ones to keep the bag full. The key is to keep air flowing out of the bag consistently.
If there is too little pressure on the bag, the music starts to sound bad.
Other factors can also affect the quality of the sound, including temperature and moisture changes in the air either inside or outside the bag. When the instrument is not being played, the reeds can dry out.
At most services, Campbell said, the piper plays at the beginning of the service, waits through the rest of it, and plays at the end. After all that idle time, the instrument can sound very strange when it first starts up again.
Practice is the best way to learn to control the bagpipe, which Campbell called “an organism.”
Pipe bands are often a good way to get experience in a group and learn from other pipers, he said, but “there’s nothing in Portland, which is kind of surprising.”
“I enjoy playing solo,” he said. When he needs a group, he can call on his three sons, who are also studying the bagpipes.
For a couple of weeks each summer, the whole family travels to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, to intensively study music and dancing.
The island, Campbell said, is a truer representation of traditional Scottish culture than in Scotland, because it is an isolated island to which whole communities transplanted themselves in the 17th and 18th centuries to escape English persecution.
No strict rules on pledge in schools
Published in the Current; co-written with Kate Irish Collins
Cape and Scarborough schools have no formal policies on the Pledge of the Allegiance – some schools rarely recite it and others every day – and are not worried about the effect of a recent federal court decision declaring the pledge unconstitutional.
In Cape Elizabeth, elementary and middle school students say the pledge daily, according to Superintendent Tom Forcella. At the high school, students hear the pledge recited over the school’s intercom system each Monday morning.
After Sept. 11, some CEHS students petitioned the administration to institute the recitation of the pledge daily rather than just Mondays. Principal Jeff Shedd asked the student government for its advice. In late October, the
student government decided not to recommend any changes.
Shedd said that while the legality of the pledge did not come up in the student discussion, some students did express a concern about the phrase “under God,” which was the crux of the court’s decision to strike down the pledge.
Also under discussion then was whether a student should lead the pledge, or whether someone in each classroom should lead it, rather than having it read over the intercom.
Students at Scarborough High School do not recite the pledge, except on certain special occasions.
Superintendent William Michaud said it is up to each school principal to decide when the pledge is said. It is said every day in the elementary schools, but the intermediate and middle school principals could not be reached for comment before press time due to summer break.
On June 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declared unconstitutional the Pledge of Allegiance, by striking down the 1954 law, which added the words “under God.”
The original pledge, written in 1892, was made part of the U.S. Flag Code by Congress in 1942.
Because the court decision was in the Ninth Circuit, covering seven Western states, as well as Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, the decision does not directly affect Maine. Further, the court has stayed the enforcement of its own ruling, pending further review by the circuit court or the U.S. Supreme Court.
But local school officials are still critical of the court’s decision.
“I think the decision was ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. It makes no sense at all,” Michaud said.
“I was – as many people were– very surprised by” the decision, Shedd said.
The case was brought by a California father who is an atheist. He claimed that requiring his daughter to hear the Pledge of Allegiance each morning—including the words “under God”—was an inappropriate endorsement of monotheism by the government.
“The court didn’t apply any proportionality test at all. How does hearing others recite the pledge affect her in any way?” Michaud asked. “How can he think his child is disadvantaged by having to watch others? No child is forced to recite the pledge,” Michaud added.
Shedd agreed, saying that any potential “damage” to someone listening to the pledge would be very small.
“At least the court has stayed the order,” Michaud said.
The Scarborough and Cape town councils and school boards begin each regular meeting by reciting the pledge.
“This is the fourth school district I’ve been involved with where the board starts each meeting with the pledge,” Michaud said.
In late 2001, the Madison, Wis., Board of Education voted to ban the pledge because they believed the words “under God” violated the constitutional separation of church and state. Shortly thereafter, in the face of nationwide outcry, the board reversed their decision.
The U.S. Supreme Court has not addressed the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, but it has ruled on school prayer. In 1985, the court banned moments of silence in schools for what it called “unconstitutional purposes,” effectively barring mandatory school prayer. That decision did leave the door open for other types of moments of silence. In August 2001, the court upheld a Virginia law establishing a mandatory moment of silence for students to “meditate, pray or engage in other silent activity. ”
Cape and Scarborough schools have no formal policies on the Pledge of the Allegiance – some schools rarely recite it and others every day – and are not worried about the effect of a recent federal court decision declaring the pledge unconstitutional.
In Cape Elizabeth, elementary and middle school students say the pledge daily, according to Superintendent Tom Forcella. At the high school, students hear the pledge recited over the school’s intercom system each Monday morning.
After Sept. 11, some CEHS students petitioned the administration to institute the recitation of the pledge daily rather than just Mondays. Principal Jeff Shedd asked the student government for its advice. In late October, the
student government decided not to recommend any changes.
Shedd said that while the legality of the pledge did not come up in the student discussion, some students did express a concern about the phrase “under God,” which was the crux of the court’s decision to strike down the pledge.
Also under discussion then was whether a student should lead the pledge, or whether someone in each classroom should lead it, rather than having it read over the intercom.
Students at Scarborough High School do not recite the pledge, except on certain special occasions.
Superintendent William Michaud said it is up to each school principal to decide when the pledge is said. It is said every day in the elementary schools, but the intermediate and middle school principals could not be reached for comment before press time due to summer break.
On June 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declared unconstitutional the Pledge of Allegiance, by striking down the 1954 law, which added the words “under God.”
The original pledge, written in 1892, was made part of the U.S. Flag Code by Congress in 1942.
Because the court decision was in the Ninth Circuit, covering seven Western states, as well as Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, the decision does not directly affect Maine. Further, the court has stayed the enforcement of its own ruling, pending further review by the circuit court or the U.S. Supreme Court.
But local school officials are still critical of the court’s decision.
“I think the decision was ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. It makes no sense at all,” Michaud said.
“I was – as many people were– very surprised by” the decision, Shedd said.
The case was brought by a California father who is an atheist. He claimed that requiring his daughter to hear the Pledge of Allegiance each morning—including the words “under God”—was an inappropriate endorsement of monotheism by the government.
“The court didn’t apply any proportionality test at all. How does hearing others recite the pledge affect her in any way?” Michaud asked. “How can he think his child is disadvantaged by having to watch others? No child is forced to recite the pledge,” Michaud added.
Shedd agreed, saying that any potential “damage” to someone listening to the pledge would be very small.
“At least the court has stayed the order,” Michaud said.
The Scarborough and Cape town councils and school boards begin each regular meeting by reciting the pledge.
“This is the fourth school district I’ve been involved with where the board starts each meeting with the pledge,” Michaud said.
In late 2001, the Madison, Wis., Board of Education voted to ban the pledge because they believed the words “under God” violated the constitutional separation of church and state. Shortly thereafter, in the face of nationwide outcry, the board reversed their decision.
The U.S. Supreme Court has not addressed the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, but it has ruled on school prayer. In 1985, the court banned moments of silence in schools for what it called “unconstitutional purposes,” effectively barring mandatory school prayer. That decision did leave the door open for other types of moments of silence. In August 2001, the court upheld a Virginia law establishing a mandatory moment of silence for students to “meditate, pray or engage in other silent activity. ”
Monday, July 1, 2002
Sustainable urban living
Published in BackHome Magazine
I live in an apartment in a small city. The building I live in doesn’t have much of a lawn, but I’m grateful to the neighbors, who keep a nice garden on the other side of the driveway. I can’t choose how my place, or my water, is heated, and electrically, I’m very much “on the grid.” It’s not ideal, but I’m not despondent.
Living close to the land is an important goal. But it’s not fully achievable by everyone. Some of us, myself included, are restricted by financial or family obligations to be in places other than our own back-forty in a hand-built cabin.
That doesn’t mean we should give up, or that we are forced to contribute to urban wastelands. We can still eat whole foods, conserve water and electricity, and try to think green. But there are other things renters can do, within the limits of being tenants, to live more independently of traditional city infrastructure:
-Compost. Someone you know has a garden, or a yard, or even a farm. That person probably has a compost pile. Or ask at your local natural-food store if there’s someone looking for additional compost. Find a container to store your material in. I use an empty spackle can under my sink, and in a previous apartment I used a five-gallon paint bucket I kept on the porch. When the container gets full, take it over to the compost pile and empty it.
-Change built-in bulbs. When I moved in, my apartment had three overhead lights with regular incandescent bulbs. I took them out and saved them, installing instead compact fluorescent bulbs. When I move out, I’ll take the efficient ones with me and put the incandescent ones back in. Or you can leave the efficient ones there and help others see the benefits of saving electricity.
-Walk or bike. City dwelling is great. Some cities, like mine, Portland, Maine, don’t have great public transport. There are a few buses around, though. It’s a small enough city that I can walk or bike nearly everywhere I need to go. I have to drive to work, but when I’m not working I’m not usually driving.
-Turn off the heat. Some apartments don’t really need to have their heat on all the time. Especially in larger buildings, latent building heat can be more than enough to keep an apartment warm through many cold days. If it’s a real cold snap, or you do get chilly, turn on the radiators just a little. When my radiators are on, they pour out heat. I keep them turned down, and use a small, efficient space-heater to bring the temperature up when I need it.
-Grow things. Plants spruce up an apartment and help keep it cooler in the summer. They also enrich the air and improve your health. Herbs are excellent indoor plants and can often fit on windowsills. They’re usually quite hardy, so they can stand up to moves or harsh light and temperature conditions.
-Have a community garden plot. Many cities have community gardens, which allow you a certain amount of space to plant vegetables and flowers for a small annual fee. You get a plot of ground and often access to tools and supplies for raising a small number of crops. It’s not necessarily organic, but at least you know where your food is coming from. It won’t be right in front of your house, but you’ll take a walk every day or so, to check on things. You get to go outside and get your hands dirty, even if you live in a building, like mine, without much greenery around it. Gardens can be great places to meet people, as well.
-Recycle. Many cities have a curbside recycling program. If yours does, participate. If not, start one. You’ll not only save space in your apartment, by no longer storing recyclables until you can drop them off, but you’ll help others in your area become more aware of ways they can help the environment.
-Skip the elevator. You may already do this, but don’t make those exceptions for heavy loads. Take a couple of trips to get your groceries upstairs, or get a friend to help. But be sensible: When you’re moving into or out of a building, don’t try to carry the couch up the stairwell!
-Talk to your landlord or building manager. Explain to prospective landlords that you’re interested in living lightly, and talk about ways you can do so in an apartment building. The landlord may give you a break on the rent if, for example, you say you’ll keep the heat off most of the winter. Suggest that those always-on hallway lights be equipped with energy-saving bulbs. Suggest that the hot water heater not be set so high (many landlords do this to be sure everyone has enough hot water). If your building has laundry machines, suggest that they be replaced (when they need to be) with more efficient models.
-Ask for what you want. If you decide that you really would like to install a low-flow toilet, or no longer need a built-in space heater, say so, and arrange to do the work yourself or have a person approved by your landlord to do the project. Don’t do this without consulting the building’s owner, but remember that if you speak up, others will benefit too.
-See the larger picture. You’re already aware of the impact humans have on the planet. Remember that you can do things to help the planet, even if they don’t help you directly. I try to save heat, though it’s included in the cost of my rent. I use less water, though that’s included too. I’m not saving myself any money, but I am helping the environment. I save cash on electric bills, and that’s nice to see. I also make maximal use of my parking space—I leave my car there when I’m around town.
I live in an apartment in a small city. The building I live in doesn’t have much of a lawn, but I’m grateful to the neighbors, who keep a nice garden on the other side of the driveway. I can’t choose how my place, or my water, is heated, and electrically, I’m very much “on the grid.” It’s not ideal, but I’m not despondent.
Living close to the land is an important goal. But it’s not fully achievable by everyone. Some of us, myself included, are restricted by financial or family obligations to be in places other than our own back-forty in a hand-built cabin.
That doesn’t mean we should give up, or that we are forced to contribute to urban wastelands. We can still eat whole foods, conserve water and electricity, and try to think green. But there are other things renters can do, within the limits of being tenants, to live more independently of traditional city infrastructure:
-Compost. Someone you know has a garden, or a yard, or even a farm. That person probably has a compost pile. Or ask at your local natural-food store if there’s someone looking for additional compost. Find a container to store your material in. I use an empty spackle can under my sink, and in a previous apartment I used a five-gallon paint bucket I kept on the porch. When the container gets full, take it over to the compost pile and empty it.
-Change built-in bulbs. When I moved in, my apartment had three overhead lights with regular incandescent bulbs. I took them out and saved them, installing instead compact fluorescent bulbs. When I move out, I’ll take the efficient ones with me and put the incandescent ones back in. Or you can leave the efficient ones there and help others see the benefits of saving electricity.
-Walk or bike. City dwelling is great. Some cities, like mine, Portland, Maine, don’t have great public transport. There are a few buses around, though. It’s a small enough city that I can walk or bike nearly everywhere I need to go. I have to drive to work, but when I’m not working I’m not usually driving.
-Turn off the heat. Some apartments don’t really need to have their heat on all the time. Especially in larger buildings, latent building heat can be more than enough to keep an apartment warm through many cold days. If it’s a real cold snap, or you do get chilly, turn on the radiators just a little. When my radiators are on, they pour out heat. I keep them turned down, and use a small, efficient space-heater to bring the temperature up when I need it.
-Grow things. Plants spruce up an apartment and help keep it cooler in the summer. They also enrich the air and improve your health. Herbs are excellent indoor plants and can often fit on windowsills. They’re usually quite hardy, so they can stand up to moves or harsh light and temperature conditions.
-Have a community garden plot. Many cities have community gardens, which allow you a certain amount of space to plant vegetables and flowers for a small annual fee. You get a plot of ground and often access to tools and supplies for raising a small number of crops. It’s not necessarily organic, but at least you know where your food is coming from. It won’t be right in front of your house, but you’ll take a walk every day or so, to check on things. You get to go outside and get your hands dirty, even if you live in a building, like mine, without much greenery around it. Gardens can be great places to meet people, as well.
-Recycle. Many cities have a curbside recycling program. If yours does, participate. If not, start one. You’ll not only save space in your apartment, by no longer storing recyclables until you can drop them off, but you’ll help others in your area become more aware of ways they can help the environment.
-Skip the elevator. You may already do this, but don’t make those exceptions for heavy loads. Take a couple of trips to get your groceries upstairs, or get a friend to help. But be sensible: When you’re moving into or out of a building, don’t try to carry the couch up the stairwell!
