New measures aim at raising city revenue

SOUTH PORTLAND — The South Portland City Council may soon approve two new measures, related to parking tickets and burglar alarms, aimed at capturing lost revenue.

In conjunction with the roll-out of a new electronic system for issuing and tracking parking tickets, the city will refuse to renew or complete vehicle registrations for residents who have outstanding fines. Meanwhile, unpaid fees assessed for police calls to false alarms could jeopardize the renewal of business licenses.

Both changes will be sent to public hearing and possible final adoption at the council’s Dec. 3 meeting. If adopted, the new rules would go into effect Dec 23. According to Police Chief Ed Googins, the restrictions on registration and business license renewals will apply to fines previously incurred.

“We do have quite a list of unpaid parking tickets on file,” he said.

“I think the city will honor the new appeal process even though it does not go into effect until Dec. 23, but there is no limitation on looking back at unpaid parking tickets,” said City Attorney Sally Daggett.

That seemed to come as welcome news to councilors

“The changes button up our procedures and may result in a small amount of additional revenue for the city,” said Councilor Tom Coward. “Every little bit helps.”

“Any way we can clean up our records and take care of issues that are outstanding, it’s important to do,” said Mayor Patti Smith. “Generally, we want to work with people rather than punish them, but I think this is a good, fair effort.”

The South Portland Police Department does not charge anything the first time it sends officers to chase down a burglar alarm that has gone off because of a malfunction or inadvertent activation. However, the second instance nets a $35 fee, the second $75, and the fourth and each subsequent instance $100 each.

“We have a lot of false alarm fees that aren’t collected,” said Finance Director Greg L’Heureux. “The reward is there.”

Although L’Heureux did not have an immediate dollar amount that could be collected, he noted that his department recently sent out a batch of 800 notices on unpaid parking tickets.

Parking tickets, which range from a standard of $20 for most violations up to $100 for illegally parking in a space reserved for handicapped drivers, can be paid at City Hall when registering a vehicle. However, the finance office may register the vehicle after confirming that a court date has been scheduled for an outstanding ticket, or that a newly created appeals process has been initiated.

An appeal must be made to the police department within 15 days of receiving a ticket and, if denied, will automatically turn into a request for a hearing in Cumberland County Unified Court.

One concern for councilors when considering the parking ticket change is the admission that, due to a “technology gap,” people who register their vehicles online can avoid the parking ticket restriction. The city does not yet have the ability to marry the online registration process to its database of outstanding tickets.

According to City Manager Jim Gailey, about 20,000 personal vehicles are registered in South Portland each year, of which 4,800 are renewals completed online.

“I’m afraid the people who can least afford to pay their parking tickets may get hit because their may not have a computer or be savvy enough to do it online,” said Councilor Maxine Beecher.

However, Deputy Police Chief Amy Berry noted that the police department has a policy of waiving the first parking ticket.

“If you have a family that has three cars, they effectively get three waivers,” said L’Heureux, adding that far from concern about tying business licenses and car registrations to unpaid fines, the usual public response, among people he’s spoken to, has been, “Yeah, go get ‘em.”

Mayor Patti Smith pointed out that no resident or business owner spoke out on either ordinance update, either at the Nov. 19 first reading or a Nov. 14 workshop.

“So, hopefully, if there is some concern out there, those people will come forward,” she said.

Providing comfort and joy through silence

For the first time, the Maine Mall is offering a low-stimulant Santa session for children with autism

SOUTH PORTLAND — Although it’s the center of activity during the Christmas season, the Maine Mall is not forgetting youngsters who may be averse to the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.

From 8-10 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 1, the mall will hold it’s first-ever “Sensitive Santa,” session, providing a quiet atmosphere before regular mall hours for children who want to meet Santa, but who may have difficulty with noisy environments. The seating, intended for children with autism or hearing loss, will take place at Santa’s Train Set, located near Sports Authority. The Maine Autism Alliance will be on hand with resources for families.

“The train set will be turned off, Santa has been prepped and the lights will be dimmed,” said the mall’s marketing coordinator, Stepfanie Millette, on Monday. “I was looking for different events we could do for families and I think this may be helpful.

