Published in the Current and the American Journal
A container of “waste oil and other products” exploded around 11 a.m., Nov. 5, at the VIPDiscount Auto Center at 207 Waterman Drive in South Portland, injuring two male employees, according to South Portland Fire Chief John True.
True said it was a “major explosion” followed by a “flash of fire,” which did not ignite any other material.
Some of the liquid caused chemical burns on the face of one worker, who was taken to a Portland hospital. Asecond worker was taken to a hospital as well, with a possible broken bone.
The fire department covered the liquid spill with foam and waited for an environmental cleanup company to arrive.
True said the exact contents of the container were unknown, but “if the mixture’s right and the conditions are right,” waste oil and other car fluids can explode.
The South Portland Police Department is investigating and notified the state Bureau of Labor and the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration.
Wednesday, November 6, 2002
Thursday, October 31, 2002
Cape appeals to parents, tightens rules, to stop teen drinking
Published in the Current
In a letter to parents of Cape Elizabeth High School students, Principal Jeff Shedd laid out new procedures for chaperoning dances and challenged parents to help reduce student drinking outside of school functions. He also attacked the current athletic contract on abstaining from substance abuse as ineffective.
One student was suspended after the recent homecoming dance because the student was drunk at the dance and got sick. Shedd’s letter, which went out on Oct. 16, said he had heard of other students who might have been drinking or drunk at the dance, some of whom may have gotten sick in the girls’ bathroom.
The “narrow school problem” of drinking at or before dances, Shedd said, will be solved with additional chaperones, increasing numbers but also broadening the range of adults who will supervise dances.
Previously, dances had to have six chaperones, all staff members at the school, one of whom had to be the faculty advisor of the class sponsoring the dance.
Now, there will be nearly triple that number, with six CEHS staff, six parents, one administrator and the sponsoring class’s faculty advisor, for a total of 14. In addition, there will be one coach from each sport in season, as well as a police officer.
In addition, existing rules preventing students from bringing bags and bottles into the dance and prohibiting students from leaving the dance and then returning will continue to be enforced, Shedd said.
The additional supervision will make it easier for adults to enforce these, he said.
Shedd’s letter went on to say, “these measures will do nothing, however, to address the community-wide issue of teenage substance abuse and drinking at events outside of school.”
Shedd encouraged parents to work together to send consistent messages to children in the community, and asked parents to include in their in-home discipline a requirement that students who are caught drinking report themselves to school authorities, as required in the school’s athletic contract.
He said the “act of signing an athletic contract is an excusable lie they are forced to tell as the price for participating in school athletics.” If parents don’t enforce the athletic contract, they are making things worse, the letter said.
The School Board last year changed the athletic contract to make it more pointed and to encourage parents to act responsibly when their kids violate the provisions, which include forswearing drugs and alcohol on penalty of suspension from a game or sports season.
“It’s still not enough,” Shedd told the Current.
A recent meeting of the High School Parents Association had an extended discussion on the subject of teen drinking, Shedd said.
Beth Currier, vice president of the HSPA, said the meeting was the group’s normal monthly meeting and had been scheduled to include a question and-answer session with Shedd and assistant principal Mark Tinkham even before Shedd’s letter went home to parents.
But as a result of the letter, Currier said, “we had a much better than average turnout,” around 30 parents rather than the usual 10.
Currier said parents appreciated the letter. “It was really helpful to have an issue like that addressed with the facts,” she said. She was glad the school was communicating directly with parents on the issue.
The parents who were at the meeting, mostly with children in their freshman and sophomore years, were interested in dealing with the problem, and agreed that school dances were but a small part of the problem.
“We can make the dances chem-free,” Currier said. “The hard issue that we need to talk about and change is really the community climate culture change.”
She said a sports booster group had met the night before and discussed whether the athletic contract works, and why it applies to just athletes.
Currier said the parents agreed they could meet and discuss the issue of teen drinking for many hours, but decided to also address other questions about the high school and have another similar session at the next parents association meeting, Dec. 4.
