Referendum asks $500,000 for roads

Published in the Current

SOUTH PORTLAND (Oct 27, 2005): South Portland voters will decide Nov. 8 whether to approve borrowing $500,000 for road paving and sidewalk reconstruction around the city.

The question stems from a decision by the City Council earlier this year to focus on roads and sidewalks as one of a few priorities, according to City Manager Jeff Jordan.

Councilors and other city officials – as well as residents – have noticed potholes in roads and deteriorating sidewalks, and the city needs to “play catch-up,” Jordan said.

The council has already agreed to spend $500,000 from existing surplus funds, of which $400,000 would be used for road repaving and $100,000 for sidewalks. The council also is asking voters for another $500,000, to be split the same way, to do more work in the spring, Jordan said. The interest on the bond is estimated at $123,750 over the life of the borrowing package.

Public Works Director Dana Anderson said the city has a list of road and sidewalk projects that would cost $20 million to complete.

He would not talk about specific locations that would be improved with the money, saying he was worried the details might make road improvements a political issue rather than a transportation problem.

The city used to spend about $400,000 a year on road maintenance but has put off the work the last couple of years because of budget constraints, he said.

“We’re really losing the edge,” and need to catch up, Anderson said. “Every other year we’re going to have to do some bonding” to keep on top of the work that needs doing, he said.

Harris and Reuscher unopposed for S.P. School Board

Published in the Current

SOUTH PORTLAND (Oct 27, 2005): William Harris and Mark Reuscher are running unopposed for two seats on the South Portland School Board.

Reuscher, the board’s chairman, is seeking his second term because he thinks they "still have a lot of unfinished work.”

The 47-year-old, unmarried father of two, a son in eighth grade and a daughter in fifth, is a full-time business instructor at Southern Maine Community College, prior to which he owned Ocean Fitness for 14 years.

He said the city’s high school has a good graduation rate, and is concerned about “making sure the kids are actually learning.”

“We’re going in the right direction,” he said. “Last year the budget went really smoothly” because of a new collaborative approach between the City Council and the School Board.

He is undecided on the subject of renovations to the city’s middle schools, on which there are two options: either renovate Mahoney Middle School and build new where Memorial Middle School is, or close Mahoney and build a single middle school where Memorial is now.

“I’ve tried to be honest and make fair decisions for all the children in the city no matter where they lived,” Reuscher said.

Harris, a married 69-year-old making his first run for elective office. retired four and a half years ago from the city’s finance department.

“My father, my brother and I, my two sons, my three step-sons all graduated from South Portland High School,” Harris said. “I wanted to give something back to the city that’s given me a lot.”

Harris has also been honored for his volunteerism: In 2004 he was inducted into the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame in honor of his 35 years as a Little League coach and umpire.

He wants to keep the city’s neighborhoods “vibrant and alive,” perhaps by involving neighborhood associations in classroom projects with teachers and students.

He wants to participate in the construction-renovation decision for the high school and middle schools and work to “figure out a way to keep high school and college graduates from moving out of the area.”

City Council District 2: Anton Hoecker

Published in the Current

SOUTH PORTLAND (Oct 27, 2005): Anton Hoecker is running for the District 2 seat “to bring a progressive voice to the City Council.”

He wants to get “people more involved” and address issues of growth, education, transparency in government, taxation and spending.

He is concerned that a strong focus on cutting taxes is hurting people’s sense of involvement in the community. “The more we cut our financial responsibility for maintaining the community, the more we divest ourselves” from the community, he said.

If the city cuts education funding, “we disconnect ourselves from providing high-quality education for our students,” he said.

“I’m not about wanting to raise taxes. I’m about spending money wisely,” he said. “We’ve become so focused on cutting spending, we’ve stopped thinking about good investments.”

While rising home values are good for individuals’ and families’ financial situations, it is not good for the community if rising values result in pressure for lower taxes, he said. “Cutting spending doesn’t improve the overall quality” of life in the city.

He would like to see Maine’s tax structure reformed, and wants to ask the Legislature to give the city more money because of South Portland’s role as a service center.

He wants new development and any redevelopment to be “environmentally friendly,” including walking trails and addressing static traffic patterns and congestion.

The 50-year-old carpenter is married and the father of two, a daughter, 11, at Mahoney Middle School, and a son, 6, at Small Elementary School.

