Thursday, March 13, 2003

School Board cans Hamlin idea

Published in the Current

The numbers seem to show that Town Council Chairman Jack Roberts’ proposal for Cape Elizabeth to take over or share South Portland’s Hamlin School would cost more than either building an addition to Pond Cove School or renting portable classrooms at the school.

South Portland also has told Cape there would be no chance for a long-term lease agreement. Instead, the longest lease Cape could look for in negotiations would be a single year, Superintendent Tom Forcella told his School Board at a finance committee meeting Tuesday night.

Roberts had suggested using the Hamlin School to house Cape Elizabeth’s kindergarten, now housed at the high school.

Cape Business Manager Pauline Aportria spoke with her counterpart in South Portland and learned that a lease of the building would cost roughly $86,000 for the first year, which would include heat, electricity, water and sewer fees and snow removal. Telephone lines and staffing the building with a custodian and a receptionist/secretary would cost an additional $74,200.

That would bring the Hamlin proposal in at $160,200 for the first year. Aportria expected that costs would rise 3 percent per year. The worksheet Aportria distributed did not include projections for a nurse, special education travel costs or any other incidental expenses.

“If anything, the number at the Hamlin School could be higher,” Forcella told the board. Finance Chairman Elaine Moloney said it was unclear what, if any, money would be available from the state as an incentive to carry out the Hamlin plan and offset its costs.

By contrast, the cost of renting and operating portable classrooms at Pond Cove for the kindergartners would start at $97,300 for the first year, and would drop to nearly $48,000 in the second year. After a third year of leasing (at $49,000), the district could buy the portables in five annual payments of roughly $74,000 each. Board member Kevin Sweeney warned bringing portables into compliance with future building codes could be expensive.

Building a new addition at Pond Cove would cost $139,000 in debt service and operating costs in the first year, would rise to $165,500 in the second year, and would decline each year for the 20-year life of the loan.

The board also agreed that the size and location of the Hamlin School were unsatisfactory. “Our kids would be in another town, which is not an ideal thing,” Forcella said.

“We’ve been trying to get those kids out of the high school, and now we’re going to ship them out of town?” Sweeney asked rhetorically.

Moloney said she was opposed to the Hamlin idea both because it costs more and because it “defeats the purpose” of the School Board’s efforts to get the students together in buildings housing grades K-4, 5-8 and 9-12.

Roberts, in an interview Wednesday, questioned whether the $86,000 figure for school rent was realistic. He said South Portland has rented other buildings to non-profits for lower rates per square foot. He also did not know whether control of the building would revert to the South Portland City Council if it were not being used as a school.

If the numbers do end up showing the Hamlin idea to be more expensive, Roberts said he would not be discouraged. “I’m not married to that proposal,” he said.

CEHS traffic plan to be tested

Published in the Current

A new traffic flow plan for getting cars into the high school area in the mornings will begin trials just after April vacation. Starting that Monday morning, April 28, traffic coming south on Route 77 will be able to turn right onto Jordan Way, the road between the police and fire stations.

According to a proposal drawn up by parents, police and town and school officials, cars will be allowed to drive down the road and through the gate by the fire station, which is usually locked.

Then they will have to go around the loop where buses drop off at Pond Cove School and down to the high school.

“They need to go around the circle, not just go in and take a left,” said Debbie Croft, president of the High School Parents Association.

There will be a stop sign added at the intersection of the Pond Cove access road and the road leading behind the high school toward the pool, Croft said.

There also will be a couple of speed bumps put on that road to the pool.

Cars will only be allowed to exit the high school at the normal exit, onto Route 77, and drivers coming north toward the high school will still have to turn left into the existing entry, Croft said.

The new route will be used in the mornings only. Croft said the traffic is less of an issue in the afternoon because it is more spread out across time; not everyone is trying to get out of the high school at the same time.

The trial will run until the end of the year, Croft said. At that point they will reassess the situation and see about further changes.

Croft said the HSPA still wants to learn more about putting a traffic light at the Route 77 entry to the high school. That is the group’s long-term goal, she said.