Currier said if there was still interest in dealing with the subject, the association would look at scheduling a special meeting on the issue.
She said in the past she has noticed that people get concerned about teen drinking when something happens, but when nothing has happened for a while, “it disappears quickly” from discussion topics.
“It is hard to make real changes,” she said.
But she said there is concern about weekend parties, as well as school parties, and was looking forward to seeing how the next discussion went.
In a letter to parents of Cape Elizabeth High School students, Principal Jeff Shedd laid out new procedures for chaperoning dances and challenged parents to help reduce student drinking outside of school functions. He also attacked the current athletic contract on abstaining from substance abuse as ineffective.
One student was suspended after the recent homecoming dance because the student was drunk at the dance and got sick. Shedd’s letter, which went out on Oct. 16, said he had heard of other students who might have been drinking or drunk at the dance, some of whom may have gotten sick in the girls’ bathroom.
The “narrow school problem” of drinking at or before dances, Shedd said, will be solved with additional chaperones, increasing numbers but also broadening the range of adults who will supervise dances.
Previously, dances had to have six chaperones, all staff members at the school, one of whom had to be the faculty advisor of the class sponsoring the dance.
Now, there will be nearly triple that number, with six CEHS staff, six parents, one administrator and the sponsoring class’s faculty advisor, for a total of 14. In addition, there will be one coach from each sport in season, as well as a police officer.
In addition, existing rules preventing students from bringing bags and bottles into the dance and prohibiting students from leaving the dance and then returning will continue to be enforced, Shedd said.
The additional supervision will make it easier for adults to enforce these, he said.
Shedd’s letter went on to say, “these measures will do nothing, however, to address the community-wide issue of teenage substance abuse and drinking at events outside of school.”
Shedd encouraged parents to work together to send consistent messages to children in the community, and asked parents to include in their in-home discipline a requirement that students who are caught drinking report themselves to school authorities, as required in the school’s athletic contract.
He said the “act of signing an athletic contract is an excusable lie they are forced to tell as the price for participating in school athletics.” If parents don’t enforce the athletic contract, they are making things worse, the letter said.
The School Board last year changed the athletic contract to make it more pointed and to encourage parents to act responsibly when their kids violate the provisions, which include forswearing drugs and alcohol on penalty of suspension from a game or sports season.
“It’s still not enough,” Shedd told the Current.
A recent meeting of the High School Parents Association had an extended discussion on the subject of teen drinking, Shedd said.
Beth Currier, vice president of the HSPA, said the meeting was the group’s normal monthly meeting and had been scheduled to include a question and-answer session with Shedd and assistant principal Mark Tinkham even before Shedd’s letter went home to parents.
But as a result of the letter, Currier said, “we had a much better than average turnout,” around 30 parents rather than the usual 10.
Currier said parents appreciated the letter. “It was really helpful to have an issue like that addressed with the facts,” she said. She was glad the school was communicating directly with parents on the issue.
The parents who were at the meeting, mostly with children in their freshman and sophomore years, were interested in dealing with the problem, and agreed that school dances were but a small part of the problem.
“We can make the dances chem-free,” Currier said. “The hard issue that we need to talk about and change is really the community climate culture change.”
She said a sports booster group had met the night before and discussed whether the athletic contract works, and why it applies to just athletes.
Currier said the parents agreed they could meet and discuss the issue of teen drinking for many hours, but decided to also address other questions about the high school and have another similar session at the next parents association meeting, Dec. 4.
Currier said if there was still interest in dealing with the subject, the association would look at scheduling a special meeting on the issue.
She said in the past she has noticed that people get concerned about teen drinking when something happens, but when nothing has happened for a while, “it disappears quickly” from discussion topics.
“It is hard to make real changes,” she said.
But she said there is concern about weekend parties, as well as school parties, and was looking forward to seeing how the next discussion went.
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
Cape Girl Scouts welcome a Kenyan friend
Published in the Current and the American Journal
“Hujambo Esther,” said the sign welcoming Esther Ndungwa Musau to the house in Cape Elizabeth where 10 of her pen pals were gathering for a meeting and a meal.
