Lewiston City council directs staff to seek designs, fund urgent repairs from building fund

LEWISTON, Idaho — The Lewiston City Council on Feb. 3 reviewed an updated inventory of deferred maintenance across municipal facilities and, by consensus, instructed staff to begin design work on top-priority projects and to pay for several immediate repairs from the city—s assigned building fund.

Councilor Mike Forsman introduced the discussion, saying his intent "was to see what projects we finished, what projects still need to get done, how much money do we need to complete all of those projects." Community Development Director Shannon Grama told the council that staff compiled a master list of needs and pared it to an urgent subset for the meeting, and warned that "the main list is $12,000,000 worth of repairs." Grama said the city currently budgets $130,000 a year for facility maintenance and that the council added an extra $250,000 in each of the last two years, but the community center heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) replacement alone would consume much of that funding.

The council agreed that staff should pursue design estimates for the highest-rated (Priority 1) projects and seek formal bids for larger work once designs are complete. Mayor Johnson and multiple councilors described design work as the next essential step to move cost estimates from broad, rough orders of magnitude to construction-ready figures.

Council action and near-term spending decisions

- The council directed staff to pursue design estimates for the Priority 1 projects on the deferred-maintenance list and to seek bids for larger projects once designs are complete. That direction was recorded as a council…