LEWISTON — Retired Lewiston police Detective Robert E. Macdonald has announced that he is running for mayor of the city.

Macdonald, who retired from the Lewiston Police Department in 2000, said the development of Lewiston’s riverfront and the Lincoln Street/Main Street area have the potential for producing an economic boom for the city.

That can’t happen, he said in a written statement, until the city confronts its reputation as a welfare city.

“The reputation of Lewiston as a service center community — welfare — has drawn dependents from two continents and many states to settle here,” Macdonald wrote. “This influx is not only diminishing a quality education for Lewiston’s property taxpayers’ children, but causes our schools to be labeled as failing.”

Macdonald said he would push for a moratorium on new Section 8 housing, work to condemn and tear down uninhabitable buildings, review the police logs and discuss them publicly.

He said he will make sure citizens coming before the City Council have their questions fully answered, asking staff to get back to the public in person and at the next meeting if the answer is not available.

Macdonald joined the Lewiston force in 1977. After retiring in 2000, he went to work at Lewiston Middle School as an education technician, retiring last year.

In the past, he has served on the board of directors for the Abused Womens Advocacy Project and the Christian Coffee House, and as the LPD’s primary fundraiser for both the United Way and the Special Olympics.

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