New music teacher for Cape

Published in the Current

Cape Elizabeth High School music students will have a new teacher come the fall, following the retirement of Norm Richardson, who had taught music at CEHS for eight years in the last phase of a long teaching career.

Tom Lizotte of Biddeford has been chosen to replace Richardson, and high school Principal Jeff Shedd said Lizotte is well qualified to fill the big shoes Richardson leaves behind.

“Tom Lizotte comes very highly recommended to us,” Shedd said.

The position had about a dozen applicants, and the interview process included two parents, an indication, Shedd said, of the community-wide nature of the music position.

Lizotte himself knew both Richardson and middle school music teacher Terry White, and said he has “great respect” for both men.

“I’ve known Norm for as long as I’ve been in Maine,” Lizotte said.

Lizotte also has a long-standing collaboration with White, who preceded him in Biddeford. After coming to Cape, White continued to write some music for the Biddeford bands, Lizotte said.

“I’m very excited about coming to Cape Elizabeth,” he said. “It’s really a wonderful community. ”

Lizotte said he doesn’t expect to make many changes to the strong music program at CEHS. “I’m not into fixing stuff that’s not broken,” he said.

Looking into the future, though, Lizotte would like to incorporate into the music curriculum pieces written specifically for CEHS musicians.

“I think it’s important for students to have music composed specifically for them,” he said. It’s something he did in Biddeford, with great success. The students could meet the composer and discuss the piece before playing the composition in its first public performance.

One location Lizotte would like to see celebrated in music is Two Lights State Park, a place he called, “my most favorite place in all of Maine.”

Commissioning pieces, he said, is also a way to teach students that music is not a static library of old composition. “Art is something that’s created every day,” Lizotte said.

Town to be part of federal drug task force

Published in the Current; co-written with Kate Irish Collins

The town of Scarborough, along with drug agents on the federal and state level, will join with the town of Cumberland to create a new task force meant to intercept illegal drug shipments and buys along the Interstate 95 corridor.

Although details of the task force have yet to be worked out, Scarborough intends to use money it has received from the asset forfeiture of those caught dealing in drugs in the area to pay for a new police officer that would be attached to the drug task force, to be headed by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

At a Town Council meeting held Wednesday after the Current’s deadline, the council was expected to accept a total of $15,577 from a drug bust that occurred in December.

According to Town Manager Ron Owens, the town is also expecting to receive another $5,000 from another drug bust sometime soon.

Working with officials from the DEA and the Arizona Department of Public Safety, police here were able to catch two people at the Residence Inn on Payne Road that were expecting a large shipment of marijuana from Arizona last December.

According to Police Chief Robert Moulton, the case originated in Arizona, where the Department of Public Safety doing an under-cover controlled buy, seized 333 pounds of marijuana and $86,500 in cash.

“They got the individual down there to cooperate and work with the feds. He came up to Maine as if he still had the marijuana and met the two buyers at the Scarborough hotel. We were able to intercept the buyers and seized $60,000 from one of the buyers. We found more money in the vehicle and a second defendant,” Moulton told the Current.

Normally money received into the Police Department’s Asset Forfeiture Account is used to buy special law enforcement equipment, not put into the department’s annual operating budget, Moulton said. “It all helps,” he added.

But due to the new drug enforcement task force that Scarborough will be a part of, any money the department receives for helping making a drug bust will go toward paying for the time of the police officer attached to the drug task force.

“We are not planning to make any big announcement when we first get started,” Owens said, “but neither are we trying to keep it from the public.”

Owens is expecting the task force to take shape over the next several weeks. “I don’t think that this means that there are more drug sales, more drugs coming into Scarborough than before. I just think that we are along the interstate here and that drugs are moving up and down on their way to buyers and dealers,” Owens said.

Council says paint “The Rock” in daylight

Published in the Current

Cape Elizabeth town councilors are encouraging people to paint on “The Rock” on Route 77 during daylight hours, and to be respectful of neighboring residents at all times.