Inside, Musau was the center of a pod of girls moving from room to room throughout the house. “These girls are good,” said the soft-spoken, 19-year-old from Mbooli, near Machakos, southeast of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
The girls had spent a lot of time with Musau, who is living with a number of families during her three-week stay.
Troop member Bridget Carver said the group had begun writing to Musau after starting a sponsorship through Save the Children. The troop sends roughly $300 a year to fund Musau’s education.
Over the course of the correspondence, which has lasted four years now, Musau wrote to the girls about problems with her eyes.
The girls, who originally wanted to go to Kenya to meet their pen pal, decided it would be cheaper and easier to bring her to the U.S. Another benefit, they thought, would be the opportunity for Musau to get medical care for her eyes and also visit a dentist.
“We used all our cookie money and magazine money,” said Paige St. Germaine.
They raised about $2,000, including a donation from the Rotary Club of
South Portland and Cape Elizabeth. The flight cost $1,700, the girls said.
They remembered sitting in the cold outside Sam’s Club selling cookies to raise money, and taking notes of various excuses people gave for not buying any cookies. The troop will host a spaghetti dinner Nov. 1 to replenish the troop’s supply of funds.
Musau hadn’t heard from the girls in a while, because she graduated from school several months ago. But when her former teachers told her the girls wanted to pay her way to the U.S., she was surprised.
“I couldn’t believe it at first,” she said. But she learned that the Scouts were serious, and decided to put her faith in her pen friends. It was her first time in an airplane, and she was very excited about seeing the U.S.
“At the same time I was nervous,” she said. She had never actually met any of the girls and didn’t know what they or their families would be like in person.
“I said, ‘God is there,’” she said, and took the leap of faith. She knew that they were good people, and she figured that if they were willing to bring her to their homes, they would treat her well when she arrived.
She had known the girls for a while in their letters, starting when they were in first grade. “They were just teaching themselves how to write,” Musau said, remembering with a smile the letters she got on large-rule paper, in little-kid handwriting.
The Scouts also got Dr. Jeff Berman, a Cape resident who works at the Maine Eye Center in Portland, to donate eye care. Musau had chronic conjunctivitis that caused some scraping of her cornea.
Berman gave her some eye drops that should take care of the problem. Her dental care was donated by Dr. Leonard Brennan of Portland.
All of the girls said they would like to visit Musau in Kenya at some point down the road. Scout Meredith Sills was proud of the group’s achievement.
“We brought our pen pal here,” she said.
“Hujambo Esther,” said the sign welcoming Esther Ndungwa Musau to the house in Cape Elizabeth where 10 of her pen pals were gathering for a meeting and a meal.
Inside, Musau was the center of a pod of girls moving from room to room throughout the house. “These girls are good,” said the soft-spoken, 19-year-old from Mbooli, near Machakos, southeast of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
The girls had spent a lot of time with Musau, who is living with a number of families during her three-week stay.
Troop member Bridget Carver said the group had begun writing to Musau after starting a sponsorship through Save the Children. The troop sends roughly $300 a year to fund Musau’s education.
Over the course of the correspondence, which has lasted four years now, Musau wrote to the girls about problems with her eyes.
The girls, who originally wanted to go to Kenya to meet their pen pal, decided it would be cheaper and easier to bring her to the U.S. Another benefit, they thought, would be the opportunity for Musau to get medical care for her eyes and also visit a dentist.
“We used all our cookie money and magazine money,” said Paige St. Germaine.
They raised about $2,000, including a donation from the Rotary Club of
South Portland and Cape Elizabeth. The flight cost $1,700, the girls said.
They remembered sitting in the cold outside Sam’s Club selling cookies to raise money, and taking notes of various excuses people gave for not buying any cookies. The troop will host a spaghetti dinner Nov. 1 to replenish the troop’s supply of funds.
Musau hadn’t heard from the girls in a while, because she graduated from school several months ago. But when her former teachers told her the girls wanted to pay her way to the U.S., she was surprised.
