Northern New England News

City's baseball stadium to host funeral

Manchester ? MerchantsAuto.com Stadium will be filled with mourners on Saturday.

Officer Michael Briggs' funeral will be held outdoors at the downtown minor league baseball park at 11 a.m., with his burial to follow at New Rye Cemetery in Epsom.

Saturday's weather forecast is for a mostly sunny but windy day with a high of 57 degrees.

Calling hours will be Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Lambert Funeral Home and Crematory, 1799 Elm Street, in Manchester.

For additional details, see UnionLeader.com and the New Hampshire Union Leader tomorrow.
 
A Hero Lost: Micheal Briggs, R.I.P.

The citizens of a safe city will always take their safety for granted. Yet safety and security are not natural states; they are achieved at great cost.

In Manchester, more than 200 police officers do the dangerous work of enforcing the laws of the city. They are men and women who volunteer to protect the rest of us from those who would do people and property great harm if left unrestrained.

Officer Michael Briggs was, by all accounts, a star of Manchester's force. Friends and fellow officers describe him as kind, generous, friendly, caring, loyal and courageous. Among the hundreds of outstanding officers who patrol the city, Briggs, a decorated former Marine, stood out.

On July 25, 2004, Briggs was one of four officers who rushed into a burning apartment building and rescued its 19 residents. Among those he saved were a teenager, blind and confined to a wheelchair, and the elderly woman who cared for her.

For his heroism that July night, Briggs received the Union Leader's New Hampshire Hero Award and, on Oct. 16, 2005, the Congressional Law Enforcement Award. A year later to the day, while responding to a domestic violence call in central Manchester, he was shot in the head, allegedly by a career criminal he had arrested four years earlier. It was 2:45 a.m. He had only 15 minutes left on his shift.

Briggs, a bona fide hero with the medals to prove it, was not just an action hero. He was also a gentle, caring soul whose empathy turned lives around. Among the tributes to him from readers is an e-mail from a woman he once arrested, reprinted in the first column on this page.

"He was one of the nicest people I had ever met," Jessica Burbank wrote. "He made me see my wrong and I haven't gotten in trouble since. I respect him greatly."

Michael Briggs was the kind of hero who chased down bad guys and rushed into burning buildings. He was also the kind who gently did his best to improve the lives of those who needed direction, whether they were boys on the Little League team he coached or criminals he encountered on his late-night patrols through the city.

Each and every night, the residents of Manchester lie sleeping in their beds as heroes like Michael Briggs walk the dark streets. Briggs risked his life, venturing into the unknown, so that we could let down our own defenses and sleep in peace and comfort.

Michael Briggs died defending the people of Manchester, almost all of whom he never knew, from violent predators who seek victims under the cover of darkness. We owe him an unpayable debt.

As we mourn his loss, let us make sure that Michael Briggs is never forgotten. Let us, in his memory, make this city safe again.
 
IT PAINS ME to write these words, but there is an ugly disease overwhelming Manchester?s West Side, and Conant Street has become its cancerous spine.

The lesions are visible in the once-proud Germanic neighborhood around Dover and West and Douglas streets, parts of which run to squalor. They?re also spreading to the north, running up the hills on Cartier and Dubuque and Notre Dame Avenue ? tenements gone to seed ? and the rot can also be seen in the ugly, blighted stretch of lower Second Street.

The disease is manifesting itself in crime, violence and apathy.

The medical metaphor is an apt one, because ? as with cancer ? people who care are searching for a cure for what currently ails so many neighborhoods on the left bank of the Merrimack River.

?Why all of a sudden the West Side?? asked Ed LaPalme.

?It used to be the East Side and center city, and now it?s over here. Maybe we just have some bad eggs over here now, but even five years ago, it wasn?t bad like this,? the 68-year-old retiree added, as he awaited the start of his computer class at the William B. Cashin Senior Activity Center.

Lillian Latour has only been in Manchester for five years, and she agreed. ?We came here from St. Louis,? she said, ?and lately, it seems like there?s more violent crime here on the West Side than there was back there.?

Even while their compatriots were line-dancing upstairs, like Ed LaPalme, Lillian was at the Senior Center for computer class. That center ? a genuine oasis for elders ? is situated less than a block from last Monday?s episode of nighttime gunfire. That gunfire led to the arrest of previously convicted gun-felon Marcos Nieves, and it also prompted a newspaper headline that, in years past, was simply unthinkable:

?More Gunshots on Manchester?s West Side.?

