City Council approves amnesty period for tickets

The South Portland City Council has approved an amnesty period on overdue parking tickets through Feb. 28, 2013.

Fines normally double if unpaid after 15 days of the issuance of a ticket, unless appealed to Cumberland County Unified Court, but the late fees will be waived in hopes people will make good on their old tickets.

City Manager Jim Gailey said notices will be sent “in the next couple of weeks” to holders of “hundreds” of outstanding tickets dating to 2009. Finance Director Greg L’Heureux has said the city would take in “about $136,000” if all delinquent parking tickets were paid.

The amnesty offering follows council passage Dec. 3 of an ordinance update that will allow the clerk’s office to deny registration renewals on any car belonging to a person with unpaid parking tickets. That rule went into effect Dec. 23.

Hot tub help

SOUTH PORTLAND — A decade after it broke down, the public hot tub at the South Portland Community Center may finally get fixed.

Mayor Tom Blake said a “very small committee” of residents and city staffers held its first meeting Monday with an eye toward raising the repair money city councilors have repeatedly resisted adding to the annual budget.

“It [the hot tub] has major issues and it’s a big expenditure,” said Blake. “It’s just not a priority for us at this time.”

Blake said the plan is to raise money from private sources over the next year, possibly augmented by a modest city match, to buy a new hot tub, although some research will be done to verify whether the old tub is beyond repair.

“I’m appealing to the general public,” said Blake, at Monday’s Council meeting. “We’re looking for one or two people, and maybe a couple of businesses, who would like to join us on this committee.”

Blake said anyone interested in joining or aiding the hot tub committee should contact him or Parks Director Rick Towle through the city website.

“I think we all know Maine is the oldest state in the nation,” said Blake, referring to a recent study that fixed the median age at 42. “So, here in South Portland, we certainly need a working hot tub.”

South Portland get major donation

South Portland took in nearly $10,000 in donations during the first two weeks of December, including the gift of 2,500 in heating oil for the needy.

Through its local office on Clark Road, Global Companies LLC of Waltham, Mass., one of the nation’s largest wholesale fuel distributors and the owner of 190 Mobil stations across New England, gave 2,500 gallons of No. 2 home heating oil, worth $8,473 at the Dec. 10 retail price. The fuel will be used by the city’s general assistance program to make emergency deliveries to qualified residents in need. Sea Land Energy of Windham delivers the oil to residents for a discounted $50 fee, which the GA program covers.

South Portland's general assistance administrator, Kathleen Babeu, says Global has made the fuel donation for several years now, but this year's gift comes an a particularly opportune time.

"I can say we've definitely seen an uptick in need," she said last week.

During the last fiscal year ending June 30, South Portland spent $11,074 to help residents buy home heating oil.

Through the first five months of the current fiscal year, the city spent $74,381 on all general assistance payouts. That’s up 20.5 percent over the same July-to-November period in 2011.

Last year, from July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012, South Portland’s general assistance program spent $179,732 to help city residents with heating needs, groceries, rent and mortgage payments and other household expenses. Half of the amount is reimbursed by the state.

SB Legacy Lending LLC also recently gave $750 to the general assistance program, while an anonymous donor sent in $50.

In other donations accepted by the City Council Dec. 17, the Service Memorial in Mill Creek Park got $150 from Historical Society Director Kathryn DiPhillippo and $100 from resident Martin Asdourian to help buy paving stones to encircle the monument. Also, the O’Connor family of Bremen Street – Jill, Jocelyn, Calvin and Bryan – gave $100 to the library to help it buy new children’s books.

City Council sets committee assignments

SOUTH PORTLAND — At a Dec. 17 workshop, the South Portland City Council set its committee and board assignments for the coming year. Any resident with an issue relevant to any of the following groups is referred to the appropriate council or staff representative. Contact information appears on the city website, www.southportland.org.

