Cape class of 1975 gets together

Published in the Current

CAPE ELIZABETH (Aug 11, 2005): About 60 members of the Cape Elizabeth High School class of 1975, and about 25 spouses, partners and significant others, gathered Saturday at the Purpoodock Club to celebrate the class’s 30th reunion.

Many of the attendees had not been to a class reunion before, according to organizer Keith Citrine. About half of the roughly 150-member class live in Maine, with 10 percent in Cape Elizabeth and about a third in Greater Portland, Citrine said. Other attendees came from as far away as California and Oregon.

The reunion was so successful that the class, which has previously had reunions only every 10 years, is planning to have another in five years.

“As we get older, more and more people are returning to Maine,” Citrine said.

Also improving turnout was the advent of e-mail. The correspondence for the last reunion was all by regular post, while nearly everything this time was by e-mail. “It really changed the way we’re able to communicate with classmates,” Citrine said.

The event was organized primarily by class members Lisa Norton of Scarborough, and Jon Chapman, Andy Strout and Citrine, all Cape residents.

In addition to Saturday night’s event, class members and their families gathered Sunday at a private beach owned by Strout’s family for a cookout and shore activities, including kayaking.

Boardman heads back to Afghanistan

Published in the Current

SCARBOROUGH (Aug 11, 2005): Army Capt. Jeremy Boardman of Scarborough was home recently on a two-week leave from service in Afghanistan.

Boardman, a West Point graduate who has been stationed in Germany for five years, was last home at Christmas time. He was stationed in Iraq for a year from 2003 to early 2004.

A member of the 510th Personnel Services Battalion in the Adjutant General Corps, Boardman handles mail delivery, and processes paperwork for promotions, deployments, training and casualties.

He has been stationed in Afghanistan since March, mostly in Bagram, the main U.S. base, but more recently in Kandahar, in the southern area of the country. He is the only officer in his unit to be stationed in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

When he returns, he will serve there for eight more months before coming home to Germany, and then, he hopes, the United States.

Boardman scheduled his leave time in part to take a graduate-school admission test, part of his application process for the West Point teacher’s program. He hopes to be accepted to teach economics. If he is accepted to the program, the Army will decide what they want him to teach, and will pay to send him to graduate school for two years.

Then he will teach at West Point for three years, and will have to serve in the Army elsewhere in the world for another three years.

In Kandahar, “it’s a lot like Iraq,” Boardman said: hot and dry. “Get rid of the heat and the dust, it’s not that bad.”

But life is better there than in Bagram, which is at about 9,000 feet of altitude, which takes its toll on the body.

In Bagram, he was assigned a wooden hut to live in, but promptly improved it, with help from fellow soldiers.

“It felt like you were living in a toolshed,” he said. He called a sergeant friend from Iraq who is now building a house in Germany. The sergeant sent Boardman extra building materials, including floor tiles and wallpaper. Boardman also managed to score a real bed, rather than the folding cot the Army gave him.

“It’s 10 times better than it was,” he said.

In Kandahar he lives in modular housing, which is sturdier and more comfortable, he said.

“Our office is in what they call the ‘Taliban last stand building,’” where a contingent of Taliban fighters holed up until an American bomb blew a massive hole in the roof. Much of the building has been repaired for Army use, but the hole remains. A flagpole with a U.S. flag flying now sticks up through the hole.

Boardman signed up to go to Afghanistan, anticipating it would help him prepare for graduate school.

In Afghanistan, “your downtime isn’t really downtime” like it is in Germany, where his girlfriend is a short distance away and there are plenty of things to do.

Instead, “it’s kind of like ‘Groundhog Day,’” a Bill Murray movie in which a man wakes up every morning to find it is the same day over and over again, until he learns the lesson: Make the most of what you’re given.

While in Afghanistan, Boardman has been able to study and prepare for the West Point program and the Captain’s Career Course he needs to qualify for a future promotion.

He has also been working hard, helping handle 500,000 pounds of mail every month, as a primary task. “That’s only going to increase” as the holidays approach, Boardman said.

His unit takes “mobile post offices” to remote outposts in huge twin-rotor Chinook helicopters, as well as in trucks to nearby bazaars, where soldiers can buy local goods and ship them home right away.