-Talk to your landlord or building manager. Explain to prospective landlords that you’re interested in living lightly, and talk about ways you can do so in an apartment building. The landlord may give you a break on the rent if, for example, you say you’ll keep the heat off most of the winter. Suggest that those always-on hallway lights be equipped with energy-saving bulbs. Suggest that the hot water heater not be set so high (many landlords do this to be sure everyone has enough hot water). If your building has laundry machines, suggest that they be replaced (when they need to be) with more efficient models.
-Ask for what you want. If you decide that you really would like to install a low-flow toilet, or no longer need a built-in space heater, say so, and arrange to do the work yourself or have a person approved by your landlord to do the project. Don’t do this without consulting the building’s owner, but remember that if you speak up, others will benefit too.
-See the larger picture. You’re already aware of the impact humans have on the planet. Remember that you can do things to help the planet, even if they don’t help you directly. I try to save heat, though it’s included in the cost of my rent. I use less water, though that’s included too. I’m not saving myself any money, but I am helping the environment. I save cash on electric bills, and that’s nice to see. I also make maximal use of my parking space—I leave my car there when I’m around town.
A government freeze
Published in the International Press Institute's Global Journalist magazine
Except, there are no written standards given by the National Science Foundation. The Antarctic Sun is an information outlet with significant access to the U.S. Antarctic Program, employing professional journalists and reaching members of the general public and even world media organizations. But the NSF sees the weekly newspaper as a “house organ,” analogous to a corporate newsletter providing the company line on events.
Reporters are to receive approval (for stories) from their editor, who will obtain National Science Foundation concurrence for all proposed stories to insure [sic] they meet U.S. government standards. — Guidelines for Editorial Employees of the Antarctic Sun.
“There are times when it is better to not say anything,” said NSF’s Antarctic information manager Guy Guthridge.
Former editors of the Sun, including myself, aren’t so sure, though we agreed to the restrictions as a condition of our employment. Current Sun editors were unavailable for comment.
“There were some NSF managers who took the role as information flow manager to a level that was well above and beyond what was probably good for the NSF and for the people working (in Antarctica),” said Sandy Colhoun, who was the editor of the paper during the 1997-1998 and 1998-1999 austral summer seasons.
Josh Landis was my colleague when we were editors of the paper in the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 seasons. When asked about press freedom in Antarctica, Landis said, “It doesn’t exist.”
Landis qualified that by saying he’s not sure there needs to be press freedom within the U.S. Antarctic Program. “It’s a program to execute a series of goals,” Landis said. That focus, he said, “does create frustrations for journalists,” adding that we learned about restrictions during the hiring process and during employment orientation. “I felt like I knew what the rules were going in,” Landis said.
Landis qualified that by saying he’s not sure there needs to be press freedom within the U.S. Antarctic Program. “It’s a program to execute a series of goals,” Landis said. That focus, he said, “does create frustrations for journalists,” adding that we learned about restrictions during the hiring process and during employment orientation. “I felt like I knew what the rules were going in,” Landis said.
The Sun’s planning and reporting are similar to any newspaper. Though NSF and program officials would make suggestions about interesting subjects to cover, “they never told us what to write,” Landis said. And Sun reporters do get to travel around the continent at times, reporting on research and logistics at field outposts, though NSF controls who goes where and when.
It is near the end of the production process that NSF’s power becomes clear. The paper publishes a note about itself indicating that it is “funded by the National Science Foundation,” and further saying, “NSF reviews and approves material before publication.”
The senior NSF representative on the continent reviews a draft copy of the paper and has carte blanche to change content and even kill stories before publication. Though some in that position are helpful, all have the power to “kill anything for any reason and there’s no recourse,” Landis said.
Some stories did not get killed, though they might have been. The Dec. 19, 1999, issue discussed severe pollution in Winter Quarters Bay, right next to McMurdo Station. And the Oct. 29, 2000, issue included a picture of a sea urchin using a tampon as camouflage on the sea floor. Both of those stories were about NSF-funded scientific research into Antarctic pollution.
Other stories, though, never see the light of day. Landis secured a series of interviews with people who had wintered at the South Pole with Dr. Jerri Nielsen, the doctor who discovered she had breast cancer while at the Pole in 1999.
“I probably had better access than anybody to get the details of the story,” Landis said. “When the NSF found out about this, it was very quickly ended.”
“I actually ended it when it became apparent that any final version would be so heavily edited for the purpose of removing things that I knew it wouldn’t be satisfying,” Landis said.
January 2002: Artur Chilingarov, a deputy chairman of the Russian Duma and a towering figure in Russian Antarctic research, was stranded at the South Pole because of mechanical problems with his aircraft. A Sun staffer was at the Pole at the time, but the paper carried less than a paragraph about the visit, making no mention of Chilingarov’s name or position.
November 1999: An LC-130H “Hercules” aircraft had to take a 12-hour trip in attempt to land at several runways due to whiteout conditions. The story ran, but with some restrictions. “That story was a perfect example of how censorship can be acceptable,” Landis said. All the facts in the story were accurate, but “I stayed away from certain things that might upset people about the flight,” Landis said, meaning not only officials in the program but employees who needed to get around the continent. “You don’t want everybody flying on a Herc for the rest of the season to be afraid,” he said.
November 1998: An Air National Guard plane went into a crevasse, with no injuries and only minor damage to the plane. “I wanted to get that story out right away, and I wasn’t allowed to,” Colhoun said. He had a photo of the plane in the crevasse the day the accident occurred, but “they wouldn’t let me use it,” Colhoun said, offering a possible explanation: The Air National Guard had just begun taking over Antarctic flying from the Navy, which had flown for the program since the 1950s. Air Guard officials had been reluctant to take Navy advice before the accident, and could have been embarrassed by the story.
Not only the big stories were cut, though. A short piece about a cave of boulders built for McMurdo’s rock-climbing community’s use was struck from the paper in October 2000. No reason was given for the large X on the proof page. Though that was more the exception than the rule, it and the other restrictions provide a look at what governmental control over media can do.
“It’s not an independent publication,” said Valerie Carroll, the Sun’s publisher and communications manager at Raytheon Polar Services, NSF’s Antarctic contractor. “We’re being paid by a client to put out a newsletter-slash-newspaper,” Carroll said.
NSF may have its own publicity plans, she said, and “it wouldn’t look good for us to scoop them,” Carroll said, adding that there are “other perspectives we’re not aware of and don’t need to be.”
Colhoun and Landis offer kudos, though, for some openness on the part of the NSF. “For their culture, for them to allow even what we did was pretty remarkable,” Landis said. “In general, you weren’t censored.”
“The NSF feels like they let you have 70 percent freedom,” Colhoun said. He wanted to show a complete picture of what was going on in Antarctica — good and bad. “That agenda was not the one that the NSF wanted for that product,” Colhoun said. “I was owned by the NSF. They were the editorial power.”
Guthridge agrees. All NSF publications must go through an official approval process, he said. The Sun’s process is streamlined because of the distance and time difference between McMurdo and Washington, as well as the volume of material published in the Sun each week.
“We’re using public dollars here to put out something, and so we’re responsible to the larger public,” Guthridge said. For him, that means keeping some things quiet.
Alex Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, said it is reasonable to expect that the government would spend money on a publication to serve its purposes. But, he said, they run the risk of improving short-term image at the expense of long-term credibility.
“The more frank and open the government is in publications of that kind, the more valuable they are,” Jones said. “The long-term best interests are in being open and honest.”
All parties agree that the Sun is not in the role of watchdog of the U.S. Antarctic Program, though there isn’t any other organization that is or could be. Logistics are the main problem. “Journalists can’t just hop on a plane and go talk to who they want to,” Carroll said.
The Sun staff is based at McMurdo and has limited access to field camps and Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, giving them better access to Antarctic information than any other U.S. journalists.
“It’s not meant to be what (a newspaper) is in the world,” Landis said. “NSF gets to control what facts become public.”
Other journalists do come to the continent, after applying to NSF and having their plans approved. Some of these have included staff members from U.S. News & World Report, the Baltimore Sun, and National Geographic.
When journalists do come from outside organizations, Guthridge said, “They do what they want,” Guthridge said.
The time they are allotted, Colhoun said, is often too short for real reporting. Weather delays, survival training, and other commitments can mean there is little time to get into issues of waste or mismanagement on the ice, he said. “The only kind of reports that can come back are happy reports,” Colhoun said.
Guthridge said all signatory nations to the Antarctic Treaty are required to publish annual plans and reports on their activities. Countries can verify that information by appointing observers who have free access to the stations and equipment of other nations. The public, though, has little access to the U.S. Antarctic Program, only experiencing life and work at research stations when in the employ of government organizations or their contractors.
“It’s their show, they make the rules,” Landis said, adding that being more open would help. “More press freedom would create better dialogue in the Antarctic community,” Landis said.
Thursday, June 27, 2002
More than Monologues: If we see this as just entertainment, we’re not seeing it
Published in the Portland Phoenix
My vagina singing all girl songs, all goat bells ringing songs, all wild autumn field songs, vagina songs, vagina home songs. — Not since the soldiers put a long, thick rifle inside me. So cold, the steel rod canceling my heart. Don’t know whether they’re going to fire it or shove it through my spinning brain.”
Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine hotline (sexual assault and rape): (800) 313-9900.
My vagina singing all girl songs, all goat bells ringing songs, all wild autumn field songs, vagina songs, vagina home songs. — Not since the soldiers put a long, thick rifle inside me. So cold, the steel rod canceling my heart. Don’t know whether they’re going to fire it or shove it through my spinning brain.”
These words describe a particularly violent rape that occurred in Kosovo, but scenes like it — perhaps without the rifle, but with similar spirit-deadening effects — will play out not only on the stage at Merrill Auditorium June 28 as part of The Vagina Monologues, but across the state, in our neighborhoods, even our homes, at an increasing rate, according to the state police.
Annual crime survey numbers indicate that Maine has seen an increase from 273 rapes and 3,986 incidents of domestic violence in 1999 to 325 rapes and 4,944 incidents of domestic violence in 2001. State numbers also indicate that 22 percent of all domestic violence in the state occurs in Cumberland County, more than in any other county.
In the Portland area, Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine received 453 calls in 2001, and spent over 200 hours on the phone, in hospitals, police stations, and courthouses assisting victims of rape and sexual assault. As of June 19, the Portland Police Department had responded to 29 calls for sexual assault this year.
The department has also responded to 545 calls for domestic violence. Assistant district attorney Anne Berlind, in the Cumberland County DA’s domestic violence unit, says about 40 percent of domestic violence incidents reported to her office go unprosecuted, largely because the victim is unwilling to testify. But of those in which a defendant is charged, 60 percent are convicted.
Berlind says first-time offenders convicted of domestic violence assault or terrorizing typically get two days in jail for a first offense, with two years probation (including batterer’s counseling courses and possibly substance-abuse treatment), and 118 days in jail hanging over their heads for violations ranging from continuing to abuse women all the way down to failing to call a probation officer on time. In 2001, Berlind said, about 300 people in Cumberland County went to jail for domestic violence.
Portland Mayor Karen Geraghty will issue an as-yet-undetermined proclamation in Portland on June 28, and will give playwright Eve Ensler the key to the city as well. Ensler will star in the production, a rare event anywhere and a first in Maine.
The Phoenix sat down with Geraghty to talk about the issues and how regular people, even those who don’t know their neighbors, can help combat domestic violence and sexual assault.
Phoenix: You don’t stop domestic violence by issuing proclamations or putting on a play.
Geraghty: What helps prevent domestic violence is awareness, and anything we can do to draw attention to the problem here in Portland — and here in Maine — will cause people to intervene earlier in situations that they may know about, or if they live next door to somebody who’s in that situation. This production gives us the opportunity to highlight that some people in our community are suffering. Though the proclamation is symbolic and the key to the city is involved, I think it’s important to elevate the issue in whatever way we can.
Q: What is the nature of the proclamation going to be?
A: Well, we haven’t written it yet. We’re in the process of drafting it right now. But basically it will talk about the problem of domestic violence. It will talk about the fact that people in Portland are killed as a result of domestic violence, and it will talk about the importance of intervention and also prevention strategies.
Q: Have sexual assault and women’s issues been one of your focuses as mayor?
A: Everybody on the [city] council works full-time. I work as a lobbyist at the Legislature, so I’ve had the great pleasure to work with both the Sexual Assault Coalition and the Domestic Violence Coalition in that capacity. It’s something that I’m very committed to, trying to end violence against women. You don’t grow up as a woman in this culture without being constantly aware that you could be the victim of a sexual assault. I have good friends in Portland, one friend in particular, who has been victimized in the last year. I don’t think there’s any woman in this country — and certainly nobody that I know — who doesn’t have a story: a sister, a sister-in-law, a niece, a mother, a grandmother . . . It’s so widespread that I think every woman, and I would assume every man, is aware of it
Q: One of the groups The Vagina Monologues will benefit is Mainely Men Against Violence Against Women.
A: That’s one of the really neat things that I’ve noticed in the last couple of years, that the Domestic Violence Coalition did the “Silent Witness” program. They have those — I don’t know if you’ve ever seen them — but they’re all painted red and they have a plaque on them which gives the woman’s name and a little bit of her story. Every time there is another homicide from domestic violence they take the Silent Witnesses out to — like if it happens in Portland, then they come to Portland — and there are lot of men, in particular police officers, who come out and stand and be part of that demonstration and call for an end to the violence. That has done a great deal to raise awareness and to get more people in the community focused on [the fact] that it shouldn’t just be women standing up decrying this violence. It should be every member of the community. I think that the Silent Witness project gives people something concrete they can do: They can actually take to the streets and say, “This is wrong.”
The Sexual Assault Coalition has something called “The Clothesline Project.” What they have is T-shirts, just regular, plain T-shirts, that people who have been victimized either by childhood sexual assault and incest or as adults have been sexually assaulted and raped, and they have painted these T-shirts. The T-shirts say a variety of things, and it’s wherever the person is in their recovery and healing. It’s just a powerful, powerful image when you go into an event where they have strung this clothesline and there are all these T-shirts and some of them are very small, so they’re [made by] children who have been assaulted and they write things on there — just really incredible. And then there are T-shirts from 75-year-old women and every age in between. Images are very powerful and they make us think. They just make you think. They make you think about what could you do to help change this situation for women.
Both coalitions have done a great job in Maine trying to be creative about how they educate the public about what’s happening to women in our state and in our community.
Q: What can we do, either as a man or a woman, to end or to attack domestic violence and sexual assault?