• Bus Service Citizens Advisory Committee: Councilor Alan Livingston;

• Community Access Television Regulatory Board – Livingston and councilors Melissa Linscott and Patti Smith;

• City Sustainability Team – Smith and Mayor Tom Blake;

• Deferred Compensation Committee – Councilor Jerry Jalbert;

• Ecomaine Board of Directors (three-year terms) – Jalbert, City Manager Jim Gailey and resident Linda Boudreau;

• General Assistance Fair Hearing Board – Jalbert and Linscot;

• Great Portland Council of Governments General Assembly – Blake, Gailey, Livingston and Councilor Linda Cohen;

• GPCOG Executive Committee – Blake;

• GPCOG Steering Committee – Blake;

• Jetport Noise Advisory Committee – Livingston and resident Margaret Shaw;

• Long Creek Watershed District – Jalbert;

• Maine Municipal Association Legislative Policy Committee – Cohen;

• Maine Service Center Coalition – Gailey;

• Open Space Planning Committee – Smith;

• Regional Metro Transportation Coalition – Gailey;

• School Building Committee – Linscott and Livingston;

• Secondary School Facilities Committee – Blake and Livingston;

• Spring Point Lease Committee – resident Tom Coward;

• Trails Advisory Group – Blake and Jalbert;

• Waterfront Alliance; Smith and Transportation Director Tom Meyers.

In 2011, Livingston was removed from the school building committee at the behest of Chairman Ralph Baxter Jr., who said the councilor’s single-minded lobbying for things the group had already decided against, like a laundry facility, was proving disruptive to the process.  

Gailey said Friday that there was "no council discussion" about Livingston's appointment and "the school department was not consulted." Superintendent Suzanne Godin could not be reached for comment.

In other appointments, whoever is elected to replace Coward, who will resign effective Jan. 2 when sworn in as a Cumberland County commissioner, prompting a special election to represent East Side District 1, will serve on the GA Fair Hearing Board, Spring Point Lease Committee and the Waterfront Alliance.

A council representative to the Comprehensive Plan Implementation Committee will be selected following an upcoming workshop session, at which the council is slated to decide how to staff the balance of the committee.

According to Gailey, the council also debated whether to upgrade the ad hoc Bicycle/Pedestrian Committee to standing status. It is served by Smith and, as chairwoman, resident Rosemarie De Angelis. 

Technology gift brings the world to children unable to explore it on their own

A $25,000 grant buys iPads for Scarborough’s Morrison Center

Mindy Bisson, an 18-year-old senior at the Morrison
Center in Scarborough, works with her ed. tech., Christina
Troiano, on an iPad recently donated to the school by the
Robbie Foundation, using a $25,000 grant from the Davis
Family Foundation.

SCARBOROUGH — When Paul Agnew began teaching students with developmental disabilities at the Morrison Center in Scarborough three years ago, about a year before the first iPads hit the commercial market, he noticed that the first instinct of his charges when using a computer was to try and touch icons and other items on the screen.

“It was like, ‘I want this, I’m going to reach out and grab it,’” he said. “That’s a very natural thing to do. But instead, I had to try and teach them how to use a mouse, which, as you can understand, with having to both manipulate it and track it on screen, can be a pretty difficult thing to do. It’s not always very easy, because most of these students have problems with fine motor skills, among other issues.”

So, from the moment the iPad came out, Agnew knew he wanted them for his students.

Last week, that became possible, thanks to a local charity, The Robbie Foundation, which donated 24 iPads to the center, which provides services to children and adults with disabilities. The devices are preloaded with special learning apps, along with accessories and teacher training in the most effective uses for iPads in a classroom with the developmentally disabled.

The gift was made possible by a $25,000 grant it obtained from another Maine nonprofit, the Davis Family Foundation.

“I’m just totally jazzed that we are able to provide this service,” said Robbie Foundation founder Lynn Gierie. “It opens a whole new world for children with disabilities. Essentially, it brings the world to the child who is unable to explore it on their own.

“We are hopeful that this pilot with be just the first of many programs like this in the state of Maine,” said Gierie.

The Robbie Foundation was created in May 2010, by Gierie and her husband Robert Gierie Jr. in honor of their son, who experienced damage to the basal ganglia part of his brain – which controls all motor skills – during birth, resulting in severe cerebral palsy. He cannot walk or speak, but the Gieries learned firsthand just how useful a touchscreen tablet computer could be.