?Another West Side shooting. I heard that on the radio when I woke up and it made me feel sick,? said Doris Tousignant, whose Montgomery Street home ? scant blocks from Thursday?s early-morning report of gunshots ?has been her home since the day she was born.

?And my mother lived here from the day she was born,? Doris added. ?We always knew every single one of our neighbors. I don?t anymore, and I?m not even sureif I want to.?

Arthur ?Red? Ullrich ? longtime owner of the sleek, silver canteen truck known as ?Red?s Flying Saucer? ? echoed her sense of alienation.

Red?s 85 now.

I caught my old neighbor as he was setting up tables for a yard sale he was going to hold in the driveway of his immaculately kept home on Thornton Street, the very same home where I ? as a chunky 10-year-old ? once crashed through his bulkhead and wound up in his basement.

?It?s not like it was when you were growing up,? Red said, with a sigh and a shake of his head, ?but let me say this.?

He began pointing to nearby homes, up and down Sullivan and Thornton streets. ?Over here, good neighbor,? he said. ?Here, excellent neighbor. Armand Pinard over there, great neighbor. Same for Harold Seifert. Above that, I don?t know anyone anymore.

?All up and down Thornton and Bartlett streets, now it?s all Section 8 housing,? he said, in reference to the government-subsidized rent program. ?The people come and go. It?s like Gene Autry. They?re in and out of the saddle every day and the sad thing is, I never used to have to close my doors, let alone lock them, but now . . . ?

Everyone I spoke with ended their sentences the same way.

?But now . . . ?

It?s different now.

?We?ve never seen anything like this on the West Side,? said former alderman and longtime city finance chief Joe Acorace, who?s been a fixture on Bremer Street for decades. ?I can?t say I know of anyone who?s moving away because of it, but certainly we?re all concerned.?

Concerned about what?

First and foremost, they?re concerned about their personal safety, and justifiably so when each day?s paper carries reports of late night gunplay on the streets outside of their homes.

Farther down the line, they?re concerned about things like property values ? nothing cripples a housing market like drive-by shootings or a meth lab across the street ? and then there is the intangible sense of pride.

Old time West Siders are territorial, and proud of it.

They identify fiercely with their slice of Our Town. It?s a place, yes, but it?s also a state of mind, and they don?t want to surrender to apersistent-yet-transient vermin element that feeds off drink and drugs and the curse of the absentee landlord.

?You can do everything possible to make your home as nice as can be,? noted Doris Tousignant, ?but if you live next door to a place that?s run by a slum lord, what good will it do you? It didn?t just happen this week. It?s been happening over time, but they don?t care who they rent to, and the tenants don?t care about the place and it just spirals down and down.?Walk down Conant Street for proof.

If you dare.

If you do, look for the building at 188 Conant. When I was a kid, it was the Knights of Columbus Hall. Now it?s the Hope and Revival Church, and if the West Side has any hope of revival, people with a stake in the area are going to have to become more and more involved.

People like Bill Cashin.

The longtime Ward 10 alderman has his name atop the door at the Senior Activity Center on Main Street and his Winter Street home is just two blocks from the Monday night shooting incident.

?The assessment on my house just went from $158,000 to $361,000,? he said, ?and that?s OK. I don?t mind paying my taxes as long as I feel I?m getting some security for my family and my friends, but I don?t feel I?m getting that rightnow.

?I?m not even in office anymore,? he added, ?but I?m still getting calls from people who are scared over here. I think the police department is simply overwhelmed right now. They need more help from the mayor and the aldermen.

?If you look at where the Senior Center is, right behind it is where a lot of the trouble is. I?m very concerned about that location. That?s where the seniors go. That?s where the high school is and that?s where the trouble is. Something has to be done.?

What?s being done now is talking, for the most part.

This unsettling West Side story is topic number one over coffee at Chez Vachon, over lunch at the Burns High Rise, over beers at the Raphael Club and after Mass at Ste. Marie?s.

It?s a complicated story.

