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Strategic Plan Executive Summary
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BACKGROUND |
| Lewiston is seeking to become New
England's first Rural Empowerment Zone (EZ). The
City applied in 1994 and, although it was not selected,
became one of only two "Champion Community"
designations in New England. As a Champion Community,
Lewiston continued to pursue several strategies to
revitalize its downtown and riverfront areas without
federal EZ money. In 1997, the City began laying the
groundwork for an improved EZ Round II application by
designing an innovative public planning approach to
totally engage its citizens, especially residents of the
target areas. That approach evolved into "Empower
Lewiston!", and a "true" community
developed Strategic Plan. Empower Lewiston's
approach will fundamentally transform the
lives of target area residents, and the surrounding
community.
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CHALLENGE/OPPORTUNITY |
| Lewiston's
core encompasses two census tracts (201 & 204) that
suffer from "pervasive poverty, unemployment, and
general distress." Those areas have federal poverty
rates of 47% and 34% (U.S. 1990 census data)
respectively. They are the most blighted areas in a region
that is otherwise experiencing moderate growth in a robust
national economy. Despite several federal and City
initiatives, the condition of the target area has
continued to decline, causing Lewiston's population to
decline and growth to stagnate. Lewiston is strategically
positioned to act as an economic development hub
for the entire region because nearly half of
Maine's population resides within a thirty (30) mile
radius, and because it has a large infra-structural and
service-center capacity.
Municipal government is
seeking to maximize use of its limited resources by
creating new partners and a collaborative approach toward
addressing resident poverty. Past planning efforts have
followed traditional models, and have achieved
commendable, albeit, partial results. The vast majority of
stakeholders and beneficiaries remain unaware,
uninterested, or unable to participate in these
traditional planning processes. Empower Lewiston
is a citizen effort to build leadership capacity and
ownership in the target areas and focus considerable
community resources on a shared approach.
The community's
non profit, service, and citizen groups have
pursued several innovative approaches toward
revitalization. Collectively, they suffer from limited
funding and integration with the total community. In
short, Lewiston has numerous community assets and
innovative ideas seeking expression. To realize total,
lasting transformation of the target areas, a holistic,
fully-integrated approach is required.
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PLANNING APPROACH |
| Empower
Lewiston is an effort to build capacity,
foster positive change, and create new partnerships in a
community with a limited history of shared decision
making. To achieve this goal, the community embarked upon
an innovative 5-month community wide planning
process to create a comprehensive, strategic plan
that addresses opportunities for growth and revitalization
of Lewiston's urban core.
Empower Lewiston engaged
people that had never been involved before by connecting
with them where they live, work and play. Decision-making
authority was placed squarely in the hands of citizens.
Overall control and direction of the initiative is in the
hands of a twenty-eight (28) member Steering Committee
made up of representatives from various community groups,
businesses and interested citizens.
Five (5)
project-based Sub Committees (Community
Participation/Governance; Housing/Neighborhood
Improvement & Empowerment; Lifelong
Learning, Training & Employment; Downtown
Renaissance Task Force; Culture, Recreation & Natural
Resources) were established to develop a vision,
and goals and strategies for revitalizing the target
areas. Between May and September of 1998, hundreds of
volunteers performed survey and project design tasks
culminating in a comprehensive strategic plan
developed by over 2,000 participants. The Plan
combines several highly-developed goals, strategies, and
benchmarks into a vision for Lewiston in the 21st
century.
The results
of Empower Lewiston's planning process were celebrated by
the community on September 26, 1998, the first
annual Lewiston Pride Day! Nearly 1,000 people
gathered in Kennedy Park to celebrate community pride and
Empower Lewiston's efforts. Those in attendance were asked
to commit their energies toward implementing the Strategic
Plan.