“It’s not something we ever realized here before this year that a child may be restricted from coming to see Santa because of the mall’s environment,” said Millette. “Just by being a mall, we present some restrictions to kids with certain conditions.

According to Kristen Lewis, an occupational therapist at Easter Seals of Maine, which provides services to children and adults with disabilities, including autism, the still-mysterious condition can make meeting Santa a memorable experience for all the wrong reasons.

“Children with autism tend to be highly, overly sensitive,” she said. “Their senses – sight, sound, smell, touch – can be easily overstimulated. They can be easily districted in something like a shopping mall. It can be just too much for them to handle.”

Of course, that can be true of people without special conditions, as well.

“I’ll be honest with you,” said Lewis. “I haven’t taken my child to see Santa because even I get over stimulated, just from the crowd. And meeting Santa can be scary for a child. I mean, here’s this big stranger in a big beard and funny costume, that’s very intimidating.”

Still, Lewis said she “absolutely loves” what the Maine Mall is trying to do.

“Parents will want that Santa experience so badly for their child, so they’ll try it anyway,” she said. “But for a child with autism, that can be way too much for their little systems to handle and they just cannot physically enjoy it.”

 The result, says Lewis, can range from the typical tantrum freak-out almost any child might display, to a seeming shut down of all interaction with the outside world.

“Honestly, every individual is different,” said Lewis. “We don’t really know how people with autism view or experience the world, we only know they are not able to react to the societal norms that we have established. There’s a lot of research happening out there, but what exactly causes it is still unknown at this time.

What is know, however, is that there has been a sharp increase in autism in recent years, both nationally and in Maine.

Suzanne Godin, superintendent of the South Portland School Department, has noted that her district had fewer than 10 children with autism when she landed the job eight years ago. Today, it has 61.

“Honestly, we really don’t know what’s driving that,” said Godin, at a recent school board retreat.

The same is true in Scarborough, which this year hired a half-time autism specialist, because, says Special Services Director Alison Marchese, the district has 57 students identified with autism, up from eight just a few years ago.

Some of the increase has come from services like Easter Seals or Spurwink, losing clients to the public school systems that have become more adept at dealing with the disorder. But the numbers seem to show more a simple demographic shift.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 in 88 children can now be identified with an “autism spectrum disorder.” That’s a 78 percent increase from the CDC’s first Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network study done just five years ago.

Reasons for the spike are a mystery, according to the CDC, although it allows that ”some of the increase is due to the way children are identified, diagnosed, and served in their local communities,” while, “it is likely that reported increases are explained partly by greater awareness by doctors, teachers, and parents.”

Chicago-based General Growth Properties owns more than 130 retail sites across the nation. Based on growing autism awareness, two of GGP’s Midwest malls last year staged “really successful” events working in cooperation with local autism awareness groups, Millette said.

“They were able to send to me really good notes on what works and what doesn’t work,” said Millette. We’re taking our notes pretty seriously from other centers, but it’s a total test run. I have no idea what to expect.”

During Sensitive Santa time the doors will have opened to “mall walkers,” but the gates will not yet have gone up on any stores. Therefore, there is no sales benefit to staging the event. But also, there are no obstacles.

“If it's not taxing our resources at all, they why not make that available?” said Millette. “There’s no sacrifice for us to take down those barriers to children with autism or hearing problems. We just gain the happiness of a kid that gets to see Santa that morning.”

Lewis says the mall is on the right track, but suggests that, because some children with autism have tactile issues (sensitivity to touch), an effort might be made to limit the crowd size even further. Millette, who says she has reached out to various autism groups in Maine, received six inquires from interested parents on Monday morning alone, and expects upwards of 200 at the inaugural event.

“I wonder if there is anything they can do to keep the crowd not so crowded,” said Lewis.

“This is one of those interesting things where you hope for a crowd that’s not that big, because that would defeat the purpose,” agreed Millette.

Among the concerns is that parents who do not have children with autism will try and crash the event just to avoid long lines at Santa’s more traditional meet-and-greet.

“We have been careful about advertising,” said Millette, noting that the mall can hardly screen children for the disorder on site. “You want to make sure the families who are receiving the invitation are the one who have children with that need.”