It involves history and sociology and economics. It has far too many elements of a crime novel and lately, there are elements of horror. If you believe in fairy tales, you might be looking for a happy ending, but at the moment, the end of this story is nowhere in sight.

Columnist John Clayton?s e-mail address is jclayton@unionleader.com
 
A couple Union Leader pics from the funeral. 4,000 police officers attended the funeral and processional.

1022briggs_diamond_460.jpg


1021cop-salute.jpg


Fanfare for an uncommon man
http://news.bostonherald.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=163510
 
Officer's murder reignites death penalty debate in NH
By Norma Love, Associated Press Writer | October 21, 2006

CONCORD, N.H. --After former state Rep. Renny Cushing's father was murdered, people told him they hoped the man who did it would "fry so you can get some comfort."

Instead, Cushing pleaded for mercy for men like the grudge-bearing neighbor who gunned down his father and fought to repeal the state's death penalty.

Now he questions whether a jury would shrug off New Hampshire's long-standing unease with the death penalty and sentence Michael "Stix" Addison to death if he's convicted in the shooting death of Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs.

"There is a family out there grieving, two children without a father," said Cushing, founder of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, which represents victims across the country who oppose capital punishment. He notes 13 states don't have capital punishment.

New Hampshire appears to be a state divided over capital punishment. The statute is narrow and has been applied only once in the last decade and not carried out since 1939. The state has no one on death row and no death chamber in which to administer the prescribed lethal injection or hanging, if injection is not possible.

On Wednesday, the attorney general's office won legislative approval to spend $420,000 pursuing a death penalty case against Addison. The cost could rise well above $1 million.
"Because they haven't done a capital case in New Hampshire, people don't understand the length of the process," he said. "Death cases are different. Death penalty litigation is almost a separate speciality in law."

Six years ago, the Legislature voted to repeal the death penalty. Then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen brushed off appeals from a former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner -- among others -- and vetoed the repeal bill, leaving the law on the books. Since then anti-death penalty advocates have repeatedly tried to repeal the law.

Briggs, 35, who was married with two sons, was shot 15 minutes before his overnight bicycle patrol shift ended Monday, when he responded to a report of a shot fired in an inner city Manchester neighborhood. Hours after Briggs' death Tuesday afternoon, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte announced her intention to upgrade charges against Addison from attempted murder to capital murder.

Addison, 26, was arrested Monday evening in Boston and remains jailed there on $2 million bail.

New Hampshire's death penalty law includes a short list of crimes, including murder of a law enforcement officer and murder during rape or attempted rape. Additionally, the law requires two jury verdicts: one finding guilt, and another imposing the penalty. The jury must unanimously find two aggravating circumstances, including intent, for a death sentence. The state Supreme Court automatically reviews death sentences.

The last person charged with capital murder in New Hampshire was Gordon Perry, who avoided the possibility by pleading guilty to first-degree murder in Epsom police Officer Jeremy Charron's death. Charron, who served with Briggs on the Epsom force, was gunned down while checking a parked car in August 1997

Criminal defense lawyer Michael Ramsdell handled the Perry case when he was chief of the state's homicide bureau.

"It's much more difficult than handling first- and second-degree murder cases because there are so many more issues raised in death penalty cases," Ramsdell said. "The amount of resources that need to be devoted far exceed any resources for any other kind of case."

Ramsdell also handled a 1988 case involving three men who faced capital murder charges in the stabbing death of a pregnant woman. In that case one teen was acquitted and other was sentenced to 46 years to life in prison. The husband was never tried because the teens refused to testify against him.

He said a capital case in New Hampshire could take 10 years to complete since the state has not gone through a trial or the appeals process.

Ramsdell wouldn't speculate on Addison's case. "Anybody who tells you he has a gut feeling about the case ... I would be very, very skeptical," he said.

Democratic state Sen. Lou D'Allesandro, a death penalty advocate, believes it is clearly warranted in Briggs' murder.

"I think the sentiment for this will be so strong given the circumstance surrounding this murder," he said. "This was a deliberate act meant to kill from everything I have gathered."

But Democratic state Rep. Jim Splaine, prime sponsor of recent repeal bills, believes a jury would decide life without parole is a worst fate.

"It is not being easier on criminals. It is tougher," he said.

The issue will be on lawmakers' agenda again next year though it isn't likely to change anything.

