LEWISTON – Linda Scott has found that campaign signs and snow are a bad mix.

A Valentine’s Day storm and the snowbanks it left behind wreaked havoc on the “vote yes” signs she and other volunteers posted to urge people to approve a new Pettingill School.

The citywide referendum will take place Tuesday at the Multi-Purpose Center.

Three weeks ago, Scott and others planted 150 signs on lawns and public spaces. The Pettingill Parent-Teacher Organization spent $700 on the signs, said Scott, a mother of three who heads the PTO.

Taxpayer money was not spent, said Lewiston School Superintendent Leon Levesque. The school department does not pay for signs or campaign materials.

On Feb. 13 during forecasts of a blizzard, volunteers worked frantically to pull up the signs before the army of snowplows hit.

“We have a limited budget; we were trying to save them,” Scott said. She and her husband, Steve, saved about 40 signs. They were out Thursday and Friday replanting signs around the city.

She is encouraging people to vote yes on both Question 1 and Question 2. Question 1 asks voters if they want a new school; Question 2 asks if they want a new school with a regulation-size gym.

“Some fear they’re going to be paying a lot,” and property taxes will rise, Scott said. She answers that the state will pay for 96.5 percent of the $21.9 million school. City taxpayers will pay the remaining 3.5 percent over 20 years.

On one side of the proposed new school will be classrooms. The other side will feature a gym, a cafeteria and a library that will be open to the public when school is not in session.

Pettingill parent Patrician Turgeon has one child in kindergarten, one in first grade and another in second grade.

She’s excited about Tuesday’s election and the prospect of a new school.

Pettingill School “just lacks space,” she said. “It’s overcrowded. And the traffic situation is terrible,” Turgeon said. She walks her children to Pettingill every day.

There’s no place for buses to drop off children, so traffic is stopped on a public street. Many parents drive their children to school and try to find a safe place to drop them off.