“His own iPad is used as his communication device at school and at home,” said Lynn Gierie. “It is essentially his voice. It’s an extremely powerful tool for learning.”

Perhaps more importantly, the iPad serves as a socialization platform, online and off. Robbie uses it to Skype with former instructors now living in Arizona and, his mother notes, it also serves as a conversation starter when he’s out in the community, such as when another curious child can’t resist approaching Robbie to ask him questions about his iPad.

“Oh, he’s right on top of the social media, in every way,” said Gierie, with a laugh.

The mission of the Robbie Foundation is to broaden the experiences of children with disabilities from birth to age 20 in ways that pull them into the social fabric of their communities. It does so primarily by supplying the adaptive equipment parents cannot get through their insurance providers. For example, this past July it gave a $2,500 special tricycle to disabled siblings Coleman and Annie Nee of Scarborough, allowing them to carouse their neighborhood for the first time in ways most children take for granted.

The iPad donation is the foundation’s biggest gift to date, and one that is especially meaningful to the Gierie family. Robbie is now fully integrated into Scarborough’s public school system as an eight-grader at the middle school, but he got there, in part, thanks to attending the Morrison Center’s preschool program.      

“As a parent of a child with special needs, I always made it a personal quest of mine to somehow think about how we could give back to the Morrison Center for all that they did for Robbie’s early intervention,” said Gierie.

The center’s executive director, Mark Ryder, says the iPads are something of a godsend.

“I can’t thank the Robbie Foundation enough,” he said. “This gives us the ability to bridge gaps, whether a child responds better to audio or video stimulus, to engage the whole class. It will let kids access the curriculum in really fun and exciting ways and contribute to their learning in ways they hadn't been able to before.

“Most of our 16 students in K-12 have multiple handicaps,” said Ryder. “All have significant communication deficits. Some are nonverbal even. This assists the students in making choices, which is really a big concept here.”

Morrison’s IT support coordinator, Justin Brown, says the iPads have a “guided access,” a system that allows teachers to “lock-out” certain buttons and features. That helps the child from activating the wrong button in an app, but also from inadvertently downloading Angry Birds.

“Also, we can customize each machine to the vocabulary of each student,” said Brown, “That’s especially helpful because a lot of communication devices that do essentially what the iPad does can cost up to $5,000. The iPad is less expensive but also more versatile.”

In addition to regular instruction, the iPads also are expected to help non-verbal students communicate with teachers in ways they could not before.

Previously, a child who had to go to the bathroom might have had no recourse other than to act out, said Agnew. Now, just touching an onscreen icon gets the point across.

“This helps the students to feel successful and empowered, which is a important,” said Agnew.

The machines also are expected to help Morrison Center staffers.

“One of the biggest things for us is just the efficiency and speed with which we can create the materials we use,” said Agnew.

Now, instead of taking time to create visuals on a computer, printing them, backing them on a hard surface and laminating them, teachers can simply download what they need.

“Before, it might take a couple of days – because we have limited time when we’re not with our students – from when we realized we needed a certain symbol for a student to work with to when we actually had it,” said Agnew. “Now, if I need a symbol, I can have it onscreen ready for the student to work with in a matter of seconds.”

The Robbie Foundation donation also includes “Big Grips” – large rubber cases that protect the machines from harm in case they are dropped, while also providing large handles to help better manipulate the tablets.

“You can’t expect no loss,” said Brown. “We’re not going to treat them like glass slippers. We definitely want to get them into the kids’ hands.

“We’re using them as a tool to open up abilities for our kids, to let more kids to more things” said Brown. “This isn’t just, ‘Hey, let’s get some iPads because that’d be cool.'”

“We would have got these anyway, but it would have been done slowly over time, one here and one there,” said Agnew. “We are so excited and thankful to the Robbie Foundation for getting them all in our hands at one time.”

A CLOSER LOOK

To learn more about the Robbie Foundation, or to donate to its cause, go to www.robbiefoundation.com.

For more on the Morrison Center, go to www.morrison-maine.org.