By David Harry

Staff Writer

When baseball season starts in the spring, Lori Fletcher said her son Jack Vincent will be able to play the sport he loves best.

Taking the field again is no small achievement – Vincent was severely injured in an accident in Buxton last July. He was struck by a truck as he attempted to dive into the Saco River from a bridge on Route 202.

Vincent, who was 12 when the accident occurred, said he spent a month in the hospital recuperating from head, neck, back and leg injuries. He rejoined his classmates at Scarborough Middle School at the beginning of the school year in September and a neck brace he wore after his release from Maine Medical Center was removed in the fall, Fletcher said.

“He is in great spirits,” Fletcher said, while thanking the community for its support, especially at a fundraiser held in October at the Clambake Restaurant in Pine Point.

About 32,000 square feet of land on Pine Point created months of protests as area residents squared off against town officials. The swap of 19,000 square feet of land once known as Depot Road for 13,000 square feet of land owned by Lighthouse Inn owners Peter and Nicholas Truman was completed in December. Deeds were recorded Dec. 21 in the Cumberland County Courthouse in Portland.

The Trumans gain a former town road that bisected the inn and its parking area. The Planning Board approved the plan despite objections about the needed permits and aesthetics of the project presented to the board. 

Initial plans from a task force created by Town Manager Tom Hall show the new town land will be incorporated into a new access area to Pine Point Beach with a drop-off zone built into other work scheduled for Pine Point Road in the spring. The plans will be the subject of public forums on Jan. 7 and Jan. 12.

Residents, including members of the Pine Point Residents Association, protested the swap as a giveaway that threatened public beach access. Association members then targeted Councilor Richard Sullivan for defeat in the November elections because he supported the land swap. Sullivan was replaced on the Town Council by newcomer Jessica Holbrook. 

Scarborough High School students found many ways to fill the school’s trophy cases in 2009. The Red Storm academic decathlon team won the state championship in February, then placed fifth in its division at the national competition in April.

The speech and debate team won a state championship in spring competitions as well.

Sports championships were earned throughout the year as the boys and girls indoor track and teams won winter meets. After several postponements because of rain, the softball team defeated Skowhegan for the Class A state championship in late June. In the fall, the boys soccer team extended its winning streak to 36 games by beating Brunswick 2-1 for the Class A state title in front of a boisterous home crowd. A week before that, the field hockey team capped an undefeated season by avenging an overtime loss in 2008 to Skowhegan to win its first state championship. The 2-1 final score came in an overtime game at Yarmouth High School.

Budget wrangles and subsidy losses accented a difficult financial year for Scarborough schools. An initial request for a $1 million budget increase was trimmed to $92,000 by the Board of Education – then the Town Council finance committee asked for a budget reduction of $715,000 from the $35 million budget passed in 2008.

As the budget process continued in the spring, the Board of Education braced for a state subsidy cut of more than $781,000 that was averted by federal money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – commonly called the stimulus act.

Residents approved a fiscal year school budget of about $35.09 million, an amount between the $35.14 million sought by the Board of Education and the $34.33 million  sought by the council finance committee.

As 2009 closed, the Board of Education was confronting a state subsidy loss of $1.13 million and overruns in budget lines for food service and paying substitute teachers, said Superintendent David Doyle. Board members will approach the councilors on Jan. 13 for help in closing a budget gap Doyle said was more than $300,000.

Members of the Maine Army National Guard 133rd Engineer Battalion anticipated shipping out to Iraq in March. 

About a week before Christmas, the battalion learned its mission was canceled, meaning more than 500 guardsman would remain stateside.

Sgt. Maj. Peter Kelley, a Scarborough resident who is second in command of the battalion, called the change of orders the most sudden he has seen in his 24-year military career. 

South Portland residents Sgt. Matthew Longo and Chief Warrant Officer Chris Barnaby were among those expecting to ship out for what would have been the second deployment for the 133rd battalion. 

“We don’t have to put more than 500 Maine soldiers in harm’s way,” said Kelley.

Local race fans joined the family of Jim “J.B.” McConnell in mourning his death last January. McConnell, a racing pioneer, opened Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in 1949. Although he sold the track in 1981 to the family of current owner Andy Cusack, his links to Maine racing remained strong.

“Jim never really left Beech Ridge,” Cusack said. “It was his baby.”

McConnell, who used to rake the dirt track in the morning and was credited with helping establish other tracks including Oxford Plains Motor Speedway, was inducted in the Maine Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2004. McConnell was 96 when he died

The Orion Center on Route 1, the former Konica/Minolta photo processing plant on Route 1 and the former Wal-Mart store on Payne Road each found ready takers in 2009. In January, MaineHealth bought the Orion Center and work to convert the former retail and manufacturing center to headquarters for NordX Labs is under way.

New owners for the Konica and Wal-Mart buildings await closings on deals to buy the buildings. Builder and developer Robert Gaudreau envisions a medical and business office complex for the photo processing plant that may provide up to 300 jobs. Marden’s Surplus and Salvage officials said the 119,000-square-foot former Wal-Mart is a prime location for a Marden’s expansion.

Massachusetts-based Plum Choice, offering commercial and home computer software service, opened its first satellite office in October, choosing a space in the Lincoln Avenue Industrial Park after a nationwide search. Company founder Ted Werth said the opening brought 125 jobs to the area, the number was expected to quadruple by the end of the year.

“People have jumped in and done very well. We are pretty darn close to our numbers,” Werth said this week.

Amended plans for the reconstruction of the Dunstan Corner intersections of Route 1, Pine Point Road and Broadturn Road, Route 1 and Payne Road were submitted to the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation System in November. 

Included in the amended plans was a project to reduce traffic on Payne Road created after businessmen, including Flaherty Farms co-owner Jack Flaherty, feared the road would be closed to northbound traffic.

Payne Road will remain open, but officials, including traffic engineer Bill Bray, hope to reduce traffic flow by about 20 percent by building a smaller feeder road between Route 1 and Payne Road. 

The $6.1 million project would be funded with federal, state and town money in an attempt to alleviate congestion at Dunstan Corner while also upgrading the intersection of Haigis Parkway and Route 1 to accommodate anticipated increases in traffic. 

According to PACTS Engineer Paul Niehoff, the funding for the project could be included in the 2011 fiscal year budget.

An alliance of locally owned, independent businesses began to flex its economic strength with the publication of a local buying guide in December.

Town Councilor Karen D’Andrea said the Buy Local Scarborough campaign she helped establish with business owners, including David Hopkinson of Henry VIII Carvery, will also create a coupon book in the spring similar to the Portland Dine-Around book that offers discounts. For $50 a year, D’Andrea said local businesses owners who make 100 percent of the decisions involving business operations can join the campaign.

The approximately 65 fishermen who have to haul their catch to shore in smaller boats and then load them into trucks could find their labor reduced greatly in the spring with the construction of a new pier at Pine Point.

Located next to the existing pier running between the Pine Point Fish Co-op and the Marine Patrol office, the new 15-foot pier will extend 225 feet into the Scarborough River and be equipped with winches to allow fishermen to unload their catches directly to waiting trucks.

The   existing pier will remain in place and pedestrians will be encouraged to use it, according to Marine Resource Officer Dave Corbeau, who said he has been working on getting a new pier for about eight years.  

Staff writer David Harry can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 219