Splaine said he has filed a new bill to repeal the death penalty, but both Gov. John Lynch and Republican challenger Jim Coburn promise to veto any such attempts.

Cushing's father was shotgunned in the doorway of his Hampton home in 1988 by the neighbor who also was a town police officer.

Would a New Hampshire jury sentence Addison to death given the state's divisions over the death penalty?

"It's hard to say. That ends up being an individual decision a jury has to weigh," Cushing said.
 
the death penalty should unquestionably be banned in all 50 states as a barbaric and outdated practice. SO what if there is a family out there grieving? As bad as that may be for the individuals involved, it in no way has any significance ragarding the sentencing of the suspect involved to death. If you believe otherwise than its the same as saying murder is okay when it achieves the results you desire (compensating, in a sick way, the family members, in this case). Then the philosophical question arises, who determines what is and what is not propper justification for murder? that is, for what reasons is murder okay and for what reasons is it not okay? well depending on personal outlook, this will be different for most people. and in most cases, it will hurt many people regardless of how many it pleases. best thing to do: ban all forms. I have lost people close to me, and if they had been murdered i would be pissed, for sure, and probably want the murderer killed, but I would later regret it, im sure. the best thing is to have some neutral third party say that capital punishment is bad, and thats the end of the story. it will help and protect everyone in the end. my thoughts...
 
^ I agree with you. The other thing is that it is not a deterrent at all. If you look at the states that have banned capital punishment (most of New England, NY, Wisc., etc) compared to the states that use it repeatedly (Texas, Virginia, pretty much the whole South, etc.) the crime rates in the non death penalty states are significantly lower, in fact they have just about 1/2 the homicide rate on avg. of death-penalty-happy states.

New Hampshire appears to be a state divided over capital punishment. The statute is narrow and has been applied only once in the last decade and not carried out since 1939. The state has no one on death row and no death chamber in which to administer the prescribed lethal injection or hanging, if injection is not possible.

Six years ago, the Legislature voted to repeal the death penalty. Then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen brushed off appeals from a former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner -- among others -- and vetoed the repeal bill, leaving the law on the books. Since then anti-death penalty advocates have repeatedly tried to repeal the law.
Click to expand...

So we don't even have a place to perform executions? :roll: I really don't understand this push for the death penalty. It's not like life in prison without parole is a honeymoon. In 2000, NH was the first state in 24 years to have its state legislature pass a repeal, it was really a shame Shaheen vetoed it.


A good column on the state's rush to judgment in the Briggs case

Unseemly enthusiasm
Politicians, a.g. in mighty rush to hang Briggs's killer

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061022/REPOSITORY/610220338
 
Has anyone seen those now-famous I.Q.-political affiliation correlation maps where there is shown to be a strong relationship between red states and low intelligence quotients? I bet its the same sort of correlation between IQ and BOTH homicide rates AND death penalty adoption for those southern and miwestern type states.

havent read the article you posted, will do so at a later time. and no, life in prison certainly is NOT a picnic....not even a slummy buffet.
 
Expert: Manchester is a safe city, despite perceptions

By DENIS PAISTE

Manchester ? Although figures for the first nine months of this year are not out yet, figures for 2005 showed major crime declined in the city from 2004 in every category except rape, a St. Anselm College professor said this week.

"They were lower for robbery, lower for aggravated assault, lower for burglary, lower for larceny," said Michael Smith, who holds two doctoral degrees.

"The only significant rise was rapes, which went from 62 in 2004 to 73 in 2005."

"Crime actually went down last year, the city did a great job," he said. The number of murders dropped from five in 2004 to four in 2005. Manchester had three murders in 1995.

But that good news has been overwhelmed by a number of high-profile crimes this year, culminating in the fatal shooting of a police officer Monday.

"We tend to exaggerate when there are certain events, that crime is greater," said Smith, who has worked as a public defender in Massachusetts as well as represented police officers. "People tend to overestimate the amount of crime based on what they see on TV and what they read in papers."

"As far as Manchester goes, based on the statistics, I think it really is a very safe community, and it's very unfortunate what happened to Mr. Briggs in trying to apprehend Mr. Addison," he said.

Peter J. Cordella, chairman of the criminal justice department at St. Anselm College, said, "Manchester compared to cities of its size elsewhere in the country has a very low crime rate and a very low violent crime rate."

