Charles Soule is gathering signatures in order to have Lewiston’s Bates Mill exit strategy ratified

by voters.
By Scott Taylor
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Efforts to put the Bates Mill exit strategy before voters might not result in a vote. It might instead result in a review of Lewiston’s ballot initiative policy.

City Administrator Jim Bennett said a petition calling for the mill strategy vote is too vague to be valid and might not affect the City Council’s decision.

“We wanted the citizens to know up front, before they signed it, that there might be legal problems with this petition,” Bennett said.

Charles Soule gathered 10 signatures to get the petition created. It asks that the Bates Mill exit strategy be ratified by the voters of Lewiston. Soule’s goal is to collect 1,000 more signatures to get the City Council’s decision concerning the exit strategy put before the voters.

Councilors are scheduled to vote on the strategy Dec. 16.

So far, Soule has collected six signatures on his petition. He has until Feb. 24 to collect 1,000.

The City Charter does not provide for citizen referendums, Bennett said. Councilors added an ordinance creating a rule for referendums in 1988. Legal opinions say that kind of change might have to be included in the charter to be legally valid.

“This is something we may really have to look at,” Bennett said. “I don’t think it’s fair to citizens to provide a means for public input like this, that might not be legally valid. Legal opinions could end up just throwing it out.”

Bennett said he expected councilors to consider changing the charter to allow for such referendums.

“You won’t see me or the staff advocating one way or the other,” Bennett said. “Our job will just be to answer councilors’ questions.”

In the meantime, Soule will be allowed to continue collecting signatures.

“We won’t arbitrarily stop them,” Bennett said. “We just want them to understand the issues up front, what they might have to go through to get something legally binding on the ballot.”

Background

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

Platz would not pay for the buildings and the city would continue to pay annual support, pay for some environmental cleanup and exterior renovations and would be required 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 $750,000 annually in operations support.

staylor@sunjournal.com

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