On the road again

Lewiston motorists can rejoice now that a disruptive project to rebuild the intersection next to Locomotive Park is complete, but it’s more of a mixed bag for the Winter Spirit Christmas light display at the park.

Larry Kopczynski, who helped found the annual holiday tradition, said the sod and grass seed that landscaping crews just placed at the park need time to take root. And that means the massive effort to decorate the park will get a later start and require more volunteers than ever to get the job done for the lighting ceremony the weekend before Thanksgiving.

“Normally, we start in mid-October, but we’re going to hold off a couple of weeks,” Kopczynski said. “We don’t know if that’s even going to do any good. It’s just that one area, but it’s the main area where decorations are, unfortunately.”

The timing issue could have been much worse, however. The $7.5 million project to rebuild and realign the intersection of 21st Street and U.S. Highway 12 officially wrapped up this week, six weeks ahead of schedule.

Kopczynski is also asking the community to be more generous with its money as well as its time, thanks to an unexpected $4,000 in tariffs added to a purchase of new lights, courtesy of the Trump administration’s ongoing trade war with China.

“Merry Christmas to us,” Kopczynski joked.

The lights are replacements for some of the displays on the park’s namesake locomotive and the dozens of lighted garlands that stretch across Main Street.

But the intersection project will end up being a net positive for Winter Spirit, Kopczynski said. The new concrete roadway designed by the Idaho Transportation Department and built by Western Construction of Lewiston is much higher than the old one, creating a backdrop that lighting designers can use to highlight their displays.

“That area is so visible that we’d like to make it really, really cool,” he said.

The bank leads up from the park to the intersection, creating a safety barrier that will discourage people from getting too close to the cars zooming by. There was one close call last year when a child wandered into the street, Kopczynski said, but the bank should discourage any similar incidents.

He also gave high marks to the city of Lewiston, which contacted him Thursday for his input on where to plant about two dozen new trees in the park to replace the ones removed during the intersection project. That hasn’t always been the case when the city has planted trees, and they subsequently had to be moved.

Workers also rebuilt a section of sidewalk through the center of the park as promised, but that will present a challenge to decorators since it is about a foot higher than the old one. Kopczynski said the lifts donated by Hahn Rental Centers have always had a hard time negotiating the terrain of the park, but the sidewalk is a new barrier.

“Those lifts we use have a tough enough time on that grass,” he said. “So we’re going to wait and see if we can actually get over that sidewalk.”

There is also worry that the lifts will damage the new sod and grass seed, so the plan is to get the lift in place to decorate the central “musical tree” — which responds to footpads on a nearby dance floor — and move it as little as possible.

Kopczynski said the effort needs volunteers who can operate the lifts too, since they are only available when not rented and have often sat idle because none of the people on site were qualified to drive them.

Finally, Winter Spirit committee members and volunteers have been working on repairing and replacing wiring and conduits that had to be cut during the intersection project. They have also strung music cables to a new tree as part of that effort, so the sound system in the park will be better than ever.

Those who would like to volunteer or donate may visit winterspirit.com/volunteer-donate, email info@winterspirit.com or call Kopczynski at (208) 798-4732 or Jon Copeland at (208) 791-5365. The group may also be contacted through its Facebook page.

Mills may be contacted at jmills@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2266.