Webber Energy Fuels, which this fall painted a propane truck pink and announced a portion of sales from that truck would go toward breast cancer awareness, has changed tactics.

It’s signed on to be a local sponsor of Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure this week, promising a minimum of $10,000. The company hadn’t previously committed to a dollar amount.

The truck is due for a spin through Lewiston-Auburn in the spring.

– Kathryn Skelton

Scrap metal scroungers

Lewiston’s public works department depends on the sale of abandoned scrap metal to offset the cost of collecting household rubbish curbside during spring cleanup each year.

This year, with the price of scrap metal at more than $200 per ton, the city should have made a bundle.

Too bad scrappy private scroungers got there first.

“We found that most of the metals we depend on were gone by the time our trucks got there this year,” Public Works Director Paul Boudreau told city councilors last week. Residents normally dispose of all kinds of scrap metal – including old washers, dryers, refrigerators and stoves. The city collects it and sells it on the open market.

Last year, the city collected 80 tons of scrap metal, selling it for a profit. This year, the city only collected 16 tons.

“But at the same time, the rest of our budget doubled,” Boudreau said. Overall rubbish collections went from 300 tons to almost 1,000 tons.

That would have come in handy, Boudreau said. It cost the city $125,000 to collect and dispose of the rubbish. The budget was $80,000, he said.

– Scott Taylor

Who’s a good moose?

For about a week now, Chris Worth has been struck by the strict attention a well-mannered young moose pays to instruction.

The moose, a regular sight on Bishop Road in Poland, crosses where it’s supposed to: at the moose crossing.

See the sign?

– Judith Meyer

Little tax deductions

The first baby born in the new year at area hospitals is routinely showered with gifts. Maybe it’s because parents have just missed an opportunity to take their newborns as little tax deductions had they been born a bit earlier.

This year, H&R Block will celebrate the last baby – and the last tax deduction of 2008 – to be born at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center. New parents will receive a gift basket of goodies (rubber ducky, blanket, onesie, bib) for the baby and free tax advice for themselves.

A new baby, a gift basket, thousands of dollars in exemptions and credits to claim on the 1040? What a way to wave goodbye to 2008.

– Judith Meyer