A: There are a whole variety of things. The first thing we can do is make sure that we’re clear in our own lives and in our own relationships about how we’re behaving . . . In terms of domestic violence, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard somebody say, “Well, you know, I heard something. I think the woman who lived below me, or I think the woman who lived in the apartment next to me — I used to hear fighting and I never was sure what was going on.” A lot of people have a story like that, or “I work with a woman who occasionally would come in and had ‘fallen.’ ” Just being aware of what’s happening to the people around you, the people at work, the people in your own family, the people who you may live near. Just being aware and trying to offer some intervention. That’s incredibly helpful. And not being judgmental, not saying “Oh you’re so crazy, why are you with that person?” but understanding all of the reasons why people are afraid to leave. There’s a lot that we can do.
Clearly, people who are raising children have a huge responsibility to raise boys and to teach them non-violent ways of expressing their anger and their frustration and teaching them that women are not the outlet for their aggression when things don’t go well or when they feel powerless. There’s a million things that we can do, and I think many good things are being done.
Q: Sometimes that’s hard, to hear a neighbor who maybe you don’t know because it’s a big apartment building, or you’re next door in a different house. To step in.
A: Call the police right away. If people call 911 and say, “There is a violent argument going on next door to where I live or in the apartment below me,” the police will respond immediately. You don’t have to know the person’s name that lives next door to you or below you. You don’t have to know anything other than, “There is a violent fight occurring and I feel someone may be in danger.” That’s all you have to do, and the police will go right away. Sometimes it’s the police who are in the best position to be the interveners and to try to provide a way out for the woman and her children. I wasn’t suggesting that people should run over and get involved directly.
Q: But even to say after the fact, “I heard something at your apartment last night.” In one sense maybe that’s too late, but in another sense there’s a privacy barrier.
A: You have to get to know the person. I think there are ways to make friends with people. If you suspect somebody and you don’t know them very well but they’re a neighbor, there are ways to make friends with people. And through the process of trying to reach out and make friends they may share things with you or they may give you clues which would then allow you to have that other conversation about, “Hey by the way . . .” But I don’t think you can go up to a complete stranger and say “I think . . .” because clearly that wouldn’t be safe for the person to reveal anything to you. But just trying to get to know people who you think might be in trouble and then waiting for the opportunity.
Q: Are there things that government can do, at the city or the county or the state level?
A: There’s a great deal that is already being done by the federal government, by the state government, and certainly through the city level. [There are] many, many different programs aimed particularly at the victims, but also now we’re starting to see more programs targeted at the abusers. So yes, I definitely think there is a role for government in any kind of violence against people.
Q: Are you going to be at the performance?
A: Yes. Yes definitely. I’ve never seen a production of it and this one is going to be really fabulous, because it’s using so many Portland-area performers. That’s going to make it really, really interesting and exciting to showcase local talent.
Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine hotline (sexual assault and rape): (800) 313-9900.
Family Crisis Services hotline (domestic violence): (800) 537-6066.
The Vagina Monologues shows at Merrill Auditorium, in Portland, June 28. Call (207) 842-0800.
Tourism season off to strong start
Published in the Current
Southern Maine tourism operators are expecting to do at least as well as last year, and numbers are already up.
Fred Kilfoil, owner of the Millbrook Motel, said his bookings from January through April were higher than last year, in keeping with his upward trend over the past four years.
His May numbers continued the trend, ending up, he said, “way ahead of previous Mays.”
“I’m expecting it to be as good as any other year and probably better than most,” Kilfoil said.
But the foundation is still a bit shaky. “A bomb in India or something may change that,” he said.
Maureen McQuade, innkeeper of Cape Elizabeth’s Inn By the Sea and vice-president of the Maine Innkeepers Association, said a new state tourism ad campaign is working. “The state of Maine has been doing some outstanding advertising,” she said.
The promotions, she said, began in September and have continued to target people who can drive to Maine.
But, McQuade added, in-state traffic is up, too. “We’ve had a lot more Maine people traveling,” she said.
Bob Westburg, owner of the Higgins Beach Inn, said most of his weekends are full through the season.
“The bookings are coming on solid,” he said. “It looks like it’s booking up pretty good.”
He said he needs mid-week bookings to fill in a bit more, but expects that to occur.
Many Scarborough businesses look to Old Orchard Beach for indications of how the season will go. Bud Hamm, executive director of the OOB Chamber of Commerce, said he expects a strong season.
The inquiries and advance bookings at Hamm’s office, he said, were high even by late April.
“This year, so far, it’s looking the same if not better,” Hamm said, adding that it could be “another banner year. ”
Visitors to the area, mostly from New England, mid-Atlantic states and Canada, are arriving somewhat later this year than they have in the past, but the numbers are up, Hamm said.
“They’re not booking as far ahead as they used to,” McQuade said.
“Our pre-bookings are a little ahead of last year,” said Dick Schwalbenberg, innkeeper at the Black Point Inn. But he is optimistic.
“It does really look to be a strong season all over,” he said.
Some Maine inns and tourism destinations have had trouble hiring help from overseas this year, as a result of new government scrutiny of short-term visa applicants. McQuade has avoided this by hiring locally.
“We have a lot of local people that we hire and college kids that come back year after year,” she said. Her inn has had good response to its help-wanted ads, as well, with larger numbers of well-qualified people applying.
Schwalbenberg has also avoided government delays, by filing paperwork as early as possible for the 18 foreign workers he has hired. “Our employees actually arrived when they said they would,” he said.
But even if workers leave, visitor numbers fall apart and the weather turns foul, all is not lost on the coast of Maine.
“Even the bad summers are good,” said motel owner Kilfoil.
Southern Maine tourism operators are expecting to do at least as well as last year, and numbers are already up.
Fred Kilfoil, owner of the Millbrook Motel, said his bookings from January through April were higher than last year, in keeping with his upward trend over the past four years.
His May numbers continued the trend, ending up, he said, “way ahead of previous Mays.”
“I’m expecting it to be as good as any other year and probably better than most,” Kilfoil said.
But the foundation is still a bit shaky. “A bomb in India or something may change that,” he said.
Maureen McQuade, innkeeper of Cape Elizabeth’s Inn By the Sea and vice-president of the Maine Innkeepers Association, said a new state tourism ad campaign is working. “The state of Maine has been doing some outstanding advertising,” she said.
The promotions, she said, began in September and have continued to target people who can drive to Maine.
But, McQuade added, in-state traffic is up, too. “We’ve had a lot more Maine people traveling,” she said.
Bob Westburg, owner of the Higgins Beach Inn, said most of his weekends are full through the season.
“The bookings are coming on solid,” he said. “It looks like it’s booking up pretty good.”
He said he needs mid-week bookings to fill in a bit more, but expects that to occur.
Many Scarborough businesses look to Old Orchard Beach for indications of how the season will go. Bud Hamm, executive director of the OOB Chamber of Commerce, said he expects a strong season.
The inquiries and advance bookings at Hamm’s office, he said, were high even by late April.
“This year, so far, it’s looking the same if not better,” Hamm said, adding that it could be “another banner year. ”
Visitors to the area, mostly from New England, mid-Atlantic states and Canada, are arriving somewhat later this year than they have in the past, but the numbers are up, Hamm said.
“They’re not booking as far ahead as they used to,” McQuade said.
“Our pre-bookings are a little ahead of last year,” said Dick Schwalbenberg, innkeeper at the Black Point Inn. But he is optimistic.
“It does really look to be a strong season all over,” he said.
Some Maine inns and tourism destinations have had trouble hiring help from overseas this year, as a result of new government scrutiny of short-term visa applicants. McQuade has avoided this by hiring locally.
“We have a lot of local people that we hire and college kids that come back year after year,” she said. Her inn has had good response to its help-wanted ads, as well, with larger numbers of well-qualified people applying.
Schwalbenberg has also avoided government delays, by filing paperwork as early as possible for the 18 foreign workers he has hired. “Our employees actually arrived when they said they would,” he said.
But even if workers leave, visitor numbers fall apart and the weather turns foul, all is not lost on the coast of Maine.
“Even the bad summers are good,” said motel owner Kilfoil.
State cuts more from local school budgets
Published in the Current
With a projected state deficit of more than $100 million, further cuts to schools will be needed and that means officials in Cape and Scarborough will have to revise next year’s school budgets in the coming months.
In what was already a tough budget year in each town, Scarborough stands to get about $90,000 less than it was expecting, and Cape expects to lose nearly $40,000.
In March, Maine Revenue Services had predicted a $90 million shortfall for this fiscal year, and a similar shortfall for next year.
But now that April and May revenue numbers are in, the state is expecting a further reduction in revenue of as much as $25 million.
In light of that, $10 million has been cut from General Purpose Aid to education. The Department of Education revised the money each school district will get in what is being called an “emergency curtailment” of the funds.
Gov. Angus King also has proposed taking $10 million from funds for the laptop initiative and other cutbacks, including mandatory furloughs for state employees.
The state Legislature’s approval is required for about half of the proposals, according to King spokesman Tony Sprague, but legislators and the governor are reluctant to hold a special session this summer to deal with the problem.
Local legislators are upset about the cutbacks, but say there is little they can do.
“It stinks,” said Sen. Lynn Bromley, a Democrat. But, she said, “GPA is such a big piece of the budget” that it’s hard to ignore when cuts need to be made.
Most legislative leaders, she said, were hoping to avoid a special session. Bromley is among them, she said, because reopening the budget discussion may make matters worse for her constituents.
“It’s not going to get any better,” she said.
Bromley will be holding a series of community meetings about the issue in South Portland, Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth, in coming weeks.
“We absolutely need tax reform,” Bromley said.
One of the subjects she wants to discuss is the way school construction is funded, which presently takes away money from the funds available to GPA, and provides state funds to build schools in communities that have trouble paying to keep them open, she said. “We need to think about how to do more things in a regional way.”
Bromley also expects the Legislature to reopen discussions of other ways for communities to raise money, including the local option sales tax, or broadening the sales tax.
Bromley’s colleague, Sen. Peggy Pendleton, also a Democrat, is unhappy with the cuts to GPA. “I think they’re really unfortunate,” she said. “That is a very wrong move. It shifts the burden back onto the property taxpayer.”
And if a special session is required, Pendleton said, she wants the governor to communicate his plans first. “We’ve had no briefing on this from the governor,” Pendleton said.
She also expects the state’s entire budget to be laid open again. “We have to look at the whole budget,” Pendleton said, especially those funds in the current budget that are for programs not slated to begin until 2004.
Either way, she said, “before I get called in, I want to have the information.”
Rep. Larry Bliss, a Democrat, said he wants to reopen the budget process. “Some of the things the governor wants to do, he can’t do without legislative approval,” Bliss said.
He said the GPA money should be preserved. “Do I think the money should come out of GPA? Definitely not. Cape Elizabeth and South Portland really got hit hard already,” he said.
Bliss also said he likes the laptop idea a lot, but given budget constraints, “this might not be the right time.”
Referring to claims by the governor that the state’s contract with Apple may be as expensive to get out of as to fulfill, Bliss said he had originally heard that the contract included a low-cost way out for the state, but is now being told otherwise.
Rep. Harold Clough, a Republican, wants to go back into session to deal with the crisis, though he admitted he didn’t know what would happen. “I don’t know what to expect,” Clough said. But he advised meeting soon.
“The problem is getting worse by the day,” he said. “The sooner you deal with it, the better.”
Specifically, he said, the governor’s proposal to save money by furloughing state employees is flawed.
“We need to really get at the overspending that we do,” Clough said.
Sprague in the governor’s office and Laurie Lachance, an economist at the State Planning Office, both say Clough’s hurry is unwarranted.
“The proposals that (King) put forward do not rely on a specific date for the Legislature to have acted,” Sprague said.
He pointed out that last year, the total amount distributed via GPA was $700 million. Under the governor’s revised plan, the total would still increase to $720 million, but that is less than originally hoped for, he said.
But if the revenue projection has declined, he said, it would be expected to be lower next year, meaning the budget shortfall could change from $180 million over two years to as much as $230 million.
Lachance said her office has not had a chance to review and analyze the new projects from the Maine Revenue Service, and said new “official” revenue projections won’t be available until August, because final numbers for the 2002 fiscal year, which closes June 30, will not be available until mid-June.
“Year-end results are very important,” she said.
After Sept. 11, 2001, the revenue forecast declined, and King used some “rainy day fund” money to balance the budget, Lachance said.
“That has moved the balancing problem into fiscal year 2003,” she said.
If the projections fall further, 2003 could be a far tighter year than this one, she said.
And looking forward, the numbers don’t get any better, with state economists predicting between $350 million and $750 million in “structural
gap”–the difference between costs to fully fund all of the state’s legal obligations and the revenues available to pay for them – in 2004-2005.
With a projected state deficit of more than $100 million, further cuts to schools will be needed and that means officials in Cape and Scarborough will have to revise next year’s school budgets in the coming months.
In what was already a tough budget year in each town, Scarborough stands to get about $90,000 less than it was expecting, and Cape expects to lose nearly $40,000.
In March, Maine Revenue Services had predicted a $90 million shortfall for this fiscal year, and a similar shortfall for next year.
But now that April and May revenue numbers are in, the state is expecting a further reduction in revenue of as much as $25 million.
In light of that, $10 million has been cut from General Purpose Aid to education. The Department of Education revised the money each school district will get in what is being called an “emergency curtailment” of the funds.
Gov. Angus King also has proposed taking $10 million from funds for the laptop initiative and other cutbacks, including mandatory furloughs for state employees.
The state Legislature’s approval is required for about half of the proposals, according to King spokesman Tony Sprague, but legislators and the governor are reluctant to hold a special session this summer to deal with the problem.
Local legislators are upset about the cutbacks, but say there is little they can do.
“It stinks,” said Sen. Lynn Bromley, a Democrat. But, she said, “GPA is such a big piece of the budget” that it’s hard to ignore when cuts need to be made.
Most legislative leaders, she said, were hoping to avoid a special session. Bromley is among them, she said, because reopening the budget discussion may make matters worse for her constituents.
“It’s not going to get any better,” she said.
Bromley will be holding a series of community meetings about the issue in South Portland, Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth, in coming weeks.
“We absolutely need tax reform,” Bromley said.
One of the subjects she wants to discuss is the way school construction is funded, which presently takes away money from the funds available to GPA, and provides state funds to build schools in communities that have trouble paying to keep them open, she said. “We need to think about how to do more things in a regional way.”
Bromley also expects the Legislature to reopen discussions of other ways for communities to raise money, including the local option sales tax, or broadening the sales tax.
Bromley’s colleague, Sen. Peggy Pendleton, also a Democrat, is unhappy with the cuts to GPA. “I think they’re really unfortunate,” she said. “That is a very wrong move. It shifts the burden back onto the property taxpayer.”
And if a special session is required, Pendleton said, she wants the governor to communicate his plans first. “We’ve had no briefing on this from the governor,” Pendleton said.