He supports continuing to have two middle schools in the city, as the school department considers closing Mahoney and building a single new middle school on the site of Memorial.

“In the long run, a single school is more expensive,” Hoecker said. He said research shows students in smaller schools do better, and noted that some larger cities are now breaking up very large schools into smaller elements.

“We need to be investing in our schools, our libraries, because it’ll attract better businesses,” he said. One idea he had that could bring more businesses to the city would be an after-school child care program run by the recreation department, which employ retired people and help free up working parents.

He also supports an ordinance defining what constitutes conflict of interest in city government, saying trust in government is enhanced by “openness and light of day.”

City Council District 2: Kay Loring

Published in the Current

SOUTH PORTLAND (Oct 27, 2005): Katherine “Kay” Loring is running for the District 2 seat on the City Council to “reduce taxes and reduce spending.”

Loring, a real estate developer, is the chairman of the city’s Planning Board, a post she would have to leave if she were elected.

“I’d be willing to, even though I really enjoy it,” she said. “I really want to make a change in South Portland and the only way to do that is to be on the council.”

She wants to reduce taxes by not spending new tax revenue from developments. She also wants to use proceeds from sale of city property – such as the upcoming sale of the Sawyer School – to reduce taxes.

She did not specify where she would look to reduce spending, saying she would have to “look at the budget.”

She wants to delay the proposed middle school construction project – either renovating or closing Mahoney and building a new school on the site of Memorial. “This is not the time,” she said. “I would like to see a couple of years go by.”

“We have all new elementary schools in South Portland and the education is fantastic,” said Loring, who is widowed with four children.

She also wants to help control traffic, perhaps with narrower roads and cul-de-sacs, as well as continuing improvements on Western Avenue, Westbrook Street and the Jetport Plaza Road.

“We’re trying to get some more green space” in developments as well, she said.

Loring thought the city should “look at” affordable housing, but said it’s up to developers to express interest. “I don’t know what the city could do” to encourage affordable housing.

She supports the dog owners who have been working to address problems with dogs in the city’s public spaces. “The dog community has done a fantastic job,” she said, noting that the people who are involved in solving the problems are not those who are the source of the complaints.

“I think a dog park would be great,” she said, adding that “I think (dogs) absolutely should be allowed” in public parks, though perhaps on a rotating schedule such as is being discussed by the dog committee.

This is her first run for elective office. “I never thought I’d run for the council,” she said. “I’m just really upset about the taxes (that) keep going up year after year.”

City Council District 5: Brian Dearborn

Published in the Current

SOUTH PORTLAND (Oct 27, 2005): Brian Dearborn, a former mayor of South Portland, is running for the District 5 seat on the City Council, to bring “common sense” to the council.

A lifelong resident of South Portland, he ran Bri’s Variety in Cash Corner for 28 years, and has served one term on the School Board and two on the City Council, including one year as mayor in the mid-1990s.

He is now an assistant manager at the Falmouth Wal-Mart getting back into local politics because of “the biggest issue in South Portland with everybody I’ve talked to: spending.”

He wants the city to be affordable for senior citizens and young families. “Spending is out of control,” he said.

Though he wouldn’t be specific about how he would reduce spending, he suggested city and school departments combine purchasing power to save money, and consolidate services such as transportation, maintenance and finance. He supports regionalizing services, but only after the city has streamlined its own operations.

He wants to update zoning to reduce the burden on owners of older homes on smaller lots, who must now seek extra approvals when making changes to their homes, because they no longer conform with the city’s zoning laws.

Dearborn also wants the councilors to be “more receptive to people,” and adhere more closely to the council’s standing rules of order. “They have to disagree respectfully,” he said.

He also supports education, particularly the students in “the middle” – not the top 10 percent of the class or the bottom 10 percent.

And Dearborn wants the city to consider traffic more carefully when considering development proposals, citing expected increased traffic on Broadway from the U.S. Postal Service distribution center and the Wal-Mart Supercenter project. From where he lives, in Country Gardens, “we’ve got to cross five lanes of traffic – if we can get across.”

Dearborn, a dog owner, thinks the ad-hoc dog control committee “has done a good job,” though he has what he termed a “personal” problem with allowing dogs to be off-leash: Once his own dog needed 21 stitches after being attacked by an off-leash dog that was not under full voice control.

“If the city’s going to put constraints on dogs, they should have a dog park,” he said. “There’s got to be a compromise there somewhere.”