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EMPOWER
LEWISTON PLAN VISION/ GOALS |
The central
element of Empower Lewiston's vision and goals is the
creation of a fully participatory community where all
assets are linked and focused on shared objectives. The
emphasis is on empowering community residents to be part
of moving:
- Toward job
creation, training & targeting;
- Families out of
poverty;
- Workers toward a livable wage;
- Toward providing safe, decent,
adequate, and affordable housing and childcare for all
community members;
- Toward healthier, cohesive families;
- Toward providing life-long learning
opportunities for the community;
- Toward a more democratic,
participatory community, where neighborhood groups
have a voice in their future;
- Toward a demographically
balanced,
mixed-age, mixed-income community;
- Toward a community that celebrates its
ethnic and cultural diversity, with a sense of pride,
place and purpose;
- Toward providing a wide range of arts,
cultural and recreational opportunities for all ages,
including teenagers;
- Toward becoming a major international
arts, language and cultural center;
- Residents/tourists toward the
riverfront and canal system for open space,
recreation, scenic opportunities and alternative
transportation options;
- To create a linked citywide parks,
bicycle and pedestrian pathway system;
- Historic buildings into adaptive,
mixed-reuse;
- To create a vibrant, mixed-use
downtown, with adequate parking and safe, clean,
aesthetic, pedestrian-friendly access;
- Community-policing to the forefront of
law-enforcement activities;
- From a historical textile and
shoe-based economy to a diversified 21st
century economy, with a focus on
international trade opportunities;
- Toward an equitable,
integrated, multi-modal transportation network;
- Toward creating an ecologically-sound,
sustainable community;
- The region toward a "One
Maine."
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WORK PLAN/BUDGET |
| To achieve
the vision, the Plan encompasses 61 different
strategies/projects totaling approximately $65-100 Million
over a 10-year period. Collectively, they will
transform the target area by promoting responsibility,
ownership, and resident participation. Our approach
follows a realization that previous poverty programs have
followed a top down, entitlement approach that has a heavy
focus on buildings. Federal programs have come and gone
providing some infra-structural improvements, but
negligible change in the socio-economic status of target
area residents.
Empower
Lewiston strategies/projects all share a common focus:
transformation of the target area by investing in
residents through (1) increased capacity for
participation, (2) access to integrated,
targeted assistance, and (3) shared
ownership and decision making. Each of the Five
(5) Sub Committees advanced projects that linked existing
and desired community resources together to make them cost
effective and accessible to people in the target area. The
Plan calls for two Neighborhood Centers; Community
Participation & Leadership Training Projects;
a Cultural Learning Center; a One-Stop
Non-Profit Center; a Government Center;
a Lifelong Learning Center; a Cultural
Heritage Museum and Performing Arts
Center. All of these resources will be focused on
target area residents, and physically located "In the
Zone."
To bring
about full implementation of the Plan, Empower Lewiston is
seeking the federal funds and other benefits that flow
from designation as a rural Empowerment Zone. Plan
participants and partners have pledged significant
resources toward implementation of the Plan. Federal and
community resources will be used to leverage additional
funding from foundations and the private sector and will
fully implement the plan over a 10-year period.
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GOVERNANCE |
| An independent
Empower Lewiston Board is being established to
implement the Strategic Plan. The Five (5)
planning sub committees created during the
planning process will remain to implement the goals and
strategies contained in the plan and to benchmark and
evaluate the process, outputs and outcomes of the
Strategic Plan. Because Empower Lewiston will have
separate legal status and authority to receive and
administer funds, the community will stay engaged and
become an active partner in zone redevelopment efforts.
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PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS & EXPERTISE |
| More than
65 community organizations and 2,000 citizens worked
together to create the strategic plan. Collectively,
participants will work to ensure full implementation of
the strategic plan by (1) Promoting
full participation,(2) linking
all projects, strategies and resources, and 3)
advancing the shared vision of Empower
Lewiston. The goals of this effort will find support
through the talents, enthusiasm and energy of its
participants.
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BENEFITS
FROM EMPOWER LEWISTON |
| Empower
Lewiston is already a great success! It
has identified new community partners, resources, and
opportunities for collaborative efforts. Several exciting
ideas and projects have begun. The process has given
community residents fuller expression and established a
future framework for maximum participation.
Empower
Lewiston has helped to:
- Identify and empower the community's greatest
asset, its citizenry;
- Build the community's capacity to meet future
needs by engaging its residents as active partners in
designing and implementing a comprehensive strategic
plan;
- Form new alliances and collaborative efforts
based upon a shared vision and approach to community
projects;
- Give all community members the opportunity to
design programs to serve area needs; and
- Serve as a means for tapping existing
community resources and leveraging other area, state
and federal resources to address community priorities.
Successful
implementation of the Strategic Plan will transform the
target areas and strengthen the area as a whole. It will
promote regional economic development opportunities while
helping to preserve the essentially rural character of the
surrounding area. This will be achieved by recycling
underutilized industrial areas in Lewiston's downtown and
utilizing the City's infrastructure and service-center
capacity.
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Empowerment Zone - Information
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