Former deputy chief destroys evidence

Published in the Current

CAPE ELIZABETH (Sep 1, 2005): A former Cape Elizabeth deputy fire chief who works for the Scarborough Fire Department has pleaded guilty to destroying a computer hard drive before police could examine it as part of an investigation.

Mark Stults, 41, of Woodland Road pled guilty last month to a misdemeanor charge of falsifying physical evidence in December 2004, according to documents in Cumberland County Superior Court.

In 2004, he was deputy chief of the Cape Elizabeth Fire Department, a post he resigned earlier a couple months ago, according to Cape Elizabeth Fire Chief Phil McGouldrick. Stults has not been on any fire calls with the department in recent months, McGouldrick said.

Stults works as a paramedic with the Scarborough Fire Department. Scarborough Fire Chief Mike Thurlow said he did not know about the court case and called Stults “a model employee.”

The charge accused Stults of knowing an official investigation was pending or ongoing and altering, destroying, concealing or removing items relevant to the investigation, the subject of which is not disclosed in court records.

Assistant Cumberland County District Attorney Robert "Bud" Ellis said investigators were following up on a tip when they attempted to search Stults's computer.

“Before an investigation could be done … the hard drive on the computer had been removed and disposed of,” Ellis said.

Stults declined to comment Tuesday, saying it was “a family matter.”

His sentencing has been put off for a year, according to court records.

Cape Elizabeth police Capt. Brent Sinclair said the department had handled the investigation, but would not elaborate, saying only that “the case has been adjudicated.”

Sinclair said Stults has not been charged with any other crimes, and said the Cape police investigation is over.

Editorial: Teaching what they should

Published in the Current

SCARBOROUGH (Aug 25, 2005): The Scarborough Board of Education has made a good decision regarding its sex education curriculum, and we hope parents will be happy with it.

First, the schools will give out more information to parents and will again hold parental information sessions, canceled in the past because of low turnout.

And while some parents are concerned about demonstrations of condom use to eighth-graders, those families will be able to opt out of the class. The schools are being extra careful by making those class sessions “opt-in:” Parents will have to sign a form saying they know condom use will be discussed and demonstrated during the class, and saying they want their kids to learn that material.

The parents who have expressed concerns about the schools’ curriculum are right to want the teachers to focus on abstinence, encouraging students not to have sex until they are adults. And the teachers do just that.

But they do more – and the state guidelines are right to require it – teaching children how to stay safe if they decide to go against the advice of teachers, parents, other adults and this newspaper, and have sex.

The best advice we can give to kids is this: Wait to have sex. In addition to very real concerns about serious diseases or an unexpected baby, having sex at a young age can be emotionally traumatic, and it's hard for anybody to prepare a teenager for that.

We also applaud the schools’ efforts to teach students about the true challenges of parenthood, including through a program using computerized dolls to simulate the needs of an infant.

But kids don’t need to be taught about the possibilities of sex. As parents noted to the Board of Education last week, sex is all around us, in the movies, on TV, in posters and online. Some children – in any town – will always choose to ignore the advice of caring adults and take risks.

We teach young children to wear bicycle helmets in addition to the basic lesson of riding on the right side of the road. We do that not because we want them to ride unsafely, but because they deserve to know how to minimize the risks they take.

That is why the state Department of Education has ruled that an abstinence-only program developed by Heritage of Maine and supported by several Scarborough parents is not enough to meet the state’s educational standards. Kids need more information.

They need to know that one of the best ways to stay safe during sex is to use a condom. Condoms are not completely effective, it is true, but according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration “except for abstinence, latex condoms are the most effective method for reducing the risk of infection” by a range of sexually transmitted diseases.

If a young person is going to give up the 100 percent effective option (abstinence), we should want them to be prepared with the next most effective way to minimize the risks they are about to take.

Schools recognize the need for good information – for frank discussions about sex, for repeated encouragement to abstain from sex, and for lessons on staying safe if kids take risks – and have met that need with classes like those taught in Scarborough.

With the opt-in classes, they have also respected parents’ rights to influence how, when and what their children learn about sex. It is important to note, though, that children here in Scarborough – and in Cape Elizabeth, South Portland and all across Maine – are talking about sex and thinking about sex to a degree their parents were not at the same age. And some of them are trying it.

Jeff Inglis, editor

Changing Cape begins to plan for future

Published in the Current

CAPE ELIZABETH (Aug 25, 2005): More than one-third of the homes in Cape Elizabeth are occupied by a single person.

