Lewis bids for another term (10/20/03)

Former Portland mayor Maxine Lewis has many plans for Portland if she is elected on Nov. 4 to another term as mayor and says she intends to take a hands-on approach.

Lewis said in a recent interview that bringing more industries, a second grocery store and a lumberyard to Portland, moving forward with annexation, ridding the city of its combined sewer overflows and bringing more beauty to the downtown are at the top of her list of things she would like to accomplish if she is voted into office.

"I have been in (office) and I want to do the best job that I can do," said Lewis who served as mayor for more than six years in the 1990s. “Hopefully we can get all of these things done, but it’s not going to be all in one year. It will be spread out (over the four years)."

Democrat Lewis, 69, 1016 W. Arch St., graduated from Portland High School in 1951 and received six weeks of banking school at Earlham College in Richmond.

She is retired but has been working as a part-time hostess at Bandido’s Restaurant in Portland for three years.

Lewis has served on the Portland Housing Authority and the Portland Alcoholic Beverage Commission and is a member of the American Legion Auxiliary and the Portland Moose Lodge.

She was married to the late Jerry Lewis and has one daughter, three sons, eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Lewis served as the mayor’s secretary for eight years before being appointed to finish the term of Vaughn Bailey, who died in the early 1990s. She won the election in 1995, but did not run for re-election in 1999.

“When I retired my (two sons and grandchildren living in Florida) wanted (me) to move to Florida. So I retired with that thought. Then I decided I didn’t want to move,” Lewis said of her decision not to run for mayor in 1999.

“Also I have had people come to me that were unhappy and wanted to see (me run for mayor) again. I guess win or lose I feel like I am giving back (by trying again) to those people who told me that I did a good job,” Lewis added.

Lewis said that if she is elected she wants to be in office for awhile before making any changes to city police, fire, street, water, and wastewater department heads.

“A lot of (the current department heads) were in there when I was in office. I've seen them all at work, but it has been four years,” Lewis said adding that she wants to see how each department is running before making any new appointments. “It can't promise you it can change overnight. This is what people want from me... It takes looking into.”

She added that there is a large number of new, younger members in city’s police and fire departments.

“We have a really young crew that has not had (the experience),” Lewis said. “We have a lot of young (police officers) that have a lot to learn ... It seems like all at once we have totally young policemen and firemen too.”

In addition to possible changes in city departments, Lewis is looking forward to working on downtown beautification.

She said that she would like to see a beautiful downtown and remembers dress shops, shoe shops, men’s stores, a woman’s store, a grocery store and two movie theaters in the downtown.

"I would love to see that again," said Lewis, who did not specifically cite examples of how she plans to bring more businesses to downtown Portland.

She added that she wants to focus on the corners of Main and Meridian Streets.

“Taxpayers money can’t pay (new businesses) to come here as you know the main thing the city can do is infrastructure, sewers and water and finding grants. It’s mainly providing services and infrastructure for them,” Lewis said about ways the mayor and the city can help bring new businesses to Portland. She also explained the process the city used during her term as mayor when Tyson Mexican Original moved to Portland.

“We helped get grants, we helped with building a new water tower, used grant money to build tracks for the trains to park and worked with them on the right-of-ways for the roads,” Lewis said.

She added that the city is not there to provide money to residents, it’s the services, the infrastructure the sewer, water, the police protection, the fire protection, trash pick-up and recycling.

During her 1995 term, Lewis oversaw the Meridian Street beautification and renovation project which also added sidewalks and landscaping. She added that several other areas in the city need new sidewalks such as Wayne Street and added that updated sidewalks are needed all over the city. Lewis mentioned an ongoing program involving city employees that will rebuild sidewalks if the property owner pays for materials. Besides sidewalks, Lewis added that some city streets are in bad shape.

“I think one of the major things is that a lot our streets are going to the devil, but I also know how expensive it is to do one street and how much blacktop and stuff costs,” she said.

Lewis also said that she would also like to see another grocery store and a place where people can buy lumber move to Portland.

"This has been a main concern of citizens even when I was in office,” Lewis said.

Another undertaking Lewis wants to tackle is reducing or eliminating the combined sewer overflows.

“It started when I was in office. (CSOs) are hard to do away with and it will be expensive,” Lewis said.

Costs are also a factor when deciding how much annexation the city can undertake.

“I would like to see (Portland) grow. People have to understand that whatever (the city) annex we have to able to furnish them city services within three years, including infrastructure, streets, fire and police protection. You need to figure, ‘Can I do that in three years time and how long would take to get the money to do this,’” Lewis said. “It’s not that any city doesn’t want to see annexation. It’s just you have to do it as the money become available.”

Lewis added that expanding the city west and south are likely choices for future annexation.

This is Lewis’s second time facing Bruce Hosier in the Portland mayoral race.[[In-content Ad]]