She also expects the state’s entire budget to be laid open again. “We have to look at the whole budget,” Pendleton said, especially those funds in the current budget that are for programs not slated to begin until 2004.
Either way, she said, “before I get called in, I want to have the information.”
Rep. Larry Bliss, a Democrat, said he wants to reopen the budget process. “Some of the things the governor wants to do, he can’t do without legislative approval,” Bliss said.
He said the GPA money should be preserved. “Do I think the money should come out of GPA? Definitely not. Cape Elizabeth and South Portland really got hit hard already,” he said.
Bliss also said he likes the laptop idea a lot, but given budget constraints, “this might not be the right time.”
Referring to claims by the governor that the state’s contract with Apple may be as expensive to get out of as to fulfill, Bliss said he had originally heard that the contract included a low-cost way out for the state, but is now being told otherwise.
Rep. Harold Clough, a Republican, wants to go back into session to deal with the crisis, though he admitted he didn’t know what would happen. “I don’t know what to expect,” Clough said. But he advised meeting soon.
“The problem is getting worse by the day,” he said. “The sooner you deal with it, the better.”
Specifically, he said, the governor’s proposal to save money by furloughing state employees is flawed.
“We need to really get at the overspending that we do,” Clough said.
Sprague in the governor’s office and Laurie Lachance, an economist at the State Planning Office, both say Clough’s hurry is unwarranted.
“The proposals that (King) put forward do not rely on a specific date for the Legislature to have acted,” Sprague said.
He pointed out that last year, the total amount distributed via GPA was $700 million. Under the governor’s revised plan, the total would still increase to $720 million, but that is less than originally hoped for, he said.
But if the revenue projection has declined, he said, it would be expected to be lower next year, meaning the budget shortfall could change from $180 million over two years to as much as $230 million.
Lachance said her office has not had a chance to review and analyze the new projects from the Maine Revenue Service, and said new “official” revenue projections won’t be available until August, because final numbers for the 2002 fiscal year, which closes June 30, will not be available until mid-June.
“Year-end results are very important,” she said.
After Sept. 11, 2001, the revenue forecast declined, and King used some “rainy day fund” money to balance the budget, Lachance said.
“That has moved the balancing problem into fiscal year 2003,” she said.
If the projections fall further, 2003 could be a far tighter year than this one, she said.
And looking forward, the numbers don’t get any better, with state economists predicting between $350 million and $750 million in “structural
gap”–the difference between costs to fully fund all of the state’s legal obligations and the revenues available to pay for them – in 2004-2005.
Living a life of laughter and love
Published in the Current
Leland P. “Jimmy” Murray, volunteer, businessman and fireworks enthusiast, brought peals of laughter to his family, friends and community before his death June 19 after a long illness.
Sometimes called “the heart of the town,” Murray, 60, was eulogized by his lifelong friend Everett Jardine as having left legacies of “love, laughter and
joy.” Jardine told what he said were “only a few” of the stories about Jimmy’s fun-filled life, including his love for cars and speed.
Jimmy had a daredevil streak that led him to—among other stunts—drive his car between a guy wire and a telephone pole on Two Lights Road, Jardine said.
In the early 1970s, Jimmy joined the town rescue squad. He had a business in town, which made it easier for him to respond to calls. That business, L.P. Murray and Sons, a construction company, was founded by his father.
At the time of his death, Jimmy had retired as president of the company, ceding control to his son, Skip.
Within a few years of joining the rescue squad, Jimmy had become captain, a post he held for 15 years, said Fire Chief Phil McGouldrick. Jimmy also volunteered with the fire department and became deputy chief in the mid-1980s.
It was a typical Jimmy endeavor, in which he gave generously of his time and energy, but remained modest about his work and his impact. But others saw, and they knew.
“He was always giving, always trying to help everybody out. You could always depend on him,” McGouldrick said.
Eleven years ago, Jimmy began an effort to revive Cape’s Memorial Day celebrations. He served as Grand Marshal and master of ceremonies for this year’s event.
He was praised by Town Manager Mike McGovern and the assembled crowd for his work.
And though not himself a veteran, Jimmy made a special point to honor not only veterans in uniform who marched in the parade, but also those who simply attended the ceremony.
While many of those he helped honor were strangers to him, Jimmy also took good care of the people he knew.
Fire Lt. Jason Allen’s father died several years ago, and Allen remembered Jimmy was “the first guy that called. He was incredibly caring.”
Help wasn’t all Jimmy had to offer. “He was just a character, ” McGouldrick said.
“That’s what I’m going to miss is the loud voice and the comments,” Skip Murray said.
Jimmy and his wife, Carol, opened their home on Fowler Road to anyone passing by, and there was always coffee and doughnuts inside, ready to accompany conversation. Police officers, firefighters and other members of the community stopped every time they drove down Fowler Road, McGouldrick said.
Doughnuts and other sweets were a particular Jimmy weakness. “Dunkin’ Donuts was his second home for many years,” McGouldrick said. “He bought ‘em by the dozen and he ate ‘em by the dozen.”
And at busy fire scenes, firefighters knew they could always find a snack – a candy bar or piece of chocolate – under the seat of Jimmy’s truck. He also often had a box of his favorite doughnut – the Dunkin’, “the one with the handle”–there, too, Skip said.
When hunting at his camp in Baldwin—another of his passions—Jimmy was known for bringing along a pile of goodies. In stops at a market in Standish, Skip said, “he would fill a cart with junk food, and we were only going for the weekend.”
Generations of Cape kids learned to shoot at that camp, including Jimmy’s cousin Gerry, who was also a former fire captain, and Gerry’s kids.
But that was where the fun had limits. Jimmy made sure all the kids knew how to handle guns safely, and even when he handed out fireworks for kids to set off, Jimmy kept a close eye on them, making sure nobody got hurt.
“He played it by the rules,” Gerry said. And he knew them all, going so far as to keep a handbook of federal worker safety guidelines in his truck for reference during inspections at his company’s construction site.
When fighting fires out in rural Cape, McGouldrick and all the firefighters relied on Jimmy’s memory for locations of water and sewer lines throughout the town.
“He was a common-sense fire chief,” McGouldrick said. Jimmy was always eager to learn more, too, and McGouldrick remembered taking him to a big fire in Portland to teach Jimmy more about how fire behaves in big buildings.
Always wary of being too serious, Jimmy knew how to keep everyone amused. “There wasn’t anybody that could make you laugh the way that Jimmy could,” Lt. Allen said. He recalled Jimmy’s habitual late arrivals at fire company meetings. He would always walk in and slam the door to announce his arrival, Allen said.
“He had an unbelievable presence about him,” Allen said. Some of the bang in his personality might have been gunpowder, left over from his fireworks shows, known throughout the region as literally “good bang for the buck.”
Jimmy made little if any profit off his shows, which included shows at Portland Sea Dogs games and the Yarmouth Clambake, as well as Family Fun Days in Cape.
Skip said he’s not sure he’ll keep that business going, though he and Carol will finish out this summer’s obligations. They set up the show for Family Fun Days, using what Skip said were some fireworks from Jimmy’s “secret stash,” unique shells found only at fireworks conventions. The show was rained out, and Skip joked that the downpour could have been one of Jimmy’s last stunts.
But Jimmy wouldn’t have wanted to deprive the community of a really great show. Skip said he wanted Jimmy to see those shells, which he never used because they were “too good to shoot.”
Patrolman Vaughn Dyer met Jimmy 27 years ago, when Dyer first joined the Cape Police Department. “I wish it was longer,” Dyer said. “He was one of those people that you meet and instantly become friends with.”
“Jimmy is going to be very sadly missed,” said Dyer, who served in the honor guard for Jimmy’s casket. “This town doesn’t realize what it’s lost.”
In response to his service and efforts, the community came together to honor his life, filling pews and extra chairs in St. Bartholomew’s Church, and parading down Ocean House Road from the church to Seaside Cemetery.
Murray was escorted to his grave by an honor guard of six public safety officers, including members of the Cape police and fire departments and the state fire marshal’s office. His memorial service and burial were attended by over 50 uniformed firefighters, rescue squad members and police officers, from as far away as Bangor.
At the request of the family, it was not a formal firefighter’s funeral, with a parade of fire trucks and other honors. “It was informal, just like Jimmy,” Dyer said.
Leland P. “Jimmy” Murray, volunteer, businessman and fireworks enthusiast, brought peals of laughter to his family, friends and community before his death June 19 after a long illness.
Sometimes called “the heart of the town,” Murray, 60, was eulogized by his lifelong friend Everett Jardine as having left legacies of “love, laughter and
joy.” Jardine told what he said were “only a few” of the stories about Jimmy’s fun-filled life, including his love for cars and speed.
Jimmy had a daredevil streak that led him to—among other stunts—drive his car between a guy wire and a telephone pole on Two Lights Road, Jardine said.
In the early 1970s, Jimmy joined the town rescue squad. He had a business in town, which made it easier for him to respond to calls. That business, L.P. Murray and Sons, a construction company, was founded by his father.
At the time of his death, Jimmy had retired as president of the company, ceding control to his son, Skip.
Within a few years of joining the rescue squad, Jimmy had become captain, a post he held for 15 years, said Fire Chief Phil McGouldrick. Jimmy also volunteered with the fire department and became deputy chief in the mid-1980s.
It was a typical Jimmy endeavor, in which he gave generously of his time and energy, but remained modest about his work and his impact. But others saw, and they knew.
“He was always giving, always trying to help everybody out. You could always depend on him,” McGouldrick said.
Eleven years ago, Jimmy began an effort to revive Cape’s Memorial Day celebrations. He served as Grand Marshal and master of ceremonies for this year’s event.
He was praised by Town Manager Mike McGovern and the assembled crowd for his work.
And though not himself a veteran, Jimmy made a special point to honor not only veterans in uniform who marched in the parade, but also those who simply attended the ceremony.
While many of those he helped honor were strangers to him, Jimmy also took good care of the people he knew.
Fire Lt. Jason Allen’s father died several years ago, and Allen remembered Jimmy was “the first guy that called. He was incredibly caring.”
Help wasn’t all Jimmy had to offer. “He was just a character, ” McGouldrick said.
“That’s what I’m going to miss is the loud voice and the comments,” Skip Murray said.
Jimmy and his wife, Carol, opened their home on Fowler Road to anyone passing by, and there was always coffee and doughnuts inside, ready to accompany conversation. Police officers, firefighters and other members of the community stopped every time they drove down Fowler Road, McGouldrick said.
Doughnuts and other sweets were a particular Jimmy weakness. “Dunkin’ Donuts was his second home for many years,” McGouldrick said. “He bought ‘em by the dozen and he ate ‘em by the dozen.”
And at busy fire scenes, firefighters knew they could always find a snack – a candy bar or piece of chocolate – under the seat of Jimmy’s truck. He also often had a box of his favorite doughnut – the Dunkin’, “the one with the handle”–there, too, Skip said.
When hunting at his camp in Baldwin—another of his passions—Jimmy was known for bringing along a pile of goodies. In stops at a market in Standish, Skip said, “he would fill a cart with junk food, and we were only going for the weekend.”
Generations of Cape kids learned to shoot at that camp, including Jimmy’s cousin Gerry, who was also a former fire captain, and Gerry’s kids.
But that was where the fun had limits. Jimmy made sure all the kids knew how to handle guns safely, and even when he handed out fireworks for kids to set off, Jimmy kept a close eye on them, making sure nobody got hurt.
“He played it by the rules,” Gerry said. And he knew them all, going so far as to keep a handbook of federal worker safety guidelines in his truck for reference during inspections at his company’s construction site.
When fighting fires out in rural Cape, McGouldrick and all the firefighters relied on Jimmy’s memory for locations of water and sewer lines throughout the town.
“He was a common-sense fire chief,” McGouldrick said. Jimmy was always eager to learn more, too, and McGouldrick remembered taking him to a big fire in Portland to teach Jimmy more about how fire behaves in big buildings.
Always wary of being too serious, Jimmy knew how to keep everyone amused. “There wasn’t anybody that could make you laugh the way that Jimmy could,” Lt. Allen said. He recalled Jimmy’s habitual late arrivals at fire company meetings. He would always walk in and slam the door to announce his arrival, Allen said.
“He had an unbelievable presence about him,” Allen said. Some of the bang in his personality might have been gunpowder, left over from his fireworks shows, known throughout the region as literally “good bang for the buck.”
Jimmy made little if any profit off his shows, which included shows at Portland Sea Dogs games and the Yarmouth Clambake, as well as Family Fun Days in Cape.
Skip said he’s not sure he’ll keep that business going, though he and Carol will finish out this summer’s obligations. They set up the show for Family Fun Days, using what Skip said were some fireworks from Jimmy’s “secret stash,” unique shells found only at fireworks conventions. The show was rained out, and Skip joked that the downpour could have been one of Jimmy’s last stunts.
But Jimmy wouldn’t have wanted to deprive the community of a really great show. Skip said he wanted Jimmy to see those shells, which he never used because they were “too good to shoot.”
Patrolman Vaughn Dyer met Jimmy 27 years ago, when Dyer first joined the Cape Police Department. “I wish it was longer,” Dyer said. “He was one of those people that you meet and instantly become friends with.”
“Jimmy is going to be very sadly missed,” said Dyer, who served in the honor guard for Jimmy’s casket. “This town doesn’t realize what it’s lost.”
In response to his service and efforts, the community came together to honor his life, filling pews and extra chairs in St. Bartholomew’s Church, and parading down Ocean House Road from the church to Seaside Cemetery.
Murray was escorted to his grave by an honor guard of six public safety officers, including members of the Cape police and fire departments and the state fire marshal’s office. His memorial service and burial were attended by over 50 uniformed firefighters, rescue squad members and police officers, from as far away as Bangor.
At the request of the family, it was not a formal firefighter’s funeral, with a parade of fire trucks and other honors. “It was informal, just like Jimmy,” Dyer said.
Thursday, June 20, 2002
Cape’s original summer center
Published in the Current
When Barbara Steele and her husband Bob were buying a house in Cape Cottage 50 years ago, they first visited the site on Woodcrest Road by the direct route from Oakhurst Road. The second time, they came up through the Cape Cottage Woods area and got thoroughly lost.
“We couldn’t find the house we’d bought,” Steele remembered. Even now, once past the stone pillars next to St. Albans Church, it’s not easy to find a route through the twisty roads of Cape Cottage. Fortunately, she found it and hasn’t lived anywhere else since.
“The night we moved here, we stayed at the old Cape Cottage Hotel,” Steele said. A fixture of the neighborhood then was the foghorn at Fort Williams.