"What's long been known generally in criminology is when you look at any major city, a very small geographical area, say 2 to 3 percent, will produce sometimes as high as 75 percent of all the major crime, so what you're really dealing with are sort of crime hot spots.

"The reason that's important is when you see these overall numbers then, for a city like Manchester, if it's true, then it turns out there are large swaths of the city that are relatively crime free and that's the good news," Cordella said.

Cordella said it was significant that the Briggs shooting occurred at 2:45 in the morning. "At night, there is much more deviant activity going on, because you hide it at night and people that want to buy drugs are probably more likely to do it at night.

"So what you've done is you've conceded the neighborhood to those people for that period of time," he said.

That can have profound consequences for businesses because people from outside the area aren't likely to venture in if they perceive it to be unsafe.

"If you're a business, you've limited your hours already," Cordella said.

"Say I start an interesting ethnic restaurant," he said. "Who's going to come to my restaurant at 7:30 if they think the neighborhood is unsafe? It's been ceded over to the more deviant elements of the neighborhood...People are saying if the police aren't safe there, what's going to happen?"

City economic development officer Paul Borek, whose job it is to attract and retain businesses in the community, said, "What's important to businesses and investors is that Manchester has been proactive about dealing with crime over the past six months to a year.

"I believe the ongoing initiatives to address crime are giving most investors and members of the business community confidence in the proactive initiatives that the city and the police are engaged in," he said.

He cited for example, the implementation of the Constat crime-monitoring computer program and the recent authorization of hiring more police officers and reserve officers.

"I am primarily aware of people and businesses who continue to move to Manchester because of the strong economy and the low crime rate relative to comparable cities," Borek said.

"The goal of economic development is to increase investment, economic opportunity and jobs and wages."

"By promoting the community and nurturing and attracting investment, we can reduce and eliminate areas of disinvestment, areas that might attract or allow a criminal element to hide or carry out activities," he said.
 
Gov. Lynch to meet with city on crime concerns
By RILEY YATES

MANCHESTER ? Gov. John Lynch will meet today with Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta and top law enforcement officials to discuss crime in the city in the wake of the shooting death of Officer Michael Briggs.

The high-powered meeting will begin a conversation on ways the city and New Hampshire can better coordinate crime-fighting efforts, though specific ideas haven't been determined, participants say.

Guinta said he will call on the state to establish a comprehensive plan for public safety, while also asking for more resources for Manchester.

"I will put on the table, and I think everyone sitting at the table is going to want to know how the state can assist communities in trouble," Guinta said.

Guinta said illegal guns and drugs are the city's most pressing problems. Efforts also must be made to return pride to local neighborhoods, appoint judges who favor tough sentencing and increase scrutiny on illegal immigration, he said.

"Some of this has to be addressed at the state level," Guinta said. "The cooperation that has to occur is beyond what we've seen in the past."

The meeting is expected to include Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, Senate President Ted Gatsas and possibly state Safety Commissioner Dick Flynn.

Lynch's interest adds the weight of a popular governor to a problem that city leaders have struggled with for months.

Lynch "is very concerned with what seems to be a rising amount of violent crime in the city of Manchester," said Pam Walsh, the governor's spokesman.

Drug control efforts by local, state and federal authorities should be intensified, Walsh said. The state liquor commission should continue to aggressively enforce liquor laws and licensing requirements.

Walsh said she did not want to "predetermine" talks by offering specific plans, however.

"There will be a discussion about what can be done without interfering with local law enforcement efforts," said Walsh, who also touted Lynch efforts to increase the number of state troopers and crack down on the drug crystal meth.

Briggs' death last week was the latest in a series of shootings and other violent crimes that have shaken the Queen City. Officials have been reluctant to discuss crime for fear of politicizing the issue, given looming elections.

Alderman Ed Osborne of Ward 5, chairman of the Committee on Traffic and Public Safety, said the state could help by providing Manchester with needed funding, while also enacting heightened prison penalties for perpetrators.

"It's all money, money, money," said Osborne, whose ward includes the area of Lincoln Street where Briggs was gunned down a week ago.

Already, Manchester's City Hall has approved recruiting 10 additional police officers, called for citizen volunteers, and approved any overtime needed to keep cops on the street.