If demand warrants, the mall may expand the Sensitive Santa program next year. Still, Millette said, she expects the best, if only because this year’s Halloween events included more than 1,000 pumpkins for Cape Sunshine that went unmolested despite what must have been a very strong temptation to local teens.


“I think people can be a lot more respectful that you might expect,” said Millett. “I think people are more good that we give them credit for, even in a mall.”

House OK'd for city school seat

SOUTH PORTLAND — The South Portland City Council made it official last week, voting unanimously to appoint Mary House to an at-large seat on the Board of Education at a meeting Nov. 19.

House replaces Jeffrey Selser, who resigned Sept.7 to accept a coaching job at Mahoney Middle School. She will serve until November 2013, when a special election will be held to fill the final year on Selser’s three-year term.

House, 41, of Elderberry Drive, is a project manager at Woodard & Curran, a Portland-based civil engineering firm, an occupation that seemed to impress many councilors keen on improving student achievement in science and math. She was nominated for the position following a two-hour council interview session with six applicants on Nov. 13.

“I was absent from the question-and-answer period, but I was able to view entire [session] on videotape,” said Councilor Tom Blake, slated to be inaugurated as mayor Dec. 3. “I also had an opportunity to review the six cover letters and resumes.

“I do concur that the best candidate is Mary House, although I want to clearly state that all candidates were truly outstanding,” said Blake.

The other applicants were former school board Chairman Ralph Baxter Jr., retired S.D. Warren research chemist Roger Allen, Southern Maine Community College’s Director of Student Life Tiffanie Bentley, Delhaize America supply chain manager Pam Koonz Canarie and Jeffrey McDonald, a sales manager at Welch Signage in Scarborough.

Blake praised the “very professional” interview process and asked how it might be formalized, given that the city charter, while empowering the council to fill vacant school board seats until a regularly-scheduled election, is silent on the process to be followed.

City Manager Jim Gailey answered that he is drafting rules that, due to the trouble it would be to amend the charter, he expects to be adopted as an addendum to the council’s standing rules.

“One we put some final touches on it, we will be running that document by the City Council,” he said. “That will make sure that it’s solidified in history, so that five years, 10 years down the road, if this comes up again, the guidelines and the process are all mapped out.”

“I like that,” said Blake. “I think most important, going forward, I would like our citizenry to be able to find that and utilize that.”

However, while the public may be able to access in the future how potential appointees to the school board are to be selected, there is no guarantee the city will distribute information on who its applicants are.

Based on the advice of the city's attorney, Sally Daggett, responding to a Freedom of Access Act request by The Current, Gailey refused to release the application materials referenced by Blake. Although the applicants were in the running for what is normally an elected position, Daggett cited their personal privacy rights as “city employees.”

Accusations fly following election

SOUTH PORTLAND — In her final regular meeting as a South Portland city councilor last week, Rosemarie De Angelis called out her peers whom she claims conspired to drive her from office.

Reading from a seven-minute-long prepared speech, given, she said, despite a risk that, “you never know how the media will portray you,” De Angelis accused councilors Alan Livingston and Jerry Jalbert, outgoing Councilor Maxine Beecher and Mayor-elect Tom Blake of “aggressively recruiting” and promoting her opponent, Melissa Linscott.

The real estate broker and political newcomer bested De Angelis handily to represent District 3 (which includes the downtown Knightville area), 7,146 to 5,516. It was the only contested municipal race of five on the Nov. 6 ballot. The reason for the loss, claimed De Angelis, was that “fear is a powerful thing, causing many to act in hateful and damaging ways.”

“You see it in countries fraught with genocide,” said De Angelis, “[It’s] the fear that somebody might threaten something you have or something you want, fear that you might lose power, influence or somehow be exposed, fear that there is not enough for everyone.”

De Angelis was first elected to the City Council in 2003. Defeated in 2006, she sat out a term before winning her way back onto the city’s governing body in 2009. In this year’s race, her fellow councilors sought out and promoted Linscott, De Angelis said, because of her willingness to act as a veritable quorum-of-one on the council, opposing her peers this past year on everything from traffic configuration to fringe benefits.

