A petition with 1,020 signatures to limit dogs on Willard Beach has been submitted to the City Clerk’s office—the final step for bringing the contentious issue to a citywide vote.

Organizer Gary Crosby confirmed that he turned in the documents for verification. Crosby’s group—Save Willard Beach—is seeking to ban dogs from the popular beach from April 15-Oct. 15. Under his proposal, dog walkers could bring their pets to the beach off-season, but only if they are leashed.

Current rules allow dogs on the beach year-round though they are limited to early morning and evening hours in the summer. They do not have to be leashed.

Crosby, a candidate for City Council, said he was only required to collect 930 signatures to get the issue on the November ballot. Crosby said that he and about a dozen volunteers had no trouble collecting the required number of signatures.

He said a lot of people who signed said they believe a vote on the issue is needed to put the debate to rest.

Allstate Insurance Co. will close a claims processing office on Johns Roberts Rd. in July, putting 55 employees out of work. Officials of the auto insurance company say the closing is due to consolidation of services.

The company also will close claims offices in Florida and North Carolina.

Some workers may have the option to transfer to other Allstate offices out of state.

On June 9th there will be a vote on the South Portland School Budget at the South Portland Community Center. There will be a couple of citizen-initiated petitions you may be asked to sign when you go to cast your vote. One of them is to ban access of people who walk their dogs on Willard Beach for six months a year, access residents have enjoyed for years. During the winter months all dogs would be on-leash if this referendum passes.

Crystal Goodrich
South Portland Dog Owners Group

Jen DeRice, a recreation coordinator at the Community Center, has given notice that she is leaving her job after eight-plus years. She leaves her job next week.

DeRice has played an integral role in running the center’s largest and most popular programs: the senior events, the summer youth rec camps, the Mill Creek concerts and the downhill ski program.

“I’ve had a great tenure here. The community center is state of the art, and this job was a dream come true for me,” said DeRice, reached by phone this morning. “This was the place to work and be (in public recreation) for the last 10 years.”

DeRice declined to discuss the reason for her resignation. “I want to pursue other opportunities,” she said.

The resignation of DeRice—a key employee in the successful recreation department—follows the highly publicized layoff of Deb Smith, operations manager for the Community/Rec Center. Smith had worked for the city for 27 years, and oversaw the Community Center since it opened in 2000.

DeRice said that it will be most difficult to leave behind the members of the public she has gotten to know over the years. “I’ve worked closely with the seniors, and have gone on some of (the city-sponsored) trips with them. They have become my friends. I’ll miss them a lot.”

Here’s a YouTube video of SoPo’s annual Memorial Day Parade from 1970 or ‘71:

The Boston Globe has an interview with London-based artist Jaime Gili on his proposal to decorate the Sprague oil tanks in South Portland. Gili reiterates his hope that one day the U.S. and world will be less dependent on oil as an energy source.

Here is the link to Gili’s interview about the Art All Around Project. Gili won a global competition by the Maine Center for Creativity for developing a design to adorn several oil tanks in Portland Harbor.

Maine Mall owner General Growth Properties is overdue with its local property tax payments in South Portland and Stearns County, Minnesota.

SoPo officials said on Friday they are still awaiting a check for $931,000 in property taxes due May 7. The mall owner is being assessed an 11 percent late fee, which is $280 a day.

In Minnesota, GGP is behind on its county tax bill at Crossroads Center mall, according to the St. Cloud Times.

GGP is the largest property tax payer in SoPo (paying $3.7million a year) and in Stearns County, Minn., where it pays close to $2 million annually in county, city and school taxes.

Officials in South Portland and Minnesota note that they expect payments soon and it is not uncommon for a company to be late with property tax payments, as it seeks to reorganize in bankruptcy court.

Crossroads missed a May 15 deadline to file the first half of its 2009 tax bill.  The St. Cloud Times news article notes that it is possible the courts may restructure payments, spreading them out over several months and potentially affecting cash flow for the recipients.

Chapter 11 protection allows a company to hold off creditors and operate normally while it develops a financial reorganization plan.

South Portland leaders say they are confident General Growth Properties will pay its quarterly property tax bill soon, though the deadline was May 7 on its on its $931,756 tax bill for the Maine Mall.

General Growth Properties is the nation’s second-largest mall owner, and filed for bankruptcy in April. Although the company has always paid its property taxes early or on time, the mall owner is overdue on its most recent bill. At $3.7 million, GGP’s annual tax bill is the largest in South Portland.

The tardiness comes with a late fee, assessed at 11 percent, or $280 per day on taxes owed for the Maine Mall.

Tax Assessor Elizabeth Sawyer said she maintains regular contact with the tax department at GGP, since it is the city’s largest tax payer. Sawyer said she has been assured that the check is in the mail and the company will meet its obligation.

“It’s a red tape thing because the bankruptcy is so new,” Sawyer said. “Usually General Growth is early (with tax payments), but they probably had to get this cleared through the bankruptcy judge.”

The following is a list of the city’s Top Ten taxpayers and their annual tax bills:

The following is an October 2008 memo from Dana Anderson to John McGough urging the HR director to reclassify Tim Gato’s job from operations manager to a brand-new position: deputy chief of public works and cultural services.

The director of public works, parks, recreation and libraries, endorsed Gato for second-in-command to Anderson. Gato previously was the pool supervisor, also known as the aquatics director. Anderson was proposing to get rid of that post for the new deputy chief job for Gato. Anderson also apparently was re-dubbing the departments he heads as Public Works and Cultural Services.

The public has raised complaints that the new position was not advertised nor other candidates sought. In Anderson’s memo, the PW chief says he “treated Tim as an Intern/Apprentice.” In a recent budget workshop, Anderson said he considered Gato his “heir apparent.”

The series of memos that led to Gato’s promotion can be accessed in a new feature in the right-hand column, titled SoPo Confidential.

Here is the second in a series of memos obtained from the city showing the behind-the-scenes process by which the job of deputy chief of parks, recreation, libraries and public works was created and how Tim Gato, the aquatics director, was elevated to the post.

The series of memos indicates that Dana Anderson, who directs the four departments, devised the idea for the deputy chief job, groomed Gato for the post, officially endorsed him for the job and also proposed the idea for reclassifying Gato’s post from aquatics director to second-in-command of the city’s largest consolidated department.

Gato came on board at the city in 2002. His rapid rise to top city official and the creation of the deputy chief job without public input have provoked complaints from residents. Some have suggested tightening and clarifying standards for hiring and terminating employees.

The memos also are listed in the right-hand column, in a new feature called SoPo Confidential.