The messages, painted on fluorescent green posterboard and attached to utility poles along Route 4 south from Turner to Auburn, were hard to miss.

“Will You Marry Me Ree Ree?” shouted the first, posted a few miles beyond Youly’s Family Restaurant on the way into the city.

On Tuesday, a woman at the restaurant hollered around to see whether anybody knew about the signs, or who Ree Ree might be, but no one did.

A mile and a half later, just over a rise after Murray’s Mega Mart, hung, “I’ll Wait 4 You Ree Ree!”

On Wednesday afternoon there were three clerks behind the counter at the Mega Mart. One hadn’t noticed the signs. The others knew nothing about the mysterious proposee.

“Try the Irving station,” a young man making a purchase said, claiming the Irving was the local gossip hotspot.

Down the road apiece at the Irving station, the attendant had no clue. But she did say her husband had called her at work the day before and asked what the signs were all about.

There wasn’t anybody around the Auburn sign, stapled to a pole at the Shaw’s Supermarket intersection, nearly 4 miles down the road.

“I’m Fighting For You Ree Ree!”

According to reports, the first two signs went up Tuesday, with the third being posted the following day.

– Kelly Morgan
Please pass the pepperoni

It might have been a first: a catered police raid.

Hours into a siege Wednesday night of a suspected meth lab in Lewiston – with dozens of police officers, drug agents and paramedics waiting around – the pizza arrived.

A Papa John’s delivery car pulled into the parking lot of Holy Family Church, where police had set up their headquarters, and a young man carried a stack of pizza boxes into the new critical incident response unit, a fancy city-owned truck unveiled only hours earlier.

Then, the delivery guy handed out pizzas to drug agents and paramedics, many struggling to stay warm against the cold night.

There was even one for the news crews.

According to police, the popular pizza maker often donates food to emergency workers.

It also helped warm a grateful newspaper reporter.

– Daniel Hartill
Portland … and beyond

Too bad the focus wasn’t on L-A.

The speaker talking about growth in Maine’s industrial sector at the annual meeting of Maine Real Estate and Developers Association Thursday had some pretty modest predictions: 600,000 square feet in new development in greater Portland – half of which is attributable to the post office project in Scarborough.

Pshaw.

L-A’s tally easily dwarfs Portland’s: 450,000 square feet in the Wal-Mart refrigeration warehouse; 250,000 in the Safe Handling/Port of Auburn expansion; 300,000 Bisson Transportation warehouse; 100,000 Max Finkelstein tire distribution center; and thousands more in smaller projects.

But no one in the audience would know. The exclusively Portland focus at the annual forecast conference rubbed some people the wrong way – especially the delegation from L-A. Many local developers and development officials were hoping for at least a mention of the area’s growth, new industrial parks and the recently conferred Foreign Trade Zone designation.

Not to worry. James Whelan, president of the Maine Real Estate and Developers Association, said that during a review of this year’s conference, organizers realized the Portland focus didn’t reflect what was going on in the rest of the state, especially L-A and Bangor. So in 2007, that will change.

“Next year’s agenda will feature two additional slots: one is an (overview) for the greater L-A area and the other, for Bangor,” said Whelan.

He said the Portland focus wasn’t an intentional slight, but more a reflection of the presenters’ better data and familiarity with the metro market.

“We’re making a concerted effort to get the information and present other markets,” he said.

– Carol Coultas

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