“The big thrill was the foghorn,” Steele said, remembering its “mournful sound.” But after a time, it became part of the normal life near Fort Williams. “We heard it when it stopped,” Steele said.
The fort’s horn was eventually discontinued, making the nearest horn the one at Two Lights, which can’t be heard at Steele’s home.
The area around the fort used to be the center of Cape when it was a town of mostly summer homes. The police and fire station were there. The Cape Cottage Hotel and the Casino were big draws to the area, as well as the trolley park, at the end of the trolley line leaving South Portland.
The Cape Cottage neighborhood was on one side of the fort area – now a much visited park and home to Portland Head Light — and Delano Park was on the other.
The casino is now a nursery school. Some of the older homes in Delano Park have been torn down.
But kids still skate on the pond in Fort Williams, and the Cape Cottage beach remains a beautiful crescent with big cottages and blue water, very much the “movie set” Steele recalls.
Still making memories
In Cape Cottage, the beach association hired neighborhood girls as lifeguards, who also taught kids to swim in the protected cove. Adults weren’t so brave, Steele remembered.
“If you walked in, you couldn’t feel your feet. It was freezing,” Steele said. “But the kids didn’t mind a bit.”
Steele also remembered the two stores on Shore Road, Chaput’s and Armstrong’s. The latter, now the Cape Cottage Branch post office, “carried everything,” Steele said.
Her kids went to Cottage Farm School, a building on Cottage Farms Road that is now apartments. “It was just like a private school,” Steele said.
But despite the nearness, they had to take a bus. Back then, Oakhurst Road didn’t go through to Mitchell Road.
“There used to be nothing beyond our driveway,” Steele said.
Kids were a big part of the neighborhoods, and still are.
“It’s a great neighborhood. There are a lot of kids, and good people,” said Martha MacKay. She is, with her husband, secretary of the Cape Cottage Beach Association.
“The kids sort of travel in a gang in the streets,” MacKay said.
“It is just as popular now with young people as it was 50 years ago,” Steele said. “It’s a neighborhood feel.”
On sunny days after school, the roads ring with the shouts of children. The neighborhood still gathers for beach clean-ups and an early summer party and ends the summer with a lobster bake in August.
The beach association is a big reason for the popularity of the neighborhood, and the beach itself is reason to stay. It sits, a sliver of soft sand, in a quiet cove with views of Portland Harbor and Fort Gorges.
“You find a lot of times that people move into the neighborhood and they don’t leave,” MacKay said.
“We thought we were moving to the ends of the Earth, absolutely the end,” Steele said of her first impressions of Cape Elizabeth. But, after two weeks, “we thought we’d never leave,” she said.
They didn’t. Her husband turned down three job transfers so the family could stay in the area. Steele herself also found work in the area, selling real estate for several years before taking a job at the high school, where she was secretary to three principals over 20 years.
Postmaster Ann Burke, known as “Annie B” to her customers, also hasn’t left. In September, she will have spent 58 years working at the Cape Cottage Branch post office on Shore Road.
The office itself is 100 years old, and contains mementos of post office-box holders and neighborhood characters, including a lampshade decorated with stamps by Joan Benoit Samuelson, who grew up on Wood Road.
Some of those whose pictures and artwork hang in the little post office are dead, and others have moved to Piper Shores, Burke said. “It’s sad for me, but it’s nice for them,” she added.
Burke, a spunky, sprightly woman, lives her job: Her home is only feet from her desk. Everything she points to has a story, and she is more than happy to share them. She remembers a neighborhood boy who came back after he turned 30, and Burke was able to tell him which family he was from, though she didn’t know the boy’s name. Now he lives out of state, but sends Burke photos of his children.
Some things, like the stamped lampshade, have been made specifically for display in the office. Others, especially the obituaries cut out of local papers, represent people who are no longer Burke’s regulars.
“Everything seems to have a meaning here,” Burke said.
She remembers how things have changed, too, from the trolley tracks in front of the building to the kids at the bus stop across the street. “It’s mostly now older people,” Burke said. “I miss those kids.”
“I couldn’t have a better job,” Burke said. She has 81 mailboxes to tend, three cats, a large number of plants, and does it all with a smile.
“My body grew old but my mind didn’t,” Burke said. “I think I’m very fortunate to be here this long.”
The things she misses the most? It’s the same answer Steele had. “I liked that old foghorn,” Burke said. “I never got over that old-fashioned sound.”
Fort’s legacy
Before the foghorn left, the fort was once a neighborhood, though people who lived there expected to leave when called elsewhere for military service. And its location at the “end of the Earth” made it a perfect place for artillery positioned to defend the port of Portland.
One of the most notable homes was Goddard Mansion, built in 1858 by Col. John Goddard, an officer of the First Maine Cavalry before the Civil War. He had owned the Cape Cottage Hotel since 1835.
Built in the Italianate style in native stone, the mansion, called Grove Hall by its first owner, was designed by architect Charles Alexander of Portland, and was one of the first truly noteworthy houses along the Cape Elizabeth shore.
Bought by the U.S. Army in 1898, it housed enlisted men, non-commissioned officers and their families at different times. It fell into disrepair after the fort was decommissioned.
The interior was burned in a training fire for the Cape Elizabeth Fire Department March 11, 1981, and the building is now preserved as a ruin.
The fort was purchased by the town in 1964, a year after it was decommissioned by the Army, but was not designated a park until 1979.
“That was the smartest thing the town ever did was buy that fort,” Steele said.
Now the park is an often-visited area of the coastline, and has been seen, from time to time, as a possible revenue source for the town. The problem is the government stipulated when it sold the park that Cape residents would have to pay the same fee as everybody else to get in, so the town has never charged.
Park outside the park
Just south of Fort Williams Park is Delano Park, a privately owned planned community created in 1885, and expanded to the south in 1895.
Bob Shuman lives in the first house ever built in the park, the home his great-grandfather, George Morse, put up in 1886.
“This is a place that has been in my family since it was built,” Shuman said. Morse painted nature scenes around Delano Park and Cape Elizabeth, many of which still hang in Shuman’s home.
In the 15 years Shuman has lived in the house, he can think of two people who took jobs in other areas of the country and moved away. The rest have stayed until they have to leave, he said.
“What’s unique about the park is its location,” Shuman said. It is eight minutes from downtown Portland, but very rural. Cape Cottage has a similar feel, though the roads are wider.
It is a quiet spot with reasonably large lots and a slow turnover.
“The personality of the place changes with time,” Shuman said.
The cycle takes a while to complete, typically starting with a young family buying from an older owner who inherited the property from parents or grandparents, retired to Delano Park, and is now too old to live independently.
Shuman’s two sons and their families are interested in his house, which he said is like “living in a museum.”
“It’s always been in the family, which means it’s never been cleaned out,” he said. In his house, Shuman has found the notice for his great-grandfather to report to the Army for the Civil War and a letter excusing him from service, noting the request of his mother.
The park is rich in history, most visibly in the distance garages are from houses. Most started as stables and were best kept apart from the home. And owning a home designed by John Calvin Stevens is something of a neighborhood status symbol.
Also of importance are ocean views, which are great for some residents, but can cause traffic problems, even on the roads, which are not public ways.
“Whenever we have a storm and the surf is up, people want to see the waves,” Shuman said. Residents, however, are welcome to drive and walk the paths and roads, which they pay to have plowed, resurfaced and maintained. Two areas in the park are preserved as greenspace, and though they technically could be sold, they are more than likely protected wetlands, Shuman said.
Both parks have streams running through them, and while that may sound nice, in the height of summer, some residents might wish them away.
“The mosquitoes are just wild,” Shuman said.
All the same, he thinks it’s a good place for people of all ages to live.
Mark Feenstra agrees. Feenstra, president of the Delano Park Neighborhood Association, has lived in the park for three years.
“It’s hard to go on vacation,” Feenstra said. He feels like he lives on vacation, he said. One of his favorite things to do is something the early park residents also enjoyed: early morning fishing for striper off the rocks.
“I’m usually the only one down there fishing,” he said.
But he is seeing some transitions now.
“It’s becoming more of a family neighborhood,” Feenstra said. Three families are just moving in with three children each. And one house was recently purchased for over $800,000, only to be torn down for another house to be built in its place.
“We’re getting a lot of tear-downs in there,” Feenstra said.
House values are on the rise, and two private beaches don’t keep them any lower.
“The prices have just gone right through the roof,” Feenstra said.
Shuman echoes his concerns. “I’m right on the water and scared to death of revaluation,” Shuman said. His property tax bill has quadrupled in 15 years.
“If they do double the valuation, the handwriting is on the wall,” Shuman said.
Still, “it’s a great place to live,” Shuman said, and most residents wouldn’t live anyplace else.
When Barbara Steele and her husband Bob were buying a house in Cape Cottage 50 years ago, they first visited the site on Woodcrest Road by the direct route from Oakhurst Road. The second time, they came up through the Cape Cottage Woods area and got thoroughly lost.
“We couldn’t find the house we’d bought,” Steele remembered. Even now, once past the stone pillars next to St. Albans Church, it’s not easy to find a route through the twisty roads of Cape Cottage. Fortunately, she found it and hasn’t lived anywhere else since.
“The night we moved here, we stayed at the old Cape Cottage Hotel,” Steele said. A fixture of the neighborhood then was the foghorn at Fort Williams.
“The big thrill was the foghorn,” Steele said, remembering its “mournful sound.” But after a time, it became part of the normal life near Fort Williams. “We heard it when it stopped,” Steele said.
The fort’s horn was eventually discontinued, making the nearest horn the one at Two Lights, which can’t be heard at Steele’s home.
The area around the fort used to be the center of Cape when it was a town of mostly summer homes. The police and fire station were there. The Cape Cottage Hotel and the Casino were big draws to the area, as well as the trolley park, at the end of the trolley line leaving South Portland.
The Cape Cottage neighborhood was on one side of the fort area – now a much visited park and home to Portland Head Light — and Delano Park was on the other.
The casino is now a nursery school. Some of the older homes in Delano Park have been torn down.
But kids still skate on the pond in Fort Williams, and the Cape Cottage beach remains a beautiful crescent with big cottages and blue water, very much the “movie set” Steele recalls.
Still making memories
In Cape Cottage, the beach association hired neighborhood girls as lifeguards, who also taught kids to swim in the protected cove. Adults weren’t so brave, Steele remembered.
“If you walked in, you couldn’t feel your feet. It was freezing,” Steele said. “But the kids didn’t mind a bit.”
Steele also remembered the two stores on Shore Road, Chaput’s and Armstrong’s. The latter, now the Cape Cottage Branch post office, “carried everything,” Steele said.
Her kids went to Cottage Farm School, a building on Cottage Farms Road that is now apartments. “It was just like a private school,” Steele said.
But despite the nearness, they had to take a bus. Back then, Oakhurst Road didn’t go through to Mitchell Road.
“There used to be nothing beyond our driveway,” Steele said.
Kids were a big part of the neighborhoods, and still are.
“It’s a great neighborhood. There are a lot of kids, and good people,” said Martha MacKay. She is, with her husband, secretary of the Cape Cottage Beach Association.
“The kids sort of travel in a gang in the streets,” MacKay said.
“It is just as popular now with young people as it was 50 years ago,” Steele said. “It’s a neighborhood feel.”
On sunny days after school, the roads ring with the shouts of children. The neighborhood still gathers for beach clean-ups and an early summer party and ends the summer with a lobster bake in August.
The beach association is a big reason for the popularity of the neighborhood, and the beach itself is reason to stay. It sits, a sliver of soft sand, in a quiet cove with views of Portland Harbor and Fort Gorges.
“You find a lot of times that people move into the neighborhood and they don’t leave,” MacKay said.
“We thought we were moving to the ends of the Earth, absolutely the end,” Steele said of her first impressions of Cape Elizabeth. But, after two weeks, “we thought we’d never leave,” she said.
They didn’t. Her husband turned down three job transfers so the family could stay in the area. Steele herself also found work in the area, selling real estate for several years before taking a job at the high school, where she was secretary to three principals over 20 years.
Postmaster Ann Burke, known as “Annie B” to her customers, also hasn’t left. In September, she will have spent 58 years working at the Cape Cottage Branch post office on Shore Road.
The office itself is 100 years old, and contains mementos of post office-box holders and neighborhood characters, including a lampshade decorated with stamps by Joan Benoit Samuelson, who grew up on Wood Road.
Some of those whose pictures and artwork hang in the little post office are dead, and others have moved to Piper Shores, Burke said. “It’s sad for me, but it’s nice for them,” she added.
Burke, a spunky, sprightly woman, lives her job: Her home is only feet from her desk. Everything she points to has a story, and she is more than happy to share them. She remembers a neighborhood boy who came back after he turned 30, and Burke was able to tell him which family he was from, though she didn’t know the boy’s name. Now he lives out of state, but sends Burke photos of his children.
Some things, like the stamped lampshade, have been made specifically for display in the office. Others, especially the obituaries cut out of local papers, represent people who are no longer Burke’s regulars.
“Everything seems to have a meaning here,” Burke said.
She remembers how things have changed, too, from the trolley tracks in front of the building to the kids at the bus stop across the street. “It’s mostly now older people,” Burke said. “I miss those kids.”
“I couldn’t have a better job,” Burke said. She has 81 mailboxes to tend, three cats, a large number of plants, and does it all with a smile.
“My body grew old but my mind didn’t,” Burke said. “I think I’m very fortunate to be here this long.”
The things she misses the most? It’s the same answer Steele had. “I liked that old foghorn,” Burke said. “I never got over that old-fashioned sound.”
Fort’s legacy
Before the foghorn left, the fort was once a neighborhood, though people who lived there expected to leave when called elsewhere for military service. And its location at the “end of the Earth” made it a perfect place for artillery positioned to defend the port of Portland.
One of the most notable homes was Goddard Mansion, built in 1858 by Col. John Goddard, an officer of the First Maine Cavalry before the Civil War. He had owned the Cape Cottage Hotel since 1835.
Built in the Italianate style in native stone, the mansion, called Grove Hall by its first owner, was designed by architect Charles Alexander of Portland, and was one of the first truly noteworthy houses along the Cape Elizabeth shore.
Bought by the U.S. Army in 1898, it housed enlisted men, non-commissioned officers and their families at different times. It fell into disrepair after the fort was decommissioned.
The interior was burned in a training fire for the Cape Elizabeth Fire Department March 11, 1981, and the building is now preserved as a ruin.
The fort was purchased by the town in 1964, a year after it was decommissioned by the Army, but was not designated a park until 1979.
“That was the smartest thing the town ever did was buy that fort,” Steele said.
