LEWISTON – Members of the city’s Bates Mill board voiced their support for a city exit strategy Tuesday.

Two were the only ones at a special public hearing Tuesday to speak in favor of plan designed to get the city out of Bates Mill operations.

Dick Albert, chair of the Lewiston Mill Redevelopment Corporation Board, said his board voted earlier in the day to support the exit strategy.

“It’s my feeling that this is the best plan concerning the mill that I’ve ever seen come forward,” Albert said.

Anne Craigs, former chairwoman of the board, also voiced support for the plan.

“This paves the way for future economic development at the site, but gets the city out of the development business,” Craigs said. “That’s good, because the city is not a developer.”

The agreement would give developer Tom Platz and his partners control of most of the remaining mill buildings. The city would keep buildings Nos. 5 and 9, according to the agreement.

Platz would not pay for the remaining buildings. The city would continue to pay annual support, pay for some environmental cleanup and exterior renovations and would need to provide parking for the project.

But the move would also cut the city’s investments at the mill nearly in half, from an estimated $59.2 million over the next seven years to $27.5 million. It does that by limiting the number of parking spaces and the extent of environmental cleanup the city has to provide. The deal also gets the city off the hook for interior renovations at the remaining mill buildings and some $750,000 annually in operations support.

The contract requires Platz to invest a minimum of $5.3 million over the next three years.

Not everyone was in favor, however.

Charles Soule, of 170 Bartlett St., urged the council not to act on the exit strategy and instead wait for the joint developers agreement with Platz to expire. That agreement is scheduled to end in March 2005.

“What has been proposed, this is not an exit,” Soule said. “It keeps us working with the same developer for another seven years. I think we should just walk away, and put a moratorium on anything new there.”

City Administrator Jim Bennett said the joint developers agreement is only one of the obligations the city has at the mill.

“We’d still have expenses and we would still have to pay for an operating loss,” Bennett said. “Just letting it go wouldn’t get rid of our obligations at the mill.”

Councilors are expected to make a decision on the exit strategy at their Dec. 16. meeting.

Petition drive

Meanwhile, Soule succeeded in making the first step toward putting the exit strategy on the ballot. Soule has asked the city clerk to begin collecting signatures on a petition to ask voters to ratify the plan. If the petition gets 1,000 signatures by Feb. 24, the council’s decision will go to voters.

“It shouldn’t stop the council from acting,” City Clerk Kathy Montejo said. “This would allow the council to act, but it couldn’t be finalized until voters approved it. And that assumes that the petition will get 1,000 signatures.”

The petition is available in the city clerk’s office in Lewiston City Hall.

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