The light would initially be used only at peak traffic times of the school day, but could also be used to manage traffic entering and leaving the high school during special events at night or on weekends, Croft said.

Cape man leads Civil Air Patrol to new skies

Published in the Current

Maine’s members of the Civil Air Patrol have a new mission and have formed a rapid-response team to be ready in case they are needed to respond to a public safety threat.

“We’re very involved in homeland security,” said Maj. Chris Hayden of Cape Elizabeth, commander of the Cumberland County Combined Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol.

In an emergency, the Civil Air Patrol could be called on to provide aerial reconnaissance of a disaster site, either visually or with equipment that can measure airborne contaminants. The planes and pilots could also search for people or vehicles, or transfer supplies or personnel to and from emergency sites and staging areas.

Cape Elizabeth has long been home to CAP leaders. Cape resident and newspaper magnate Guy Gannett was a leader in encouraging Fiorello LaGuardia to establish a national group of aviators to help with home defense. On Dec. 1, 1941, a week before Pearl Harbor, the CAP was founded, with Gannett as a member of the board of directors.

Since then, the CAP has been charged with aircraft education, emergency services and cadet training about aircraft handling and maintenance. It is adding the security work to that list and has a new name to reflect its new importance: U.S. Air Force Auxiliary.

“We are basically at the table with the Air Force” in homeland security planning, Hayden said.

The Cumberland County squadron is the first branch of the CAP in Maine to form a quick-response team. “We’ve written the book for the rest of the wing in Maine,” Hayden said.

There are always two pilots on call, who must keep their flight suits and clothing and toiletries for two days close by. The pilots and ground crew members must be able to get into their planes, parked at the Portland Jetport, within an hour after receiving an emergency page.

Members of the group are unpaid, though their aircraft purchases, maintenance and fuel are covered by the Air Force.

They are using cellular phones’ text messaging capability to activate the crews. When a message is received, the phone chirps or vibrates, alerting its owner to a new message. “I actually put mine under my pillow” at night, Hayden said.

The unit has been conducting drills and stepping up their training, to make sure they are prepared if something does happen.

CAP members are planning training exercises with other homeland-security agencies, including the Air Force, the Coast Guard and the National Guard, as well as local law enforcement agencies and the Red Cross.

“We haven’t all been training together,” Hayden said.

Hayden is also trying to spread the word to employers that CAP members have important public-safety duties that may require them to leave work at a moment’s notice. While training, meetings and most CAP activities are done at regularly scheduled times, CAP members may need to drop everything if a major incident occurs, Hayden said.

“If they do get called, let them go without prejudice” is the message he wants employers to get. “They are doing a service for the country.”

In addition, Hayden is building ties to towns and cities in Southern Maine, to let local governments know how the CAP can help them. CAP pilots and crews can search coastlines and borders and monitor disaster sites from above. And they can help towns with aerial photos, road surveys or other assistance where looking at the ground from above could be useful, Hayden said.

Biotech struggles to start at PATHS

Published in the Current

Fifty years after James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA, a program offering cutting-edge biotechnology education to local high
school students is having trouble generating interest.

In August, teacher Don Berthiaume started the program, housed at the Portland Arts & Technology High School, in a room with bare walls. Since
then, he has furnished it and stocked it with his own library of texts and reference books. He also has gathered donations of equipment and supplies worth more than $16,000 from local biotech firms, but so far has attracted only one student.

Local schools may send one or two students each next year, which would be a big boost to the course.

“We have a functional lab,” Berthiaume said. It includes a bio-safety cabinet for working with materials in an uncontaminated space, DNA replication and extraction devices and machines that can create “fingerprints” from DNA that can then be used to do DNA matching.

This is not the first time Berthiaume has started such a program from scratch. Seven years ago, he was a high school biology teacher in Biddeford and began a biotech class at the vocational-technical school next door.

He had no trouble finding students then because they already knew him. He would recommend that the best students in his classes take the biotech course the following year.

For students who took the semester-long class and wanted to do more, he arranged internships with local biotech companies.

One of those students got a job with Maine Biotech Services right out of high school, and the company is paying for her to go to college at USM, Berthiaume said.