Signs, library donations draw council concern

Published in the Current

CAPE ELIZABETH (Aug 11, 2005): Members of the Cape Elizabeth Town Council have expressed reservations about a proposed agreement with a new charity that supports the Thomas Memorial Library, and about the town’s sign ordinance.

At Monday’s meeting, the council scheduled for Monday, Sept. 12, at 7:30 p.m. a public hearing for changes to the sign ordinance, despite concerns about the rules from Councilors Michael Mowles and Carol Fritz.

Mowles, who supported the move for a public hearing, called the sign ordinance “rather restrictive." He said it "impinges on our right to free speech in certain areas.”

Fritz wanted the sign ordinance to be considered by the Planning Board to “have signs be in keeping with the town character.”

Councilor Jack Roberts said the revisions mostly clarified the language to specify the maximum area of each side of a sign, in the wake of last year’s election, when unclear language was exploited by some candidates to make campaign signs larger than town officials wanted.

Another provision removed a limit on the total area of signs on town-owned property, to allow directional and informational signs at the transfer station and Fort Williams Park, according to Town Manager Mike McGovern.

Signs on those properties violate the existing ordinance, which limits signs on town-owned property to a total combined area of 100 square feet. Those large spaces, with multiple possible destinations, need more signs to help people get around, McGovern said.

McGovern will meet with both Fritz and Mowles, and said “there are constitutional questions with any sign ordinance … It wouldn’t hurt to have a review in that context.”

Councilors also were concerned about a proposed agreement with a new charity, the Thomas Memorial Library Foundation, in the wake of a disagreement between councilors and leaders of another charity supporting a major town operation, the Fort Williams Charitable Foundation.

McGovern said the agreement needed to be in place so town and library foundation leaders can properly allocate donations made by community members. The town owns the library building and employs its staff. The foundation would raise money to donate to the town from time to time, in support of library activities. The town also accepts donations toward library operations costs from other private citizens and organizations.

Councilor Mary Ann Lynch said she had “some concerns, which I think have increased over the past few weeks,” and worried about some printed materials directing members of the Friends of Thomas Memorial Library to donate to the foundation rather than to the town.

Lynch, who said she helped revitalize the Friends group about 20 years ago, asked for the council to discuss the matter more fully at a workshop with the foundation directors before approving the arrangement.

Several councilors expressed concern about the possibility of a conflict between the town and the foundation, if each were pushing the library in a different direction. That is similar to the recent push by the Fort Williams Charitable Foundation to get the town to grant a permanent easement over the fort property to a local land trust, a move resisted by the town, which says the park is fully protected under existing agreements.

Library Director Jay Scherma said he had no problem with the foundation and the town working together.

“I personally don’t perceive a conflict. It’s clear to me that I am an employee of the town. … I answer to the town manager,” he said. “Foundations have become part and parcel of what is almost expected or de rigeur in the library community.”

He said the Friends group had never formally filed for tax-exempt status, and the foundation was taking over. “The Friends are being subsumed under the foundation,” he said.

McGovern said he would sign the agreement as an administrative action so there is a temporary agreement in place until the council can act on the matter.

Dogs to be election issue

Published in the Current

SOUTH PORTLAND (Aug 11, 2005): Dogs are shaping up to be an election issue in South Portland, with a proponent of dogs on Willard Beach planning to run against a dog-control advocate for the City Council District 1 seat.

David Bourke, who has asked the police department to enforce literally the city ordinance's requirement that dogs not on leashes be "at heel," has taken out nominating papers for the seat being vacated by David Jacobs.

Also taking out papers was Claude Morgan, president of the South Portland Dog Owners Group, who has worked to revise city laws to allow dogs in public spaces.

Paul Nixon, who failed to defeat incumbent Larry Bliss for a Statehouse seat last year, has also taken out papers for the seat. He is in his second term on the city's Planning Board.

For District 2, R. Anton Hoecker has taken out papers, as has incumbent Thomas Maietta.

For District 5, Brian Dearborn, a member of the Community Development Advisory Committee, has taken out papers to run against incumbent James Hughes, who has also taken out papers to run for what would be his second term.