“[Mine was] a voice that would gain public support and needed to be squashed,” said De Angelis. “Four councilors worked together with one mission: To silence the voice that questions.”

On Monday, Jalbert acknowledged that he, Beecher and Livingston did appear at the polls to shake hands “as friends of Melissa.” On the weekend before Election Day, he said, the trio went door-to-door to help distribute Linscott flyers.

“It was what I’d call a bare-knuckled campaign in the last week,” he said. “I must have handed out about 250 flyers and I think Maxine did, as well. I think Al must have handed out over 500. He was unbelievable.”

However, despite the late intervention, Jalbert theorized he and his fellow councilors were not the deciding factor in driving De Angelis from office.

“We probably had very little effect in the early voting, yet even then Melissa was ahead of Rosemarie,” he said.

The official vote tally certified by City Clerk Susan Mooney shows that Linscott led De Angelis by a mere 20 votes on absentee ballots, 2,066 to 2,046. That total includes mailed ballots as well as in-person absentee voting at City Hall in the weeks before Nov. 6. The cut-off date to request an absentee ballot was Nov. 1, the Thursday before the vote. It was in voting on Election Day where Linscott stomped De Angelis, racking up a 59.4 percent margin, 5,080 to 3,470.

Broken down by wards, the Election Day break for Linscott ranged from a 57.9 percent total in combined voting for Districts 3 and 4, to 62.8 percent in District 2. Perhaps ironically, District 2 is represented by Mayor Patti Smith, the only council member to publicly support De Angelis.

Immediately after De Angelis’ speech, just as the council was entering executive session for a hardship abatement, Beecher said she was “proud” to have supported Linscott, although she refrained from criticizing De Angelis. Livingston could not be reached for comment Monday, while Blake, in Arizona during the contest’s final week, refused to confirm what role, if any, he played in unseating De Angelis.

“I really can’t comment. There’s no story there,” he said. “I bet in the course of a year I ask 20 people why they don’t run for pubic office.”

However, Jalbert, away on vacation during De Angelis’ speech, did watch the Internet broadcast and said of it via email, “De Angelis teaches a class in personal growth at Southern Maine Community College, yet showed little personal growth in her losing bid for reelection. Instead, personal attacks were the theme.

“There is a lesson all of us in this and it is not a new one,” wrote Jalbert. “The lesson is, ‘You reap what you sow.’ Maybe it is from this lesson that the term ‘sour grapes’ came from.”

De Angelis appeared to see that critique coming during her speech, given during the council’s closing “round-robin” period, following a brief parliamentary tussle over who would get to speak last, she or Beecher.

“Let those who wish to try and discredit me or report sour grapes have at it, I will not leave in silence,” she said. “I have won elections and I have lost them. That is democracy. However, this election was different. It was grounded in fear, fueled by hatred and intolerance.”

De Angelis accused the contingent of “calling everyone they knew in District 3 with some name recognition,” until finally settling on Linscott after three others she named declined to run. She said Blake, a retired firefighter of 26-years’ service to the city, tried to sway his brothers to support Linscott. “But knowing that I am a strong union supporter, they were not swayed,” she said.

De Angelis then took aim at Linscott’s sales pitch for a spot on the council, given in newspaper interviews and at an Oct, 25 debate – that she would be a “fresh set of eyes.” That, along with Linscott’s stated reason for running, that she felt competition for office was a good thing, became talking points for her supporters. But De Angelis said both rhetorical bullets rang hollow. Why, she asked, had no one touted a need for fresh eyes during Beechers’ nine years on the council? Why, she wondered, was competition not lauded in any of the other one-horse races for the City Council in recent years?

“Really, it was not about eyes,” said De Angelis. “It was about voice – a voice that questions, challenges and even pushes at times.”

De Angelis then ticked off the many issues during the past year in which she was the lone and/or loudest dissenting voice, including her opposition to a health care benefit for councilors, giving direction to the city attorney behind closed doors and a plan for one-way traffic and angled parking on Ocean Street. Left unmentioned was the often acrimonious wrangling with event manager Caitlin Jordan, in public and via email, over the location, promotion and management of the farmers market, which De Angelis helped create during her 2011 term as mayor.