Now the park is an often-visited area of the coastline, and has been seen, from time to time, as a possible revenue source for the town. The problem is the government stipulated when it sold the park that Cape residents would have to pay the same fee as everybody else to get in, so the town has never charged.
Park outside the park
Just south of Fort Williams Park is Delano Park, a privately owned planned community created in 1885, and expanded to the south in 1895.
Bob Shuman lives in the first house ever built in the park, the home his great-grandfather, George Morse, put up in 1886.
“This is a place that has been in my family since it was built,” Shuman said. Morse painted nature scenes around Delano Park and Cape Elizabeth, many of which still hang in Shuman’s home.
In the 15 years Shuman has lived in the house, he can think of two people who took jobs in other areas of the country and moved away. The rest have stayed until they have to leave, he said.
“What’s unique about the park is its location,” Shuman said. It is eight minutes from downtown Portland, but very rural. Cape Cottage has a similar feel, though the roads are wider.
It is a quiet spot with reasonably large lots and a slow turnover.
“The personality of the place changes with time,” Shuman said.
The cycle takes a while to complete, typically starting with a young family buying from an older owner who inherited the property from parents or grandparents, retired to Delano Park, and is now too old to live independently.
Shuman’s two sons and their families are interested in his house, which he said is like “living in a museum.”
“It’s always been in the family, which means it’s never been cleaned out,” he said. In his house, Shuman has found the notice for his great-grandfather to report to the Army for the Civil War and a letter excusing him from service, noting the request of his mother.
The park is rich in history, most visibly in the distance garages are from houses. Most started as stables and were best kept apart from the home. And owning a home designed by John Calvin Stevens is something of a neighborhood status symbol.
Also of importance are ocean views, which are great for some residents, but can cause traffic problems, even on the roads, which are not public ways.
“Whenever we have a storm and the surf is up, people want to see the waves,” Shuman said. Residents, however, are welcome to drive and walk the paths and roads, which they pay to have plowed, resurfaced and maintained. Two areas in the park are preserved as greenspace, and though they technically could be sold, they are more than likely protected wetlands, Shuman said.
Both parks have streams running through them, and while that may sound nice, in the height of summer, some residents might wish them away.
“The mosquitoes are just wild,” Shuman said.
All the same, he thinks it’s a good place for people of all ages to live.
Mark Feenstra agrees. Feenstra, president of the Delano Park Neighborhood Association, has lived in the park for three years.
“It’s hard to go on vacation,” Feenstra said. He feels like he lives on vacation, he said. One of his favorite things to do is something the early park residents also enjoyed: early morning fishing for striper off the rocks.
“I’m usually the only one down there fishing,” he said.
But he is seeing some transitions now.
“It’s becoming more of a family neighborhood,” Feenstra said. Three families are just moving in with three children each. And one house was recently purchased for over $800,000, only to be torn down for another house to be built in its place.
“We’re getting a lot of tear-downs in there,” Feenstra said.
House values are on the rise, and two private beaches don’t keep them any lower.
“The prices have just gone right through the roof,” Feenstra said.
Shuman echoes his concerns. “I’m right on the water and scared to death of revaluation,” Shuman said. His property tax bill has quadrupled in 15 years.
“If they do double the valuation, the handwriting is on the wall,” Shuman said.
Still, “it’s a great place to live,” Shuman said, and most residents wouldn’t live anyplace else.
Boat stolen from Prouts Yacht Club
Published in the Current
For the first time in more than 20 years, a boat has been stolen from the Prouts Neck Yacht Club.
On June 6, a custom-built wood-and-fiberglass sailboat, 15 feet long, was parked on its trailer at the yacht club. Between then and June 11, the boat, a Doughdish with a white hull, named “Heartthrob,” was stolen.
It is worth about $17,000, police said.
The owner is from Pennsylvania, according to Scarborough police, and summers in Prouts Neck.
Bill Harding manufactures the boats in southern Massachusetts. In 1972 he started building them out of fiberglass after a 1914 design by Nathaniel Herreshoff.
Herreshoff built the boats out of wood between 1914 and 1943.
The first customers were people summering on Cape Cod who bought them for their children to sail in the breezy, choppy Buzzard’s Bay. But, Harding said, “the boat turned out to be beloved by all ages in the family.”
And though he has made 475 of the ballasted-keel boats, one has never been stolen before, he said. “This is the first I’ve ever heard of that,” Harding said.
For the first time in more than 20 years, a boat has been stolen from the Prouts Neck Yacht Club.
On June 6, a custom-built wood-and-fiberglass sailboat, 15 feet long, was parked on its trailer at the yacht club. Between then and June 11, the boat, a Doughdish with a white hull, named “Heartthrob,” was stolen.
It is worth about $17,000, police said.
The owner is from Pennsylvania, according to Scarborough police, and summers in Prouts Neck.
Bill Harding manufactures the boats in southern Massachusetts. In 1972 he started building them out of fiberglass after a 1914 design by Nathaniel Herreshoff.
Herreshoff built the boats out of wood between 1914 and 1943.
The first customers were people summering on Cape Cod who bought them for their children to sail in the breezy, choppy Buzzard’s Bay. But, Harding said, “the boat turned out to be beloved by all ages in the family.”
And though he has made 475 of the ballasted-keel boats, one has never been stolen before, he said. “This is the first I’ve ever heard of that,” Harding said.
Dead whale turns up again
Published in the Current
A dead humpback whale continues to visit local beaches and is posing a challenge for marine biologists trying to find a place for it to decompose naturally.
The whale, first found on Richmond Island June 7 and nine days later on Old Orchard Beach, was to be towed out to sea a second time after it washed ashore again on Scarborough Beach June 18.
When first located on Richmond Island, the whale had been dead for about five days. It was tied down to rocks in Mussel Cove for further study on June 8.
An examination of the 32-foot juvenile whale could not determine the cause of death, according to Greg Jakush, president of the Marine Animal Lifeline.
The Cape Elizabeth Water Extrication Team took Jakush and another Lifeline biologist out to the whale and managed to tie the corpse to a large rock on the island, to prevent it from floating away.
The location of the whale, on sharp, slippery rocks in Mussel Cove, made the prospect of cutting open the corpse a hazardous one, Jakush said, so the scientists decided not to. After about 24 hours, tissue samples from a dead whale are almost useless, he said.
The whale was left there, Jakush said, to decompose. He and others expected the whale to stay put, but with storms and high winds over the weekend, the whale moved to Old Orchard Beach. It was towed out to Three Tree Ledge, beyond Stratton Island, June 16, and slit open in the hope that it would sink in about 100 feet of water.
But instead, the wind and current washed it back to the mainland, where it arrived in some rocks at the extreme northern end of Scarborough Beach.
“It’s just caught in the currents around Southern Maine,” Jakush said.
Towing it would be futile without a large trawler, he said, which could take the carcass “very far” offshore. Rather than do that, Jakush said the whale will be towed out to an uninhabited island or ledge and tied down to reduce the likelihood that it will wash ashore again.
Despite the large number of incidents involving this whale, Jakush said it was the first large whale the Lifeline has responded to this year. He said there may be others out there unreported. “There are a lot of hidden coves and islands,” he said.
Jakush said there was no cause for alarm or concern about the rate of whale deaths this year. He said the Center for Coastal Studies had untangled a similar whale from fishing gear off Camp Ellis on June 3, and Center staff believe the dead whale is the same animal.
Jakush said a cause of death is still undetermined, and stressed that the impact of the entanglement is unknown. “It could have been the cause (of death). It may not have been,” he said.
A dead humpback whale continues to visit local beaches and is posing a challenge for marine biologists trying to find a place for it to decompose naturally.
The whale, first found on Richmond Island June 7 and nine days later on Old Orchard Beach, was to be towed out to sea a second time after it washed ashore again on Scarborough Beach June 18.
When first located on Richmond Island, the whale had been dead for about five days. It was tied down to rocks in Mussel Cove for further study on June 8.
An examination of the 32-foot juvenile whale could not determine the cause of death, according to Greg Jakush, president of the Marine Animal Lifeline.
The Cape Elizabeth Water Extrication Team took Jakush and another Lifeline biologist out to the whale and managed to tie the corpse to a large rock on the island, to prevent it from floating away.
The location of the whale, on sharp, slippery rocks in Mussel Cove, made the prospect of cutting open the corpse a hazardous one, Jakush said, so the scientists decided not to. After about 24 hours, tissue samples from a dead whale are almost useless, he said.
The whale was left there, Jakush said, to decompose. He and others expected the whale to stay put, but with storms and high winds over the weekend, the whale moved to Old Orchard Beach. It was towed out to Three Tree Ledge, beyond Stratton Island, June 16, and slit open in the hope that it would sink in about 100 feet of water.
But instead, the wind and current washed it back to the mainland, where it arrived in some rocks at the extreme northern end of Scarborough Beach.
“It’s just caught in the currents around Southern Maine,” Jakush said.
Towing it would be futile without a large trawler, he said, which could take the carcass “very far” offshore. Rather than do that, Jakush said the whale will be towed out to an uninhabited island or ledge and tied down to reduce the likelihood that it will wash ashore again.
Despite the large number of incidents involving this whale, Jakush said it was the first large whale the Lifeline has responded to this year. He said there may be others out there unreported. “There are a lot of hidden coves and islands,” he said.
Jakush said there was no cause for alarm or concern about the rate of whale deaths this year. He said the Center for Coastal Studies had untangled a similar whale from fishing gear off Camp Ellis on June 3, and Center staff believe the dead whale is the same animal.
Jakush said a cause of death is still undetermined, and stressed that the impact of the entanglement is unknown. “It could have been the cause (of death). It may not have been,” he said.
Thursday, June 13, 2002
Police keep Cape safe on graduation weekend
Published in the Current
It’s the Friday before high school graduation in Cape Elizabeth, and Sgt. Kevin Kennedy is sitting in a cruiser at Kettle Cove with his lights off. He turns on his radar and waits.
As if on cue, about 20 cars form a line snaking down the road, past Kennedy’s car, through the parking lot and back out again. Each car has a teen-ager at the wheel, and some have a number of passengers.
The Current decided to ride along with Cape police last Friday to see how they handled graduation weekend.
With graduation looming, some teens were celebrating. Police were out patrolling to make sure the festivities remained safe.
The three officers on duty were Kennedy (from 3 p.m. to 7 a.m.), Officer Allen Westberry (from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.), and Officer James Starnes (from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.). The Current spent most of the night with Kennedy.
Kennedy starts with a look around his cruiser, making sure everything’s in place and working, from the road flares and reflective vest in the trunk to the radar detector and video-recording system on his dashboard.
Driving out of the station, Kennedy’s first stop is Kettle Cove, which he will visit several times during the night.
The Cape Elizabeth Water Extrication Team is leaving from the cove to shuttle two biologists out to Richmond Island to tie down a dead whale, so it will be there in the morning.
The scientists want to learn how it died and take tissue samples to keep tabs on the whale population in the Gulf of Maine.
He gets called back to the station to take an accident report for something that happened the day before, and then returns to the cove. On this occasion, he saw the procession of cars come by.
Kennedy expressed surprise at the number of students, but lets them go by. He keeps an eye on the radar, though, hoping someone will come flying down the road. After the cars all leave, he waits some more, and a few return to check whether the police car is still there. It is.
Then he meets up with a state park ranger about to go off duty. The ranger is surprised, too, at the number of cars that just went by. Kennedy decides to come back later in the evening.
Leaving Kettle Cove, Kennedy heads down Route 77 onto Bowery Beach Road and turns into Charles E. Jordan Road, leading to the Sprague estate, Ram Island Farm.
“Let’s go down here, and make sure everything is quiet,” Kennedy said. The road, he said is a frequent spot for joggers and cyclists, but is lightly traveled. A person who gets hurt might have to wait some time for help.
As he goes by, Kennedy eyes the parking lot at Jordan Hall, on the corner of Bowery Beach Road. Sometimes cars are broken into there, because thieves know people are walking or running on nearby roads and are unlikely to return in time to witness a crime.
Finding nothing but an elderly couple out for a drive, Kennedy heads back toward the center of town on Fowler Road. He’s trying to cover ground but in a way that doesn’t fit any pattern from night to night.
“I try to make sure I go through every neighborhood on each shift,” Kennedy said.
But by varying his schedule and patrol route, he makes sure criminals can’t be certain they’ll be safe.
At the corner of Fenway Road, Kennedy turns off Fowler Road and heads to the end of the cul-de-sac to see if anyone is parked there. It is a common parking area for kids heading out to party on the shore of Great Pond.
At the corner of Fenway, he notices that the street sign is missing. Not just the sign with the name of the street, but the entire pole has been removed. He calls it in and heads to nearby Susan Road to make sure the sign is on that corner. It is.
Still making his way down Fowler Road toward the center of town, Kennedy notices a truck going the other way. It is pulling a trailer that has no lights. He turns around and tries to catch up, but reaches the corner of Bowery Beach Road before deciding to give up the chase. He figures the truck has turned off or pulled into a driveway.
Kennedy makes a third effort to head to the center of town, but it is not to be. Dispatcher John Swinehart calls on the radio, reporting that someone has just called the police station to complain about unknown vehicles and people heading down to the beach near Richmond Terrace, a private road near Crescent Beach.
Swinehart also alerts Westberry, patrolling the north side of town that night. Westberry heads down to help out if anything happens, and to provide another set of eyes.
Pulling into Richmond, Kennedy notices a sedan with three girls in it, but they are leaving the area, so he isn’t concerned. Moving down the road a bit, he stops and gets out to check a car parked beside the road.
There’s nothing suspicious inside, so he moves on and leaves the area, having found nothing.
Kennedy heads over to Kettle Cove again and parks with his lights off farther into the lot. He gets out to check on a couple from Rhode Island who are parked there. They’re fine and have just finished a walk on the beach with their dog.
Some more cars come down into the cove and loop through the parking lot when they see Kennedy’s car there. After the traffic subsides, he drives back over to Richmond Terrace, where Westberry has made a traffic stop.
Coming down Richmond Terrace, Kennedy finds himself following a car with a broken taillight. The car pulls into a driveway just in front of where Westberry has stopped a car, in the middle of the one-lane road.
Getting out, Kennedy looks over at the car he has been behind and eyes the license plate’s registration sticker.
“He expired back in March. This is a good one,” Kennedy said.
The driver is a 17-year-old male, and Kennedy asks him to get out of the car. Kennedy searches the car, coming up with several cigarettes and a six-pack of beer.
While Kennedy and Westberry are talking to the driver, a few teens walk by, heading toward the beach. The officers ask what they’re up to, and they say they’re just leaving a friend’s house. When pressed, though, they are unable to name the friend or say what they were doing.