State and federal authorities have ponied up money for special patrols. A team of city officials has been established to fight housing and zoning permitting violations that are believed to contribute to rising crime.

Osborne said he doesn't know how the city can staunch problems altogether.

"If anybody has the answers, I don't see anyone coming forward," Osborne said. "If God can't cure this, how can we?"

Alderman Armand Forest of Ward 12, a retired police officer, said attention at the state level could help "serve notice" to the importance of addressing problems quickly.

More than three decades ago, a governor's executive order helped buy shotguns for Manchester police when the city was plagued by a series of bank robberies, noted Forest, who was an officer at the time.

Forest said he is hopeful Manchester will turn crime around. Residents need to do their part to keep their neighborhoods safe, he said.

So far, Manchester's efforts appear to have been stymied, he said.

"Every time we've tried to do something, we've had these obstacles in the way," Forest said. "And they're big obstacles."
 
Manchester's crime has certainly been on the upswing the last few years, but its still up like the southern NE cities. Its really just one of Manchester's growing pains. The more people move in, the more crime is likely to happen. I am willing to bet Manchester has busted the 112k mark by now.
 
MBrown --

All of the estimates I have seen for manchester's population are under 110K.....are these outdated?




also, to mainers --

has anyone noticed that there is a 5-story marriot hotel under construction out by the maine mall? how did i miss this? it is right over the bridge into scarborough heading toward walmart/circuit city area.

the best buy plot is all cleared and moving along now. now to see what goes in where best buy is leaving and where filenes used to be.

scarborough gallery is moving right along too. it is 650,000 square feet, and will include a lowes, a walmart supercenter, and about a doaen other mini mall type stores. should be a vast improvement over just a walmart (whats on the current site).
 
The 2005 estimate from www.census.gov puts the population of Manchester at 109,691. It does list the margin of error as /-5,861.
 
TimmyG said:
The 2005 estimate from www.census.gov puts the population of Manchester at 109,691. It does list the margin of error as /-5,861.
Click to expand...

I failed to find the margin of error when i looked up portland. where am i missing it? portland seems to have lost 15,000 from its peak. manchester, on the other hand, could be at 116,000....but probably not yet. MBrown where did you get your number?
 
I didn't need to see that Patrick :shock:

Why is your mom on the cover anyway?
 
Portland OKs first methadone clinic

The Portland area's third methadone clinic will open by early next year, a spokesman for a Massachusetts company said Tuesday.
The Portland Planning Board unanimously approved a site plan Tuesday night that will allow Community Substance Abuse Centers of Quincy, Mass., to operate a methadone clinic at 2300 Congress St., near Exit 46 of the Maine Turnpike.
The new clinic initially will serve nearly 100 drug addicts in the Portland area who are on waiting lists for methadone treatment.
It could grow to serve as many as 500 patients, said city and company officials.
It will be the first methadone clinic in Maine's largest city and the third along a two-mile stretch of the turnpike where it runs through South Portland, Portland and Westbrook.
Planning Board members approved the clinic with little discussion, though some expressed support during a workshop last month and no one spoke when the board sought public comment.
However, Congo Associates, owners of an office building at 2338 Congress St., wrote a letter asking the board to deny the proposal because it would hurt property values in the area and discourage tenants from renewing leases.
Robert Potter, planning and development director for Community Substance Abuse Centers, said his company plans to operate the clinic with the professionalism and restraint commonly associated with medical facilities.
"This is a highly regulated medical service," Potter said. "The bulk of our business happens in the very early morning so our patients can get back to their families and their jobs as soon as possible."
The building at 2300 Congress St. is next to Blueberry Road and Hutchins Drive and was occupied previously by Idexx Laboratories Inc.
Potter said renovations will start immediately and the clinic will open within 60 to 120 days, as soon as his company secures licenses from various state and federal agencies.
Potter said patients will be screened and security will be tight. The clinic will operate from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday, with limited weekend hours.
The company has seven clinics in Massachusetts, three in New Hampshire and one in Connecticut, he said.
The other methadone clinic near Exit 46 is The Discovery House, at 400 Western Ave. in South Portland, which serves 525 patients, according to the state Office of Substance Abuse.
CAP Quality Care operates a methadone clinic that serves 520 patients at 1 Delta Drive in Westbrook, near Exit 48.
The two operating clinics have about 95 people on waiting lists for methadone treatment, according to Douglas Gardner, Portland's director of health and human services. In addition, there are two methadone clinics in Bangor, one in Waterville and one in Calais.
Addicts stabilize their need for opiates by taking daily doses of methadone, which is habit-forming.
The issue of opening methadone clinics has raised controversy in some communities, including Rockland and Westbrook.
In July, an addiction specialist, Dr. Marc Shinderman, was found guilty of 58 counts connected to his forging another doctor's name and federal registration number on prescriptions for patients at the CAP Quality Care clinic in Westbrook.
Shinderman is awaiting federal prison sentencing, and his clinic is the subject of a federal civil action.
Staff Writer Kelley Bouchard can be reached at 791-6328 or
kbouchard@pressherald.com