However, De Angelis did note that Beecher “fought like a dog on a bone” to keep her from voting on a sign permit for the farmers market, based on that conflict, but then, two weeks later, led the argument to allow Smith to vote on a resolution supporting same-sex marriage, even though Smith was employed by the question’s statewide sponsor and leading proponent.

But it was not just 2012, De Angelis said, in which she faced “intolerance.” As evidence, she presented “the small-mindedness” of Blake, Beecher and Livingston, who voted against her as mayor. It was, she said, the only time in recent history – other than in 2009 when Jim Soule famously voted for himself a year after suggesting southern Maine succeed from the rest of the state – that a vote for mayor was not unanimous.

De Angelis termed the lack of unanimity for her mayoral candidacy “an act of hate.” A divided vote for mayor, she said, has “never happened before and it will never happen again.”

For her part, Linscott said De Angelis was correct that she did not pull papers to run for office until the last available day. However, this was because she had commiserated with her husband and business partner regarding the choice to run for elective office, and whether she should go for seat on the City Council or the school board. It was not, she said, because councilors came to her late in the game after others refused to step into the ring with De Angelis.

Many people approached her to run for office, including members of the council, said Linscott, although she declined to name names.

“I don’t feel ‘recruit’ is the right word,” she said. “I don’t think it really matters who approached me. It’s kind of moot at this point. What’s important is that my election wasn’t a decision made by the council, it was a decision made by the citizens of the city. That’s kind of the bottom line.”

“One great thing about America is we can support and vote for whoever we want,” said Blake.

“It was not about me against Rosemarie,” said Linscott. “I was running for me, as an opportunity to serve the city. I did try not to look at it as one person against the other, but just offering what I have to give the city as an option for the citizens.”

Linscott said she settled on a council run over challenging Richard Matthews for the District 3 seat on the school board because, “there’s more opportunity to serve and more opportunity to do good on the City Council.”

The biggest potential fallout from De Angelis’ speech, said Linscott, is the idea that she is fated to be a lapdog on the council. That, she said, is a notion that will be quickly and easily dispelled.

“I think the thing that is a little disconcerting is the idea that I might not voice my opinion, that the people might not heard, or be represented any longer,” said Linscott. “I don’t thing any of these are the case. I think that will come to light as I sit on the council and do my job.”

In doing that job, however, Linscott said she does not intend to mirror what she calls a “disappointing” level of discourse on the South Portland City Council during 2012.

“We can disagree and stand up for out points of view without being unprofessional,” she said.

Meanwhile, Jalbert says he hopes De Angelis will view the council race in less partisan terms. Although councilors took sides – Beecher points out that Smith campaigned for De Angelis, too – it was more akin a party primary fight than a lynch mob, said Jalbert.

“Yeah, the incumbent’s not very happy about losing in that case, but eventually, from what I’ve seen over the years, he or she will come around and wish the winner the best,” said Jalbert. “The only thing I’m hoping for in the future is that Rosemarie would find it in herself to maybe contact Melissa and offer her congratulations.

De Angelis said via email Monday that concession calls are not the norm for municipal races.

“This is not Obama/Romney, where the press is standing by waiting to hear what was said,” she wrote, noting that she had spoken to Linscott while out collecting campaign signs and did not understand Jalbert’s expectation of anything more formal.

“That just didn’t even occur to me, but then I am not really a politician,” she wrote. “I am just a citizen who is committed to public service.”

De Angelis said she will continue to lead the city’s Bicycle/Pedestrian Committee, formed during her term as mayor. She hopes to also “support” the Farmers Market Advisory Committee, she said, but is uncertain whether it will continue into the Blake administration.

CLARIFICATION

An article in last week's edition of The Current misstated Rosemarie De Angelis' comments regarding the South Portland Farmers Market. De Angelis said she would continue to be supportive of the farmers market and that she did not know the status of the market's advisory committee. The article also incorrectly reported De Angelis' comment on a concession call. When De Angelis said in an email that she had encountered an opponent following the race, she was referring to a previous City Council race, not the 2012 campaign.