“We were coming to see what was going on over here,” one kid admitted.
“Nothing’s going on. Goodbye,” Kennedy replied.
The driver Westberry stopped was originally just stopped for trespassing, as Richmond Terrace is a private road. It turns out, though, that she has had her license for only 86 days, four days shy of the day she is allowed to have passengers. But there are two other teens in her car.
A search of that car turns up a partially-full bottle of rum and two water bottles also containing rum.
The driver steps out of the car, and one of her passengers, who has had his license long enough to drive passengers, takes the wheel.
The officers and teens are tied up at the scene for about 45 minutes with car searches, license checks and paperwork. The blue strobes on Westberry’s car, and spotlights from both patrol cars illuminate the neighborhood.
But even after three-quarters of an hour, the stop is not done.
Police Chief Neil Williams wants his officers to contact parents when kids are caught with alcohol.
Kennedy follows the car he stopped, with the broken taillight, to the teen’s home.
The boy goes in to wake up his parents, but nobody is home. Kennedy knocks a couple of times, radios dispatch for the phone number, and calls on a cellphone he carries in his car.
There is no answer, so Kennedy gives the kid his business card and asks him to tell his parents to call the police station the next day.
The officers meet back at the police station to do the rest of the paperwork for each complaint, and to photograph the items they have confiscated.
Starnes comes on duty and reports what he has seen on his way to the station.
“They’re massing at Cumby,” he said. Teens are gathering in their cars. Kennedy and Starnes take just a few seconds to decide what spots they’ll pay special attention to for the rest of the night.
The two will continue to follow the teens around town, fitting in the required checks on all businesses in town through the rest of the night.
It’s the Friday before high school graduation in Cape Elizabeth, and Sgt. Kevin Kennedy is sitting in a cruiser at Kettle Cove with his lights off. He turns on his radar and waits.
As if on cue, about 20 cars form a line snaking down the road, past Kennedy’s car, through the parking lot and back out again. Each car has a teen-ager at the wheel, and some have a number of passengers.
The Current decided to ride along with Cape police last Friday to see how they handled graduation weekend.
With graduation looming, some teens were celebrating. Police were out patrolling to make sure the festivities remained safe.
The three officers on duty were Kennedy (from 3 p.m. to 7 a.m.), Officer Allen Westberry (from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.), and Officer James Starnes (from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.). The Current spent most of the night with Kennedy.
Kennedy starts with a look around his cruiser, making sure everything’s in place and working, from the road flares and reflective vest in the trunk to the radar detector and video-recording system on his dashboard.
Driving out of the station, Kennedy’s first stop is Kettle Cove, which he will visit several times during the night.
The Cape Elizabeth Water Extrication Team is leaving from the cove to shuttle two biologists out to Richmond Island to tie down a dead whale, so it will be there in the morning.
The scientists want to learn how it died and take tissue samples to keep tabs on the whale population in the Gulf of Maine.
He gets called back to the station to take an accident report for something that happened the day before, and then returns to the cove. On this occasion, he saw the procession of cars come by.
Kennedy expressed surprise at the number of students, but lets them go by. He keeps an eye on the radar, though, hoping someone will come flying down the road. After the cars all leave, he waits some more, and a few return to check whether the police car is still there. It is.
Then he meets up with a state park ranger about to go off duty. The ranger is surprised, too, at the number of cars that just went by. Kennedy decides to come back later in the evening.
Leaving Kettle Cove, Kennedy heads down Route 77 onto Bowery Beach Road and turns into Charles E. Jordan Road, leading to the Sprague estate, Ram Island Farm.
“Let’s go down here, and make sure everything is quiet,” Kennedy said. The road, he said is a frequent spot for joggers and cyclists, but is lightly traveled. A person who gets hurt might have to wait some time for help.
As he goes by, Kennedy eyes the parking lot at Jordan Hall, on the corner of Bowery Beach Road. Sometimes cars are broken into there, because thieves know people are walking or running on nearby roads and are unlikely to return in time to witness a crime.
Finding nothing but an elderly couple out for a drive, Kennedy heads back toward the center of town on Fowler Road. He’s trying to cover ground but in a way that doesn’t fit any pattern from night to night.
“I try to make sure I go through every neighborhood on each shift,” Kennedy said.
But by varying his schedule and patrol route, he makes sure criminals can’t be certain they’ll be safe.
At the corner of Fenway Road, Kennedy turns off Fowler Road and heads to the end of the cul-de-sac to see if anyone is parked there. It is a common parking area for kids heading out to party on the shore of Great Pond.
At the corner of Fenway, he notices that the street sign is missing. Not just the sign with the name of the street, but the entire pole has been removed. He calls it in and heads to nearby Susan Road to make sure the sign is on that corner. It is.
Still making his way down Fowler Road toward the center of town, Kennedy notices a truck going the other way. It is pulling a trailer that has no lights. He turns around and tries to catch up, but reaches the corner of Bowery Beach Road before deciding to give up the chase. He figures the truck has turned off or pulled into a driveway.
Kennedy makes a third effort to head to the center of town, but it is not to be. Dispatcher John Swinehart calls on the radio, reporting that someone has just called the police station to complain about unknown vehicles and people heading down to the beach near Richmond Terrace, a private road near Crescent Beach.
Swinehart also alerts Westberry, patrolling the north side of town that night. Westberry heads down to help out if anything happens, and to provide another set of eyes.
Pulling into Richmond, Kennedy notices a sedan with three girls in it, but they are leaving the area, so he isn’t concerned. Moving down the road a bit, he stops and gets out to check a car parked beside the road.
There’s nothing suspicious inside, so he moves on and leaves the area, having found nothing.
Kennedy heads over to Kettle Cove again and parks with his lights off farther into the lot. He gets out to check on a couple from Rhode Island who are parked there. They’re fine and have just finished a walk on the beach with their dog.
Some more cars come down into the cove and loop through the parking lot when they see Kennedy’s car there. After the traffic subsides, he drives back over to Richmond Terrace, where Westberry has made a traffic stop.
Coming down Richmond Terrace, Kennedy finds himself following a car with a broken taillight. The car pulls into a driveway just in front of where Westberry has stopped a car, in the middle of the one-lane road.
Getting out, Kennedy looks over at the car he has been behind and eyes the license plate’s registration sticker.
“He expired back in March. This is a good one,” Kennedy said.
The driver is a 17-year-old male, and Kennedy asks him to get out of the car. Kennedy searches the car, coming up with several cigarettes and a six-pack of beer.
While Kennedy and Westberry are talking to the driver, a few teens walk by, heading toward the beach. The officers ask what they’re up to, and they say they’re just leaving a friend’s house. When pressed, though, they are unable to name the friend or say what they were doing.
“We were coming to see what was going on over here,” one kid admitted.
“Nothing’s going on. Goodbye,” Kennedy replied.
The driver Westberry stopped was originally just stopped for trespassing, as Richmond Terrace is a private road. It turns out, though, that she has had her license for only 86 days, four days shy of the day she is allowed to have passengers. But there are two other teens in her car.
A search of that car turns up a partially-full bottle of rum and two water bottles also containing rum.
The driver steps out of the car, and one of her passengers, who has had his license long enough to drive passengers, takes the wheel.
The officers and teens are tied up at the scene for about 45 minutes with car searches, license checks and paperwork. The blue strobes on Westberry’s car, and spotlights from both patrol cars illuminate the neighborhood.
But even after three-quarters of an hour, the stop is not done.
Police Chief Neil Williams wants his officers to contact parents when kids are caught with alcohol.
Kennedy follows the car he stopped, with the broken taillight, to the teen’s home.
The boy goes in to wake up his parents, but nobody is home. Kennedy knocks a couple of times, radios dispatch for the phone number, and calls on a cellphone he carries in his car.
There is no answer, so Kennedy gives the kid his business card and asks him to tell his parents to call the police station the next day.
The officers meet back at the police station to do the rest of the paperwork for each complaint, and to photograph the items they have confiscated.
Starnes comes on duty and reports what he has seen on his way to the station.
“They’re massing at Cumby,” he said. Teens are gathering in their cars. Kennedy and Starnes take just a few seconds to decide what spots they’ll pay special attention to for the rest of the night.
The two will continue to follow the teens around town, fitting in the required checks on all businesses in town through the rest of the night.
Firefighters to get pay increase
Published in the Current
The Scarborough Town Council intends to review the pay scale for the town’s firefighters over the summer, and may make further increases in firefighters’ pay in August.
Currently volunteer firefighters are paid $9.27 per hour to respond to fire calls. There are also firefighters and emergency medical technicians who work day shifts in the town’s fire stations, who get paid the same hourly rate.
While planning for the 2002-2003 budget this past spring, Thurlow requested a change in pay rates, with a top hourly wage at $11.50 per hour for all firefighters. After conversations with Town Manager Ron Owens and members of the Town Council, the pay increase was scaled back to $10 per hour, Thurlow said, but with the understanding that there would be a review of pay scales before the next budget cycle.
As part of his budget planning this y e a r, Fire Chief Michael Thurlow discovered that the town’s on-call and per-diem firefighters were being paid somewhat less than those in other towns. Further, private-sector jobs in construction and other skilled work, common side jobs for firefighters, pay substantially more than firefighting, Thurlow said.
“We’re all kind of vying for the same pool” of prospective employees, Thurlow said. Some firefighters have left the department, seeking more money in other departments or other lines of work,” he said.
“The council didn’t feel we had all the information to give the full request,” said Councilor Patrick O’Reilly. In his role as chair of the finance committee, O’Reilly would conduct any meetings reviewing firefighter pay.
“In preparation for that, I’m looking at more than just the base rate,” Thurlow said. As part of his initial budget proposal, he called neighboring fire departments to find out about their rates of pay.
He is now also looking at whether—and how much—those departments, with whom Scarborough competes for per-diem staff, pay for length of time served with the department, level of certification or rank in the department.
Thurlow said he has a draft proposal in the works, and is trying now to figure out what budgetary effect there would be to implement it. That means, Thurlow said, he has to look at each member of the fire, rescue and fire police squads to see where they would fall on a sliding scale of pay.
Thurlow plans to present his proposal to the Town Council’s finance committee in August. Potential outcomes could include a raise in the next budget process, or modification of pay rates in the current fiscal year, Owens said.
The Scarborough Town Council intends to review the pay scale for the town’s firefighters over the summer, and may make further increases in firefighters’ pay in August.
Currently volunteer firefighters are paid $9.27 per hour to respond to fire calls. There are also firefighters and emergency medical technicians who work day shifts in the town’s fire stations, who get paid the same hourly rate.
While planning for the 2002-2003 budget this past spring, Thurlow requested a change in pay rates, with a top hourly wage at $11.50 per hour for all firefighters. After conversations with Town Manager Ron Owens and members of the Town Council, the pay increase was scaled back to $10 per hour, Thurlow said, but with the understanding that there would be a review of pay scales before the next budget cycle.
As part of his budget planning this y e a r, Fire Chief Michael Thurlow discovered that the town’s on-call and per-diem firefighters were being paid somewhat less than those in other towns. Further, private-sector jobs in construction and other skilled work, common side jobs for firefighters, pay substantially more than firefighting, Thurlow said.
“We’re all kind of vying for the same pool” of prospective employees, Thurlow said. Some firefighters have left the department, seeking more money in other departments or other lines of work,” he said.
“The council didn’t feel we had all the information to give the full request,” said Councilor Patrick O’Reilly. In his role as chair of the finance committee, O’Reilly would conduct any meetings reviewing firefighter pay.
“In preparation for that, I’m looking at more than just the base rate,” Thurlow said. As part of his initial budget proposal, he called neighboring fire departments to find out about their rates of pay.
He is now also looking at whether—and how much—those departments, with whom Scarborough competes for per-diem staff, pay for length of time served with the department, level of certification or rank in the department.
Thurlow said he has a draft proposal in the works, and is trying now to figure out what budgetary effect there would be to implement it. That means, Thurlow said, he has to look at each member of the fire, rescue and fire police squads to see where they would fall on a sliding scale of pay.
Thurlow plans to present his proposal to the Town Council’s finance committee in August. Potential outcomes could include a raise in the next budget process, or modification of pay rates in the current fiscal year, Owens said.
Cape sends off 107 graduates
Published in the Current
Cape Elizabeth celebrated the graduation of 107 high school students at Fort Williams Park Sunday with a message of hope from a former principal and a call to face the challenges of the coming century from the senior class president.
The principal for three of the graduates four years, Pete Dawson, gave the keynote address. Senior Class President Dan Shevenell spoke to graduates after they received their diplomas.
Principal Jeff Shedd presented awards to members of the senior class who exhibited excellence in various aspects of schoolwork, athletics and community service, saying the awardees were examples to their peers and to the town.
The ceremony also included an a capella performance by six graduates of contemporary pop songs. The processional and national anthem were among the last pieces of music conducted by long-time CEHS music director Norm Richardson, who is retiring.
Of the 107 graduates, 78 had grade point averages of 85 or above, 27 were members of the National Honor Society, and 13 were members of the Maroon Medal Society, which recognizes students involved in a wide range of activities.
Dawson, who spent the last year as principal of an American International School near Tel Aviv, spoke of his experience there. He spoke of the role hope plays in the lives of people all over the world, and noted that just when hope seems furthest from reach is when making the effort to hope is most important.
Known at CEHS for his attendance at school events and remembering the names of all of the students, Dawson changed his trademark saying, “Today is a great day to achieve.” Instead, he proposed, “Today is a great day to make a difference.”
Graduates David Greenwood and Mariah Nelson gave the senior address, extolling the virtues of an open campus for seniors on free periods, saying “there is, in fact, nothing to do in Cape Elizabeth, let alone in 50 minutes.”
The two spoke also about the broad usage of instant messaging. Greenwood said he expected most seniors had enabled “away” messages indicating they were not at their computers. Those messages, he said, would read, “I’m graduating right now. Be back at three.”
Class valedictorian Amanda Gann spoke of the achievements of members of the class, individually and as a group, citing sports, theater, mock trial and academic accomplishments, and noting, “We have the best barbecue team that the state of Maine has ever known.”
Gann closed with a note of hope, saying “We are the artists of the future. … I can’t wait to see what we’ll do,” before quoting a passage of Dr. Seuss’s book “Oh, the Places You’ll Go.”
Shevenell quoted extensively from Theodore Roosevelt’s speech entitled “Citizenship in a Republic.” He exhorted his classmates to set goals and take hold of challenges, rather than criticize from afar those brave enough to face them. “Let us bravely shoulder the challenges that this century will surely put before us,” he said.