Dennis and Ann Flavin, whose driveway is directly opposite the rock, have complained to the town about nighttime noise, including yelling and squealing tires, as well as littering, harassment and trespassing by people involved in painting the rock. They have threatened to sue the town if something is not done.

The town’s proposed remedy includes having the police ask all people observed painting the rock to “move along,” and informally encouraging students to paint on the rock during the day, and without making noise or leaving litter behind.

Several councilors worried about the public’s response if, for example, police officers arrested people caught painting the rock, which lies in the state right-of-way for Route 77, and is technically overseen by the state Department of Transportation.

There is a town ordinance making it illegal for people to “mark or write on” public places in town. Police Chief Neil Williams said he was reluctant to supervise any legalized painting of the rock, but is concerned about the Flavins’ “peace of mind,” as well as preventing them from being harassed or being unable to sleep at night due to noise.

Williams said there are already laws in place to deal with littering, noise complaints, harassment and trespassing. Each of those, he said, would require police to warn violators before issuing a summons. If a violator refused to comply with the law after a warning, or returned at
some later time or date, Williams said, then a summons could be issued.

Councilor Henry Berry, a former prosecutor, agreed with Williams’s interpretation of the law.

Several councilors, as well as Town Manager Mike McGovern, noted the lack of precedent for taking legal action against people observed painting. “No one has ever been summonsed for painting the rock,” he said.

Councilor Berry asked if the town had jurisdiction over state property within the town limits. Williams said the police do issue summonses on state property, but not for violations of town ordinances.

All of the councilors, except the absent Penny Carson, expressed sympathy for the Flavins’ situation, and said they would not tolerate the behavior the Flavins were complaining about.

“The harassing, the noise, the litter, the trespassing is not condoned,” said Councilor Carol Fritz.

She questioned whether the council should expressly allow painting of this particular rock, and whether that permission would be extended to other rocks in town that are also painted.

Councilor Anne Swift-Kayatta said the Flavins’situation is bad. “No one should have to put up with that sort of disturbing of the peace,” she said. But, she said, she had heard support from town citizens who wanted the painting of the rock to continue, without the noise.

Superintendent Tom Forcella made a plea on behalf of the students.

“Obviously the students really like that tradition,” he said. “The control is the issue.” He said he wanted some sort of compromise to be arranged, “so they can still keep the tradition and still keep the peace.”

Ann Flavin said the rock is a relatively new tradition. “We didn’t have a rock until 1965,” she said, when Route 77 was widened. She said the rock was public, and that the ordinance prohibits graffiti.

“Let kids go up to the Statehouse and graffiti the Statehouse,” she said.

Her husband said he didn’t want to get more people in trouble, but was concerned about the noise.

“There was a few nights I only got two hours’sleep,” he said, proposing an alternative: “Wouldn’t it be more feasible and sensible to move the rock?”

Ann Flavin proposed a wall be constructed near the high school and new community center. “What better place to relocate a wall for (people) to write on?” she asked.

Fritz replied that such a wall could have difficulty meeting the zoning rules for the town center.

The content of the messages painted on the rock was also a subject for discussion.

Town public works employees are called out “a little less than once a year” to paint over obscene or inappropriate messages painted on the rock, McGovern said. The police department does the same about once a year as well, Williams said.

The state DOT has been out “once or twice” in the past five years to paint over messages.

Resident Kevin Sweeney, who is also on the School Board but said he was speaking as a private citizen, contrasted the painting on the rock with his experience of graffiti in New York City. The messages on the rock, he said, were unlike the “tagging” New Yorkers consider graffiti.

Sweeney said some of the people who paint the rock behave in a way that is “clearly repugnant.” But after Sept. 12, when the American flag was painted there, the painters had cleaned up after themselves.

He said the rock has been painted less frequently in recent months, starting with the flag on Sept. 12, the addition of the names of local active-duty members of the armed forces in late December, and a total repainting around Memorial Day.