For School Board, incumbent Chairman Mark Reuscher has taken out papers to run again, and William Harris, a member of the Conservation Commission, has as well. Two seats are vacant. Incumbent Lori Bowring Michaud had not taken out papers as of Wednesday.

For the Portland Water District seat representing South Portland and Cape Elizabeth, incumbent John Brady has taken out nominating papers.

Nominating papers are now available from the city clerk's office. Completed forms can be filed no sooner than Aug. 29 but no later than Sept. 12, for the Nov. 8 election.

Clarification Aug. 16:
The position held by David Bourke about dogs' access to public spaces was improperly characterized in last week's issue, in a Page 5 article about candidates for City Council. On Aug. 8, at the City Council workshop, Bourke reversed his earlier position. He now supports the proposal of a city task force studying the issue, which would change the dogs ordinance and then provide enforcement of the changed law.

Wheelchair athletes roll to the finish

Published in the Current

(Aug 11, 2005): The first racer across the finish line at Fort Williams Park Saturday was a wheelchair athlete, Tony Nogueira, who won the race for the sixth time, in 0:25:35, a 4:07 mile pace.

The wheelchairs reach speeds of about 30 mph, according to Peter Hawkins, who finished seventh in the division, in 0:31:57.

Hawkins and six others, including Nogueira, second-place Kamel Ayari (0:26:31) and Erik Corbett (fifth, in 0:29:07), spent the night before the race and the night after at a Cape Elizabeth assisted-living home, which opened its spare rooms at no charge to the racers, who needed wheelchair-accessible bathrooms and eating facilities.

Those are hard to find in private homes in Cape Elizabeth, where many out-of-town runners stay, but Village Crossings at Cape Elizabeth on Scott Dyer Road had just renovated several rooms, which were slated to be vacant while work finished up.

David Rogers, assistant executive director at Village Crossings, said the building had the space and it seemed to fit a need. Some years as many as 12 wheelchair racers have competed, according to Russ Connors, a Cape resident who coordinates their arrangements.

The stay at Village Crossings was a good change for Erik Corbett, 25, of Methuen, Mass., who drove up from his home early in the morning of race day 2004, rather than struggling to get ready in unfamiliar and difficult surroundings. This year, he got to “sleep in,” he said, because he was already in town, in accessible accommodations.

Hawkins, a Long Island native who drove up Friday in his van, and gave his friend Ayari a lift, participates in several races each year. He likes the Beach to Beacon for the workout.

“It’s a challenge because it’s not flat,” he said. But the hills also bring risk: “The most dangerous part is when you go down into the park,” heading downhill at top speed into a sharp right turn in toward the finish line.

Hawkins has been racing in his wheelchair for nearly 20 years now. “You have the opportunity to race almost every week,” he said.

He was paralyzed in a car crash during his senior year in high school. Hawkins, the captain of his school’s football team and a member of the lacrosse team, was sleeping in the passenger seat of a car whose driver was drunk.

Hawkins said it took him several years to get into wheelchair athletics after his accident, and he also had to adjust to an individual sport, in which he can compete against himself, from a team-sport mindset, in which winning is everything.

The biggest wheelchair race in the world is the Oita International Wheelchair Marathon in Japan, which attracts as many as 500 racers from around the world. In the 2004 race, Hawkins finished 74th, with a time of 2:05:59.

More than 100 wheelchair athletes compete in the New York City Marathon, which is where Ayari met his wife after winning the 2000 race. She asked for his autograph at the finish line, and he asked for her phone number.

Hawkins calls Ayari and others, who are professional racers rolling for a living “big-time athletes,” who are “as good an athlete” as the runners in the races.

Ayari, a native of Tunisia, North Africa, now living in New York said his wheelchair – all the racers’ chairs are custom-made – costs about $5,000, and when a tire blows that costs him another $150. A blowout happened in last year’s Beach to Beacon, during the rain squall that hit during the race. Ayari was able to change the tire and still finished third.

Though the wheelchair itself weighs only about 25 pounds, with the 135-pound Ayari aboard, it’s hard work. “You have to push all the weight with your fingers,” he said.

But for him it is work. He is sponsored by a wheelchair manufacturer and races for the prize money. He will be in the Falmouth Road Race on Cape Cod next weekend, and wants to do well there too.

“I’m not looking to come to the race just to have fun,” said Ayari.