“I couldn’t believe it at first,” she said. But she learned that the Scouts were serious, and decided to put her faith in her pen friends. It was her first time in an airplane, and she was very excited about seeing the U.S.
“At the same time I was nervous,” she said. She had never actually met any of the girls and didn’t know what they or their families would be like in person.
“I said, ‘God is there,’” she said, and took the leap of faith. She knew that they were good people, and she figured that if they were willing to bring her to their homes, they would treat her well when she arrived.
She had known the girls for a while in their letters, starting when they were in first grade. “They were just teaching themselves how to write,” Musau said, remembering with a smile the letters she got on large-rule paper, in little-kid handwriting.
The Scouts also got Dr. Jeff Berman, a Cape resident who works at the Maine Eye Center in Portland, to donate eye care. Musau had chronic conjunctivitis that caused some scraping of her cornea.
Berman gave her some eye drops that should take care of the problem. Her dental care was donated by Dr. Leonard Brennan of Portland.
All of the girls said they would like to visit Musau in Kenya at some point down the road. Scout Meredith Sills was proud of the group’s achievement.
“We brought our pen pal here,” she said.
History lost in now stalled project
Published in the Current and the American Journal
Nearly complete on the outside, but utterly abandoned, a new version of an historic house sits on Shore Road behind orange fencing and signs warning against trespassing. Its view is a commanding one of the ocean, but from the road it looks lost and alone.
Work has stopped on the house, after nearly a year of demolition and reconstruction, because the owners are taking care of family business out of state, according to project architect and builder Marcel Nadeau of Anastos and Nadeau of Yarmouth.
Nadeau said the owners, Darrell and Patricia Mayeux of South Portland, did not tell him if or when work would resume, and added that he thought they might try to sell the home.
The house was not a John Calvin Stevens house, as some in town had thought, but was designed by another prominent Portland-area architect in
the late 1890s and early 1900s, and was almost entirely original as recently as 1998.
The house, at 878 Shore Road, was designed by Austin W. Pease and built by Mrs. George F. Thurston sometime before 1910, according to Earle G. Shettleworth Jr., director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. In 1910, a pen sketch of the ocean side of the house was published in the journal of the Portland Board of Trade, Shettleworth said.
Pease also designed a house, at 20 Summit Road, which made it onto an expanded list of historic structures that failed to gain Town Council approval in December 2001. At that time, the council also did away with an existing list of structures subject to a 45-day waiting period before any demolition could occur.
The Mayeux house was not on either of those lists, but still interested Shettleworth.
Photos taken when the house was on the market in 1998, Shettleworth said, indicate that it was “largely unaltered” over the past 100 years, both inside and out. He said that before renovations and remodeling began, “the present owners had an early 20th century shingle-style summer cottage.”
The past year’s work, he said, was best described as “extensive modeling and enlargement.”
“What they did was to radically alter the appearance of the house,” Shettleworth said. Some of the features have been preserved, he said, while others are no longer there.
Two bay windows next to the main entrance are still in the remodeled house, but the “eyebrow dormer” window originally on the third floor was removed to make way for an expanded gambrel, which is both taller and includes more windows than the Pease version, Shettleworth said.
He said the interior photos from 1998 indicate the inside was probably very close to the original as well, and he does not know what has happened to the inside during renovations.
The garage and octagonal turret were added recently, he said, and were not part of the Pease design.
Shettleworth said this type of project worries him. “Those of us concerned about historic preservation in Maine discourage owners from doing this
level of alteration” to largely intact buildings of that age, he said. Even if the new home looks like the old one, there are small changes that make it less than it was. “It’s not the original house,” he said.
Project architect Nadeau said he did not know that the house had any historic value.
The owners did not return multiple phone calls from the Current.
Nearly complete on the outside, but utterly abandoned, a new version of an historic house sits on Shore Road behind orange fencing and signs warning against trespassing. Its view is a commanding one of the ocean, but from the road it looks lost and alone.