Sweeney also said the rock creates a place for teen-agers to go. “I think our people need a place to express themselves,” he said.

Anthony Zinani, a recent CEHS graduate, said the rock is not painted with “graffiti,” but is instead a place for small-town accomplishments to be announced to the town and celebrated with the community.

“Is it that bad to paint a memorial to Toni Williams?” he asked. “It’s not graffiti. It’s a memorial. I think it’s part of the Cape Elizabeth community.”

Resident Frank Strout said he has seen the rock painted for 30 years, and even goes out of his way to drive by it, especially when he knows a team has won a big game or championship. “I’d like to see it continue,” he said.

Former high school teacher and coach Don Richards said the tradition is an important one, especially to sports teams. “We’d get back (from a game) at 3 a.m. and they’d be ready to paint the rock,” he said.

“It was their way of saying to the community, ‘Look, we did this,’” he said.

Richards said he thought it could be made more palatable. “I think a lot of kids paint the rock during the night because they don’t know that it would be OK to paint during the day,” he said.

And now, that may be the case.

Dennis Flavin said it would be OK with him if the rock was painted quietly. His wife took a harder line, saying to councilors, “You made up the law against graffiti. I’m offended by the rock. I’m offended by the people that go out there and do it.”

Other Cape residents living near other graffiti-painted rocks sympathized with the Flavins’ situation, and one even said she regularly found used paint cans and paintbrushes near the rock close to her home. Some residents said they had not had any problems with the people who painted the rocks near their houses, while the woman who found the litter effectively agreed with the Flavins.

She suggested the town build a wall near the high school where students could paint notices of their achievements, and said she tried not to look at the rocks as she drove by, because she didn’t like them.


Residents did not want to give their names for fear they would be harassed by kids who enjoy painting the rocks. The Flavins said the noise and harassment have gotten worse since they complained to the town.

Forcella and Sweeney said they would pass the word informally through the school administration and student councils, and encourage students to be respectful of the property and of the Flavins when painting the rock.

In search of the perfect read

Published in the Current

Clint Willis lived in different worlds as a kid, moving between his home in southern Louisiana and the settings of the books he read.

“I was a real bookworm growing up,” he said.

Now, living in Cape Elizabeth and working in Portland, he brings his experience as a voracious reader to the writing business. “I’ve always been as much of a reader as a writer,” Willis said.

He started as a journalist in New York City after college and covered financial markets for Money Magazine and other major publications for a decade or so, before deciding to start a family with his wife, Jennifer.

With two boys, they moved to Cape Elizabeth. “It just seemed like it would be a great place to raise a family,” Willis said. He started freelancing for magazines after the move, but found an approach different from the traditional solo freelancer.

He had experience working in what he called “team journalism,” with researchers, editors and reporters collaborating on stories. “I sort of applied that model in my work,” he said, hiring aspiring journalists right out of college and teaching them to be reporters while they helped him with his assignments.

The business, aptly named The Writing Company, also undertook contract jobs for business newsletters and other corporate publications.

Now the company, which Willis sees more as a teacher-student relationship, has alumni freelancing for business and technology publications and attending business school. One even wrote a novel.

Most of the work was financial journalism in the beginning, for clients like Forbes, Worth and Money, but his interests drew him to outdoors magazines like Outside and Men’s Journal.

“I’ve always been interested in mountain climbing,” Willis said.

In 1997, he published the first of what would become a long series of adventure-inspired anthologies. The book, called “Epic,” was a collection of harrowing mountaineering experiences. It kicked off a series called “Adrenaline Books,” now with over 30 books, mostly anthologies. Over 500,000 copies of the books are in print.

He and his staff, most notably Cape Elizabeth native Nat May and Nate Hardcastle, put the anthologies together, choosing from a wide range of stories and authors, assembling them to be riveting reads.

