LEWISTON — A new plan outlining how economic development in the Twin Cities would be handled could become public next week.

Lewiston City Administrator Ed Barrett said the group negotiating a new scope of services for the Lewiston-Auburn Economic Growth Council is working on a first public draft.

Barrett on Tuesday briefed city councilors about what they could expect.

“It is recommending the collaboration between the two cities continue, that it is much more successful for us to work together than it is to be in competition with each other,” Barrett said. “It’s also recommending that both cities and the growth council have to be more adaptive and be able to change more rapidly as the environment of economic development and the economy changes.”

The growth council is supposed to guide the Twin Cities’ joint marketing and promotions to help bring new business to the area.

The Twin Cities have been working for more than a year to redefine the growth council’s job and decide how Lewiston-Auburn economic development will be handled in the future.

“The approaches that have been used in the past may not work today and approaches being used today may not work tomorrow,” Barrett said. “We need to be much more adaptive to the the changing economy.”

Representatives from the two City Councils and the growth council met several times last summer, drawing up a new, eight-point contract. Auburn councilors balked at the deal last fall, saying they disagreed with parts. They called for rewriting the two cities’ contract with the Lewiston-Auburn Economic Growth Council.

Both councils met in January, which kicked off the current discussion. A group of city councilors, staffers and local business officials have met four times.

Barrett said he hopes to schedule a joint meeting later this summer with the Lewiston and Auburn city councils to discuss economic development.

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