It was a great opportunity and with the high school right next door, students jumped at the chance. “I actually had a problem with enrollment – too many students,” he said.

Now, in the program’s first year at PATHS, he has but one. He has been working hard to attract students to the program, giving presentations to local school guidance counselors and science teachers.

Part of the challenge is overcoming a large number of barriers all at once. First, PATHS has never been seen as a place for top-notch academic students to find opportunities.

Second, timing is a problem. Not only are PATHS sessions two and a half hours long, but students have to be bused back and forth to the school. Students in college-prep classes can’t often miss that many classes, Berthiaume said.

He is now targeting high school seniors because they will have taken the prerequisite courses and have some flexibility to choose electives, including biotech.

Enrollment doesn’t worry at least one member of the PATHS advisory board, Kevin Sweeney, also a member of the Cape Elizabeth School Board.

“We are going to continue to support this for a while regardless of student enrollment,” Sweeney said. He recognizes the challenge of overcoming PATHS’ image as a school for special education students.

“This program puts PATHS in an entirely different place than it was,” Sweeney said.

It does, however, still target students who want to have direct experiences and have an alternative learning style, Sweeney said. Also, it takes advantage of the broad base of schools PATHS serves. No single school could fund a biotech program or attract enough students to make it work, Sweeney said.

Ellen Ross, science department head at Scarborough High School, said one student is expecting to go next year, and another may also go. Ross said biotech is an important field for future scientists to learn about.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity,” said Michael Efron, science department head at CEHS. A student or two from Cape may be looking at it for next year, he said.

A student from South Portland High School is also looking at the program, according to Linda Sturm in the SPHS guidance office.

Chancellor Gardens changes hands

Published in the Current

With its principal owner in bankruptcy, the company that owned Chancellor Gardens on Scott Dyer Road has sold the Cape Elizabeth assisted living home, as well as a sister facility in Saco, to Commonwealth Communities of Massachusetts. The home has been renamed Village Crossings of Cape Elizabeth.

It is the second turnover of a senior living facility on Scott Dyer Road in three months. In January, Haven Healthcare of Cromwell, Conn., took over the management of the Viking Nursing Home and Crescent House, with plans to take ownership in the next several months.

Abraham Gosman, who lives in Florida, was the majority owner of the company that owned Chancellor Gardens and Chancellor Place. He was also a founder of Carematrix, the company that managed the Chancellor properties. Carematrix will not continue its management functions, according to Beth Derrico, a spokeswoman for the company.

Gosman, who made millions in real estate and healthcare, filed for bankruptcy in 2001, according to William King of Development Specialists
Inc., the Miami-based firm that was appointed by the court as trustee for Gosman’s assets.

His filing was cited as an example of a problem some legislators see with the federal bankruptcy system – the unlimited homestead exemption.

Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisc., told the U.S. Senate in March 2001 that Gosman, while owing as much as $233 million, was keeping a 64,000-square-foot mansion in West Palm Beach, Fla.

In his Maine business dealings, Gosman had guaranteed a mortgage taken out by the Chancellor company, with the two homes as collateral.

“The value (of the properties) was significantly less than the mortgage,” King said.

Rather than foreclosing on the homes, the lender agreed to cooperate in the sale of the properties and take the proceeds as partial payment of the debt, King said.

The change of ownership took effect March 1, bringing Chancellor Gardens and Chancellor Place in Saco into a company that already operates 12 nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities, six assisted living homes and four specialized hospitals in Massachusetts.

“This is our first step into Maine,” said David Calendrella, vice president of operations for Commonwealth Communities.

Last year Commonwealth bought two Massachusetts nursing homes from the same owners. “They proved to be quality facilities,” Calendrella said. That experience led to this recent deal.

“We’re very bullish on the Maine marketplace,” he said.

The company does not have significant plans to change things at Chancellor Gardens. “At the moment, the plan is to introduce ourselves as the new owners,” Calendrella said. No staff changes are in the works, he said. Everyone has signed on with the new owners.

Calendrella plans to pay close attention to hiring practices and employee supervision, in the wake of an employee’s February arrest on charges of stealing medication from several patients. He said the company would be open about any problems that might arise.