LEWISTON — Councilors made poverty one of their top items of interest for the next three to five years with the adoption of a new strategic plan Tuesday night.
Councilors adopted the plan Tuesday with eight priority items: innovative service delivery, neighborhood identity, safety, riverfront development, economic growth, sustainability, civic engagement and collaboration and poverty.
Poverty had previously been included as part of the economic development portion of the plan. Councilor Larry Poulin had asked staff to beef up that section and said Tuesday he was pleased with their work.
It encourages the city to get a better understanding of Lewiston’s problems and potential solutions while identifying city, state, federal and nonprofit programs that could help. It also urges the city to find ways to encourage self-sufficiency and to encourage jobs that pay livable wages.
“It’s greatly enhanced, and the only change I would recommend is to make that one of the areas of focus for the next three to five years,” Poulin said.
Tuesday’s vote capped a process that started in 2008.
City staff hosted a series of meetings with community members beginning in December 2008 to identify problems and strengths in the city. Staff wrote a draft of the plan and released it to the public and the City Council in March 2009.
The draft was never completed. Councilors fired City Administrator Jim Bennett in July and the plan was put aside until June 2010. Councilors in June let staff pick up the old plan to begin updating it.
Both the 2009 draft plan and the 2010 draft are available on the city’s Web site.
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