“A lot of the books that I’ve done have come out of stuff that I’m interested in,” Willis said. The series reflects his wide-ranging interests and curiosity, covering polar exploration, firefighting, Mafia insiders, the writings of the Dalai Lama and collections of writing about Jesus, meditation and gangs, among others.

The art of the anthology is what gets Willis truly fired up. He doesn’t want his anthologies to be catch-all books comprehensively covering a subject from all angles and including writing by all known experts, destined to sit on shelves for occasional reference.

Instead, Willis tries to make them enjoyable reading. “No one’s really realized the potential of anthologies,” he said. “An anthology could be just a great read.”

He doesn’t even try to make his collections representative or complete.

Instead, he chooses pieces that are strongly written and stand on their own merits as stories.

Sometimes he finds the one great piece created by a mediocre writer, or resurrects stories long forgotten. Other times he grabs a magazine article and puts it into a book, taking it from a periodical to a permanently published format.

“I’m just going to find the best reading experience,” Willis said. “There’s a lot of stuff out there that people don’t read anymore.”

Bette’s still serving it up after 53 years

Published in the Current

Bette’s Lunch and Breakfast hides along the edge of Route 1 in Scarborough, right next to the fire station. It’s behind a tree and doesn’t have a very obvious sign, but Betty Pennell doesn’t mind.

Entering the diner can be an act of faith, if the “Open” sign isn’t in the front window. The place can be quiet enough on a weekday lunch hour to cause doubt about whether the griddle is on inside.

But more than likely, Betty’s inside wielding a spatula, cooking up burgers. In the mornings, it’s mostly ham and eggs, though she also makes pancakes. It’s the same place she has been for nearly 53 years.

The place has an old-time family feel. The prices on the board haven’t changed for years: A hamburger is listed at 40 cents.

There’s not even a cash register – just a drawer next to the griddle, and Betty’s mind keeps track of the bill.

Prices are relative. One man, a regular, had been coming there since his youth. Now an adult, he paid two dollars for two hamburgers and a soda. This reporter, sitting next to him, paid the same amount for a single burger and a soda. But the second time I went in, I paid only one dollar for two burgers.

The building itself once sat in South Portland but was moved to make way for shipyards in World War II. The owner then, a man who owned three restaurants in the area, moved the building to Scarborough, “and here it sits,” Pennell said.

When the fire station next door wanted to expand, Pennell refused to sell. As a result, she said, she doesn’t get much business from the firefighters, though
she does see policemen now and again. Her reluctance to change is still evident.

The original wallpaper is still on the walls, though a bit darker now, with decades of griddle smoke. “I’m going to paint it sometime, if I ever get around to it,” Pennell said.

She doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry, though, and it’s no surprise for a woman nearing 80 years of age who gets up at 4 a.m. each day to serve breakfast to her customers, who are often workers at Scarborough Downs.

Before she bought the diner, she worked for King Cole in a nearby potato chip factory. “They made good chips,” she said. She doesn’t serve chips—or French fries—with her burgers, though.

She’s feisty, and many of the customers, including Butch Bearsley, a customer since he was a kid, tell stories about Pennell’s spunk, including her sometimes loose interpretations of food orders. “You get what she wants you to get,” Bearsley said with a smile. Somehow, it seems, she always knows what customers want.

Bearsley brings his own kids to the diner now, and said they prefer Bette’s over McDonald’s or Burger King. Though the fast-food joints across the road may have cut into her customer base, Pennell said she doesn’t mind. “I’m not going to say anything against them,” she said, “but I’m not like that.”

The community recognized that years ago, but is beginning to forget.

“I remember you could never get a place to sit in here,” Bearsley said.

Now, even on Sundays, there are some empty tables, Pennell said.

Most of her clientele are long-term customers, but, she said, she sees plenty of summer visitors. If nobody’s around, she sits and watches the traffic on Route 1.

Betty may be losing a step or two as she ages, and some friends have encouraged her to stop. But she just shook her head when the subject came up. “There aren’t too many places like this left,” she said.