Reader comments

Steven Scharf of Portland, ME
Oct 25, 2006 10:34 AM
There are some wildly misinformed comments here. The clinic is going in an area of Portland on Congress Street out near the Westbrook line. There is no housing in this area. The area consists of a series of low rise office buildings. It is anywhere but in downtown. Mike in Scarborough needs to get a map out. This will actually be the first clinic in the city limits. The other two are in South Portland and Westbrook.

Having said this, my only concern with the location is that it is not on an active bus line. I unfortunately was not able to make either of the two planning board meeting to express my concerns on this.

Steven Scharf
SCSMedia@aol.com

Mike of Scarboro, ME
Oct 25, 2006 10:19 AM
Third methadone clinic? Portland should expend as much effort to attract some actual business to their seedy, ramshackle downtown district, and let the Mall cater to some of these bums and drug addicts.

That's where the people are.

Absurdity Observer
Oct 25, 2006 10:18 AM
So now methadone treatment centers is a growth industry for Maine? How totally absurd. The only methadone clinic we really need already exists over behind Union Station, use it. I wonder what the 95 who can't get the stuff yet do all day? Pour food stamp debit card purchased Smiling Hill Farm milk down the toilet for bottle return money for cigs and beer? The "patients" come early in the morning so they can get back to their jobs and families? Ha Ha. The tooth fairy comes in the middle of the night while you're sleeping.

Jen of Portland, ME
Oct 25, 2006 9:45 AM
I live in the area where this new methadone clinic will be going in. It's a quiet peaceful area and now I'm concerned about how it will change once the clinic goes in. You can bet that I will not be renewing my lease come this spring.
 
Patrick said:
TimmyG said:
The 2005 estimate from www.census.gov puts the population of Manchester at 109,691. It does list the margin of error as /-5,861.
Click to expand...

I failed to find the margin of error when i looked up portland. where am i missing it? portland seems to have lost 15,000 from its peak. manchester, on the other hand, could be at 116,000....but probably not yet. MBrown where did you get your number?
Click to expand...

At the top of the fact sheet for Portland, it says "2005 data not available." The most recent information I found was for the 2000 Census. The data from the actual census does not seem to have a margin of error.

The Portland fact sheet can be found here .
 
This weird story from Milford has made it all over the internet...

Teddy bear is a killer

MILFORD, New Hampshire (AP) -- A teddy bear has been implicated in 2,500 deaths -- trout deaths, that is.

State officials say a teddy bear that fell into a pool at a Fish and Game Department hatchery earlier this month clogged a drain. The clog blocked the flow of oxygen to the pool and suffocated the fish.

Hatcheries supervisor Robert Fawcett said the bear, dressed in yellow raincoat and hat, is believed to be the first stuffed toy to cause fatalities at the facility.

"We've had pipes get clogged, but it's usually with more naturally occurring things like a frog or even a dead muskrat," he said. "This one turned out to be a teddy bear and we don't know how it got there."

The deaths prompted Fawcett to release a written warning: "RELEASE OF ANY TEDDY BEARS into the fish hatchery water IS NOT PERMITTED."

He said it's not known who dropped the bear, but urged anyone whose bear ends up in a hatchery pool to find a worker to remove it. "They might save your teddy bear, and keep it from becoming a killer," he said.

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This teddy bear clogged a drain blocking oxygen flow in a hatchery pool, killing 2,500 trout.
 
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