That is just one aspect of a 30-year trend in Cape Elizabeth that has more homes being built even as the number of people living in town remains about the same.

“We’ve grown in housing units but not in population,” Town Manager Mike McGovern told the Comprehensive Plan Committee last week, as part of a discussion of the history of town efforts to plan for the future.

In 1972, when the town took its first shot at a comprehensive plan, the population was about 7,000. The 1972 plan was rejected by the Planning Board then, but remains as a reference for town leaders, McGovern said. The Comprehensive Plan Committee is just beginning its work updating the town's plan for the future, last updated in 1994.

Since 1972, more than 1,000 homes have been built in town, bringing the total of single-family houses to over 3,300 in 2000 Census figures. That’s nearly half as many as existed in 1972. But the number of people climbed more slowly, reaching just over 9,000 in the 2000 Census, well below the 1972 projection that there would be 15,000 Cape residents, McGovern said.

“The population in the 1970s did not increase despite 320 new housing units,” he said. The main reason for that is “there’s far fewer people per household.”

McGovern noted also that the town more than doubled its land holdings between 1972 and 2005, and that the number of farms increased from nine to 10, though “they’re different types of farms.”

He said his numbers showed that “as much as things don’t seem to change much in Cape Elizabeth, there is in fact a lot of change that is going on.”

Recreational life in town has definitely changed. “In 1972 there was absolutely no Community Services program,” McGovern said, and “Fort Williams was just a bunch of buildings. … It had not yet been designated a park.”

He urged the committee to “challenge every assumption” in the present comprehensive plan, created in 1994 and under review this year by a committee of citizens and elected officials.

He asked whether the vacant lot next to the Inn by the Sea should remain zoned for business, as it now is, and also suggested the group look at housing needs, saying “affordable housing is disappearing” from the town.

“The community needs more than just single-family homes,” McGovern said.

He also suggested the committee review the desire, stated in several town planning documents, that the “rural character” of Cape Elizabeth be preserved. He noted that since that phrase first appeared, 1,000 homes have been built.

“Maybe it’s time to segment” the town, focusing rural-protection efforts in some areas while not in others, he said.

He asked them to consider what changes might mean for residents’ property rights, particularly on the Sprague estate, a vast parcel of land in the southwestern part of town that is privately owned and governed by a town-approved master plan for future development and conservation.

Survey in the works

A survey of town residents is in the planning stages, with Critical Insights, a Portland firm owned by Cape resident MaryEllen FitzGerald, slated to conduct a phone survey of a random sample of residents, pending approval of sufficient funding, according to Town Planner Maureen O’Meara. The survey will cost just shy of $15,000.

The last comprehensive plan is based on a town-wide written survey mailed to all residents, of whom just over 100 chose to respond.

The Critical Insights survey will randomly select 400 residents, a sample that because of its randomness and its size will be large enough to make the results statistically representative of the entire town population, FitzGerald told the committee last week.

Editorial: No laughing matter

Published in the Current

(Aug 18, 2005): There is not a huge amount of difference between “Giggles and Grins” and “Grins and Giggles,” but what difference there is should provide room for two companies to keep their names.

Scarborough businesswoman Kristi Stanley, who owns Giggles and Grins, named after some of her young son’s personality traits, says one name is the reverse of the other and shouldn’t cause a problem.

But, as we see on Page 1, the Gerber baby food company seems to think the two are so confusingly similar that it is demanding Stanley change her business’s name.

There are laws and court rulings about this type of dispute, and lawyers are already involved. But common sense and an innate sense of right and wrong should also be in play: Just because someone is bigger than you doesn’t mean they should get their way.

And in this case, the companies should agree to keep their names. They sell items and product lines that are different enough that customers should be able to keep them straight: If you went to buy a blanket (from Giggles and Grins) and instead selected a shampoo (from Grins and Giggles), you’d figure out your mistake long before getting to the cash register.

Perhaps as a safeguard against future disputes like this, the companies could agree that if either is going to sell products similar to the other’s, it must be done under a different product name. So if Stanley decides to make homemade baby soaps, she would have to find a different name for that group of items.

The Internet is the one place where customers could be easily confused, and might unintentionally visit one company’s site when looking for the other.

Because of the mechanics of Internet searches, someone looking for the words “giggles” and “grins” would find both companies’ sites – as well as countless other sites completely unrelated to any products for babies and young children.