Work has stopped on the house, after nearly a year of demolition and reconstruction, because the owners are taking care of family business out of state, according to project architect and builder Marcel Nadeau of Anastos and Nadeau of Yarmouth.
Nadeau said the owners, Darrell and Patricia Mayeux of South Portland, did not tell him if or when work would resume, and added that he thought they might try to sell the home.
The house was not a John Calvin Stevens house, as some in town had thought, but was designed by another prominent Portland-area architect in
the late 1890s and early 1900s, and was almost entirely original as recently as 1998.
The house, at 878 Shore Road, was designed by Austin W. Pease and built by Mrs. George F. Thurston sometime before 1910, according to Earle G. Shettleworth Jr., director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. In 1910, a pen sketch of the ocean side of the house was published in the journal of the Portland Board of Trade, Shettleworth said.
Pease also designed a house, at 20 Summit Road, which made it onto an expanded list of historic structures that failed to gain Town Council approval in December 2001. At that time, the council also did away with an existing list of structures subject to a 45-day waiting period before any demolition could occur.
The Mayeux house was not on either of those lists, but still interested Shettleworth.
Photos taken when the house was on the market in 1998, Shettleworth said, indicate that it was “largely unaltered” over the past 100 years, both inside and out. He said that before renovations and remodeling began, “the present owners had an early 20th century shingle-style summer cottage.”
The past year’s work, he said, was best described as “extensive modeling and enlargement.”
“What they did was to radically alter the appearance of the house,” Shettleworth said. Some of the features have been preserved, he said, while others are no longer there.
Two bay windows next to the main entrance are still in the remodeled house, but the “eyebrow dormer” window originally on the third floor was removed to make way for an expanded gambrel, which is both taller and includes more windows than the Pease version, Shettleworth said.
He said the interior photos from 1998 indicate the inside was probably very close to the original as well, and he does not know what has happened to the inside during renovations.
The garage and octagonal turret were added recently, he said, and were not part of the Pease design.
Shettleworth said this type of project worries him. “Those of us concerned about historic preservation in Maine discourage owners from doing this
level of alteration” to largely intact buildings of that age, he said. Even if the new home looks like the old one, there are small changes that make it less than it was. “It’s not the original house,” he said.
Project architect Nadeau said he did not know that the house had any historic value.
The owners did not return multiple phone calls from the Current.
Teens talk to legislators about drugs
Published in the Current and the American Journal
Seven students from Cape Elizabeth High School participated in a videoconference with the Maine Legislative Youth Advisory Council Oct. 18 to give legislators some insight on why kids use drugs and alcohol.
Students from Belfast Area High School also participated in the event, which used Cape’s videoconferencing link from the old lecture hall room.
Also participating were members of the public, who used the opportunity to address legislators in Augusta. Sen. Lynn Bromley and Rep. Janet McLaughlin were on hand in Cape for the discussion as well.
Adam Welch, a senior at Belfast, said he had recently stopped drinking because he found it affected his studies, but said easy access to alcohol makes it hard for young people to resist.
“The solution here is that you have to relate to (young people) on some level,” Welch told the group.
Kate Perkins, who does social work in western and midcoast Maine, said parents model bad behavior, by drinking and driving themselves – even with the kids in the car. Other problems, she said, include alcohol advertising and uneven enforcement of drinking laws.
“You can’t expect the schools to do it all,” Perkins said.
A teacher from the Belfast school asked the students at her location and in Cape what relationships they found most influential in their decisions about drug and alcohol use. A student at Belfast said friendships were most influential, especially those in middle school and elementary school, when kids are defining themselves. By high school age, he said, many kids are set in their ways and are hard to influence.
Sarah Groff, a junior at CEHS, talked about a class she is taking called “health forum,” with Andrea Cayer. The class, she said, has discussed mental illness, suicide prevention, drug and alcohol use and other topics. She said Cayer began the class by saying, “You can’t teach students not to drink. You can make them aware and see the consequences.”
Groff said students do need to be made more aware, and that statistics aren’t enough. Personal stories from fellow students are influential, she said.