At the beginning of the ceremony, the graduates were preceded in their entry by 35 members of the high school faculty wearing academic regalia. The garb was paid for, in some cases, by the high school parents’ association, and represented, Shedd said, “the legitimizing of the diplomas that our graduates are about to receive.”
Cape Elizabeth celebrated the graduation of 107 high school students at Fort Williams Park Sunday with a message of hope from a former principal and a call to face the challenges of the coming century from the senior class president.
The principal for three of the graduates four years, Pete Dawson, gave the keynote address. Senior Class President Dan Shevenell spoke to graduates after they received their diplomas.
Principal Jeff Shedd presented awards to members of the senior class who exhibited excellence in various aspects of schoolwork, athletics and community service, saying the awardees were examples to their peers and to the town.
The ceremony also included an a capella performance by six graduates of contemporary pop songs. The processional and national anthem were among the last pieces of music conducted by long-time CEHS music director Norm Richardson, who is retiring.
Of the 107 graduates, 78 had grade point averages of 85 or above, 27 were members of the National Honor Society, and 13 were members of the Maroon Medal Society, which recognizes students involved in a wide range of activities.
Dawson, who spent the last year as principal of an American International School near Tel Aviv, spoke of his experience there. He spoke of the role hope plays in the lives of people all over the world, and noted that just when hope seems furthest from reach is when making the effort to hope is most important.
Known at CEHS for his attendance at school events and remembering the names of all of the students, Dawson changed his trademark saying, “Today is a great day to achieve.” Instead, he proposed, “Today is a great day to make a difference.”
Graduates David Greenwood and Mariah Nelson gave the senior address, extolling the virtues of an open campus for seniors on free periods, saying “there is, in fact, nothing to do in Cape Elizabeth, let alone in 50 minutes.”
The two spoke also about the broad usage of instant messaging. Greenwood said he expected most seniors had enabled “away” messages indicating they were not at their computers. Those messages, he said, would read, “I’m graduating right now. Be back at three.”
Class valedictorian Amanda Gann spoke of the achievements of members of the class, individually and as a group, citing sports, theater, mock trial and academic accomplishments, and noting, “We have the best barbecue team that the state of Maine has ever known.”
Gann closed with a note of hope, saying “We are the artists of the future. … I can’t wait to see what we’ll do,” before quoting a passage of Dr. Seuss’s book “Oh, the Places You’ll Go.”
Shevenell quoted extensively from Theodore Roosevelt’s speech entitled “Citizenship in a Republic.” He exhorted his classmates to set goals and take hold of challenges, rather than criticize from afar those brave enough to face them. “Let us bravely shoulder the challenges that this century will surely put before us,” he said.
At the beginning of the ceremony, the graduates were preceded in their entry by 35 members of the high school faculty wearing academic regalia. The garb was paid for, in some cases, by the high school parents’ association, and represented, Shedd said, “the legitimizing of the diplomas that our graduates are about to receive.”
Teachers prepare for laptops in the classroom
Published in the Current
One day early next week, Cape Elizabeth Middle School teachers who instruct seventh-grade students will receive their laptops.
Though the students will have to wait until the fall, teachers will get a jump on learning about these new educational tools.
Teachers already have been getting familiar with the laptops, taking trips to Lyman Moore Middle School in Portland to visit with students and teachers
using the laptops this school year.
Lyman Moore is a demonstration site for a state program which will put laptops into the hands of each seventh-grader in the state in the fall of 2002. In the fall of 2003, all eighth-graders will get one. To date, $25 million has
been set aside for the program, although the laptop fund has been tapped down by legislators to make up for shortfalls in other programs.
Eric Begonia, a science teacher at Lyman Moore, has been the Cape teachers’guide, along with several of his students, who have been enlisted to demonstrate their computers’ capabilities and their own school projects when visitors come to the school.
Begonia said the program is successful, and has opened up learning, so that students are teaching teachers about technology. He also said students are so enthusiastic that they show their parents what they’re learning when they take the laptops home.
Parents are required to sign a form each day students take laptops home. That policy is among those Cape teachers expect to adopt from Lyman Moore and adapt for use at CEMS.
Delaying retirement for program
Beverly Bisbee, the lead teacher for the laptop initiative among the CEMS seventh-grade teachers, is enthusiastic about the computers. So much so, in fact, that she put off her retirement to stay and incorporate laptops into her classroom and the classrooms of her colleagues.
Bisbee has been at this for some time. In 1986, when she was a teacher at Wilton Academy in Wilton, she got a grant to use computers in her writing classes. She was able to demonstrate that technology could narrow the gender gap in MEA scores.
The seventh-grade teachers already are using the middle school’s mobile computer lab, but want more time with the machines.
“The labs are overbooked. The labs are not sufficient for what we want to do,” Bisbee said. With computers, she said, “the teachable moments are just incredible.”
And with computers all the time? “This could revolutionize the way we teach and the way we learn,” Bisbee said.
All of the teachers involved in the program will have training sessions of at least two and in some cases five days during the summer, to help them become more familiar with the computers.
Policies and procedures are less of a worry after the visit to Lyman Moore, teachers said.
“I think Lyman Moore has a lot of the kinks worked out,” said teacher Matt Whaley. He is looking forward to having them in his classroom. “It’s going to be an incredible learning tool,” he said.
Teacher Joanne Paquette said laptops would help prevent students from losing notes or forgetting to bring notebooks to class, and can help her ensure all the students get vocabulary, for example. She expects she will send the list by email to the students, who will keep the message for reference and even use it, she said, during open-note tests.
Even so, the laptops may not be useful across the entire curriculum.
“In math I’m not quite sure,” Paquette said.
Brian Freccero teaches math and said many universities have web material on algebra and pre-algebra.
“We can use those to supplement the book,” he said.
He would create a list of links for students to visit, but said he wouldn’t expect to use them every day.
Paquette said she sees advantages aside from strict curricular applications.
“They’re always hounding us about what their grades are,” she said. She plans to have students enter their assignment grades into a spreadsheet and keep track themselves.
She added that slide shows on computer screens can help replace costly consumables, like poster board, saving teachers and schools money without sacrificing academics.
No replacement for basics
Students will still need to know how to do things without computers, the teachers said, and they expect to continue teaching those skills as well. “It’s the same learning taking place,” Paquette said.
Students also will need their basic skills, without computer assistance, in the near academic future, when they leave the middle school.
“When they go to high school they’re not going to have these,” said teacher Deb Casey.
Spanish teacher Susan Dana is concerned about technology overtaking learning. But even she uses computers for access to authentic Spanish-language materials and expects to continue to do so.
When that happens now, the class has to head down the hall and get set up on computers in the computer room, costing valuable class time.
Librarian Hayden Atwood expects to help the students do research using the computers, which come ready for Internet access, provided by a wireless link in the school building. They also have a multimedia encyclopedia installed, including audio and video files in addition to the text and photographs commonly found in book encyclopedias.
“For research it’s going to be wonderful,” Atwood said. He said teaching students about plagiarism and ethics, as well as how to evaluate Internet resources for truth and accuracy, will be primary tasks for him.
District technology coordinator Gary Lanoie also has visited Lyman Moore. “I was impressed by what I saw,” he said.
Initially, Lanoie had thought the school would not need carts in which to store the laptops and recharge their batteries, but after visiting Lyman Moore, he said he has changed his mind. He is investigating ways to buy or build enough carts to hold the school’s machines.
Lanoie also plans to set up an “iTeam,” about a dozen kids who will be resources for teachers and students who need help with their computers.
Schools statewide have reported that classrooms with laptops have better attendance rates, better discipline and more focused students.
Begonia said that Lyman Moore students take excellent care of the computers, and treat them with respect.
$25-million fund
The program is expected to cost the state $37.2 million over the next four years, and will outfit each seventh- and eighth-grade student and teacher with iBook laptops, made by Apple Computer. The contract between the state and Apple includes a hardware warranty and software support for each computer.
The state has provided initial funding of $25 million for the project, with interest on that money expected to make up the bulk of the remainder.
Gov. Angus King, who met with Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs to promote the program on Monday, said Apple has effectively contributed as much as $15 million in discounts for the project.
Some of the laptop money already has been used to purchase network equipment, laptops for demonstration sites including Lyman Moore and to buy laptops for teachers. The bulk of the money will be spent over the course of the contract, paid in monthly installments to Apple, based on the number of students and teachers receiving services, according to Department of Education spokesman Yellow Light Breen.
“I think it’s a wonderful program, if it will continue,” said Cape Superintendent Tom Forcella. If the funds will not be available to continue the program he said, a one-time expenditure would be better used to buy
mobile computer labs usable throughout the school district.
The governor originally earmarked $53 million for the program and legislators have cut it back to $25 million. The fund is often mentioned as a way to help bail out a projected $180 million state budget shortfall discovered by the state in April.
One day early next week, Cape Elizabeth Middle School teachers who instruct seventh-grade students will receive their laptops.
Though the students will have to wait until the fall, teachers will get a jump on learning about these new educational tools.
Teachers already have been getting familiar with the laptops, taking trips to Lyman Moore Middle School in Portland to visit with students and teachers
using the laptops this school year.
Lyman Moore is a demonstration site for a state program which will put laptops into the hands of each seventh-grader in the state in the fall of 2002. In the fall of 2003, all eighth-graders will get one. To date, $25 million has
been set aside for the program, although the laptop fund has been tapped down by legislators to make up for shortfalls in other programs.
Eric Begonia, a science teacher at Lyman Moore, has been the Cape teachers’guide, along with several of his students, who have been enlisted to demonstrate their computers’ capabilities and their own school projects when visitors come to the school.
Begonia said the program is successful, and has opened up learning, so that students are teaching teachers about technology. He also said students are so enthusiastic that they show their parents what they’re learning when they take the laptops home.
Parents are required to sign a form each day students take laptops home. That policy is among those Cape teachers expect to adopt from Lyman Moore and adapt for use at CEMS.
Delaying retirement for program
Beverly Bisbee, the lead teacher for the laptop initiative among the CEMS seventh-grade teachers, is enthusiastic about the computers. So much so, in fact, that she put off her retirement to stay and incorporate laptops into her classroom and the classrooms of her colleagues.
Bisbee has been at this for some time. In 1986, when she was a teacher at Wilton Academy in Wilton, she got a grant to use computers in her writing classes. She was able to demonstrate that technology could narrow the gender gap in MEA scores.
The seventh-grade teachers already are using the middle school’s mobile computer lab, but want more time with the machines.
“The labs are overbooked. The labs are not sufficient for what we want to do,” Bisbee said. With computers, she said, “the teachable moments are just incredible.”
And with computers all the time? “This could revolutionize the way we teach and the way we learn,” Bisbee said.
All of the teachers involved in the program will have training sessions of at least two and in some cases five days during the summer, to help them become more familiar with the computers.
Policies and procedures are less of a worry after the visit to Lyman Moore, teachers said.
“I think Lyman Moore has a lot of the kinks worked out,” said teacher Matt Whaley. He is looking forward to having them in his classroom. “It’s going to be an incredible learning tool,” he said.
Teacher Joanne Paquette said laptops would help prevent students from losing notes or forgetting to bring notebooks to class, and can help her ensure all the students get vocabulary, for example. She expects she will send the list by email to the students, who will keep the message for reference and even use it, she said, during open-note tests.
Even so, the laptops may not be useful across the entire curriculum.
“In math I’m not quite sure,” Paquette said.
Brian Freccero teaches math and said many universities have web material on algebra and pre-algebra.
“We can use those to supplement the book,” he said.
He would create a list of links for students to visit, but said he wouldn’t expect to use them every day.
Paquette said she sees advantages aside from strict curricular applications.
“They’re always hounding us about what their grades are,” she said. She plans to have students enter their assignment grades into a spreadsheet and keep track themselves.
She added that slide shows on computer screens can help replace costly consumables, like poster board, saving teachers and schools money without sacrificing academics.
No replacement for basics
Students will still need to know how to do things without computers, the teachers said, and they expect to continue teaching those skills as well. “It’s the same learning taking place,” Paquette said.
Students also will need their basic skills, without computer assistance, in the near academic future, when they leave the middle school.
“When they go to high school they’re not going to have these,” said teacher Deb Casey.
Spanish teacher Susan Dana is concerned about technology overtaking learning. But even she uses computers for access to authentic Spanish-language materials and expects to continue to do so.
When that happens now, the class has to head down the hall and get set up on computers in the computer room, costing valuable class time.
Librarian Hayden Atwood expects to help the students do research using the computers, which come ready for Internet access, provided by a wireless link in the school building. They also have a multimedia encyclopedia installed, including audio and video files in addition to the text and photographs commonly found in book encyclopedias.
“For research it’s going to be wonderful,” Atwood said. He said teaching students about plagiarism and ethics, as well as how to evaluate Internet resources for truth and accuracy, will be primary tasks for him.
District technology coordinator Gary Lanoie also has visited Lyman Moore. “I was impressed by what I saw,” he said.
Initially, Lanoie had thought the school would not need carts in which to store the laptops and recharge their batteries, but after visiting Lyman Moore, he said he has changed his mind. He is investigating ways to buy or build enough carts to hold the school’s machines.
Lanoie also plans to set up an “iTeam,” about a dozen kids who will be resources for teachers and students who need help with their computers.
Schools statewide have reported that classrooms with laptops have better attendance rates, better discipline and more focused students.
Begonia said that Lyman Moore students take excellent care of the computers, and treat them with respect.
$25-million fund
The program is expected to cost the state $37.2 million over the next four years, and will outfit each seventh- and eighth-grade student and teacher with iBook laptops, made by Apple Computer. The contract between the state and Apple includes a hardware warranty and software support for each computer.
The state has provided initial funding of $25 million for the project, with interest on that money expected to make up the bulk of the remainder.
Gov. Angus King, who met with Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs to promote the program on Monday, said Apple has effectively contributed as much as $15 million in discounts for the project.
Some of the laptop money already has been used to purchase network equipment, laptops for demonstration sites including Lyman Moore and to buy laptops for teachers. The bulk of the money will be spent over the course of the contract, paid in monthly installments to Apple, based on the number of students and teachers receiving services, according to Department of Education spokesman Yellow Light Breen.
“I think it’s a wonderful program, if it will continue,” said Cape Superintendent Tom Forcella. If the funds will not be available to continue the program he said, a one-time expenditure would be better used to buy
mobile computer labs usable throughout the school district.
The governor originally earmarked $53 million for the program and legislators have cut it back to $25 million. The fund is often mentioned as a way to help bail out a projected $180 million state budget shortfall discovered by the state in April.
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