So it seems reasonable that to dispel potential customer confusion, at the top of each company’s Web site should be a line saying it is not the other company’s site, and providing a link to the other site.

That sort of solution is quite common in situations where organizations and companies have similar names and want to mutually avoid confusion, and that’s really where the companies’ negotiations should focus.

New inside

I want to call your attention to two items in this week’s issue that are of particular note: the Religion page, on Page 6, and the local school bus schedules, on Pages 20 and 21.

Both are part of our continuing efforts to be the best newspaper serving this territory, and to better serve you, our readers.

This issue marks the second appearance of the Religion page, which will appear every other week as a venue for news, views and information about our local churches and religious groups. Please send contributions, feedback, story ideas and other comments to me by e-mail at jinglis@keepmecurrent.com, or call me at 883-3533.

This issue also includes the school bus schedules for Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth for the upcoming year. (South Portland’s were not available before press time, but will be posted on our Web site, www.KeepMEcurrent.com, as soon as we get them from the school department.) Scarborough’s, in particular, may cause some concern, because of a new district policy consolidating bus stops. Please let us know what you think of the new routes, again by e-mailing me at jinglis@keepmecurrent.com or by calling 883-3533.

As always, we welcome your comments, feedback and ideas on all aspects of the paper. If you would prefer to write or fax, those addresses are just below this column, on the same page.

Thanks so much for reading the Current! We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Jeff Inglis, editor

Editorial: Show up to speak

Published in the Current

SCARBOROUGH (Aug 11, 2005): Next week, on Thursday, Aug. 18, parents will have an opportunity to speak to the Scarborough Board of Education about their views on sex education in the schools.

Every parent of a child in Scarborough schools should attend the meeting, at 7:30 p.m. in Town Hall, no matter their views on sex education.

Many parents are pleased with the curriculum, but others are not. Some object to lessons about condoms as a means of protection against sexually transmitted diseases, saying teaching about condoms is tantamount to approving of sexual activity for students. Other parents are concerned that their children might not learn about an effective way to prevent disease and unwanted pregnancy at an early enough age that the lessons will stick and be heeded.

We have had columns and letters to the editor on this subject, and postings on our Web site at www.KeepMEcurrent.com, and we invite more of each. Please write to let us know what you think.

Children in our society are exposed to sexual material almost constantly, in the movies, on television, online and elsewhere. We must find ways to help children keep themselves safe, both from dangerous influences and from ignorance of the dangers.

No matter how caring or thoughtful a parent is, children have to do a lot of growing up all on their own, out among their peers, where parents’ watchful eyes cannot go. What we teach them will affect their decisions in those situations.

Parents with ideas, concerns and wishes for all aspects of sex education should make their voices heard. Write to us, and then go speak to the school board.

Making bus sense

Scarborough school officials should be commended for reacting swiftly to complaints from daycare owner Heidi McDonald, who was upset that a new policy reducing the number of school bus stops in town would require some two dozen of her charges to wait just off Route 1, rather than in her building, as has been the case so far.

McDonald’s immediate objections have been taken care of, at least pending further study by a school department committee: On Wednesday, McDonald met with Superintendent Bill Michaud and Transportation Director Scott Macomber, who told her the schools will keep the buses running to her driveway – though not her door – until the committee decides on a permanent solution.

Also, for this year, the schools will continue to transport students between Heidi’s House and all three of the town’s elementary schools, rather than just Eight Corners School, which serves the business’s region of town.

McDonald says she plans to fight the changes, to make permanent the special provisions the schools made this year, mainly because of the short notice to McDonald and to parents.

The schools should carefully consider the effects of this new policy on businesses and parents, as well as children. Parents painstakingly choose daycares for a wide range of reasons, but if the best daycare for a child is across town, that shouldn’t be a deal-breaker.

The idea of shortening bus trips by consolidating stops is a good one. But it would seem that the daycare centers have already created consolidated stops, by bringing together numerous children from separate homes to one location for pickup and drop-off.

The schools should be able to provide at least the larger daycare centers in town with bus service to and from all three elementary schools. Perhaps there should be a minimum number of students required before a bus route will include an out-of-region daycare, to avoid driving a town-owned bus all over town for a single student.

But there should be a way to meet the daycares’ needs while still achieving the school department’s goals. Bus service to daycares is, after all, a service to parents – just like bus service to homes.

Jeff Inglis, editor