She mentioned Cape Life, a new program begun by Cape teacher and coach Andy Strout, to provide alternative social activities for teenagers, as one possible way to handle the issue.
Scott Caras, also a Cape junior, said his classmates and friends are part of his decision-making process. “By far the most important relationship is with your friends and with your peers that you look up to,” Caras said.
He said it is important for young people to see their role models making good choices, something that is not always the case now.
Caras also said sports teams can play a strong role in keeping kids from drinking, but can also have the opposite effect.
“It’s hard when a couple of kids (on a team) choose not to use drugs and alcohol,” he said.
Caras said the coach’s role in decision-making should not be underestimated.
“The coach can tip the balance of kids on the fence,” he said, by recognizing efforts not to drink or do drugs.
Enforcement is difficult, Caras said, because so much of it depends on students themselves turning in their friends. If the students on a team don’t take the no-alcohol contract seriously, there will be no enforcement. Again, he said, the coach can make a difference there, but without student support, he said, a contract won’t be enforced.
The Maine Legislative Youth Advisory Council, a permanent committee of the Legislature, is working on ways to prevent substance abuse in young people throughout the state, and used the comments from the videoconference as part of their research.
Seven students from Cape Elizabeth High School participated in a videoconference with the Maine Legislative Youth Advisory Council Oct. 18 to give legislators some insight on why kids use drugs and alcohol.
Students from Belfast Area High School also participated in the event, which used Cape’s videoconferencing link from the old lecture hall room.
Also participating were members of the public, who used the opportunity to address legislators in Augusta. Sen. Lynn Bromley and Rep. Janet McLaughlin were on hand in Cape for the discussion as well.
Adam Welch, a senior at Belfast, said he had recently stopped drinking because he found it affected his studies, but said easy access to alcohol makes it hard for young people to resist.
“The solution here is that you have to relate to (young people) on some level,” Welch told the group.
Kate Perkins, who does social work in western and midcoast Maine, said parents model bad behavior, by drinking and driving themselves – even with the kids in the car. Other problems, she said, include alcohol advertising and uneven enforcement of drinking laws.
“You can’t expect the schools to do it all,” Perkins said.
A teacher from the Belfast school asked the students at her location and in Cape what relationships they found most influential in their decisions about drug and alcohol use. A student at Belfast said friendships were most influential, especially those in middle school and elementary school, when kids are defining themselves. By high school age, he said, many kids are set in their ways and are hard to influence.
Sarah Groff, a junior at CEHS, talked about a class she is taking called “health forum,” with Andrea Cayer. The class, she said, has discussed mental illness, suicide prevention, drug and alcohol use and other topics. She said Cayer began the class by saying, “You can’t teach students not to drink. You can make them aware and see the consequences.”
Groff said students do need to be made more aware, and that statistics aren’t enough. Personal stories from fellow students are influential, she said.
She mentioned Cape Life, a new program begun by Cape teacher and coach Andy Strout, to provide alternative social activities for teenagers, as one possible way to handle the issue.
Scott Caras, also a Cape junior, said his classmates and friends are part of his decision-making process. “By far the most important relationship is with your friends and with your peers that you look up to,” Caras said.
He said it is important for young people to see their role models making good choices, something that is not always the case now.
Caras also said sports teams can play a strong role in keeping kids from drinking, but can also have the opposite effect.
“It’s hard when a couple of kids (on a team) choose not to use drugs and alcohol,” he said.
Caras said the coach’s role in decision-making should not be underestimated.
“The coach can tip the balance of kids on the fence,” he said, by recognizing efforts not to drink or do drugs.
Enforcement is difficult, Caras said, because so much of it depends on students themselves turning in their friends. If the students on a team don’t take the no-alcohol contract seriously, there will be no enforcement. Again, he said, the coach can make a difference there, but without student support, he said, a contract won’t be enforced.
The Maine Legislative Youth Advisory Council, a permanent committee of the Legislature, is working on ways to prevent substance abuse in young people throughout the state, and used the comments from the videoconference as part of their research.
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