Superintendent hopes voters OK Paris school site purchase.
By Jim Smedley
Staff Writer

PARIS – Norway Selectman William Damon has no children in school.

But he still supports education, he said after a public hearing on the new Paris school site Monday night.

Damon was the only citizen of 13 at the hearing who was not associated with SAD 17 or the Paris school building committee.

He was there because he wanted to be there.

Superintendent Mark Eastman hopes the attendance at the hearing does not reflect the support the ballot question will get at the polls on Nov. 4.

The public hearing was required by state law so the district could answer questions about a ballot proposal seeking to spend $210,000 from undesignated fund balances on the 16.2-acre proposed school site on High Street.

Fearing a possibility that the question could get overlooked, Eastman asked those attending the hearing to telephone their friends to tell them the district needs their support.

“If the referendum vote is ‘no,’ not to purchase the land, we go back to ground zero,” Eastman said.

The building committee has been together for more than a year and Eastman said to start all over would take another 12 to 18 months.

Eastman said if the ballot question is rejected, the committee would have two choices: choose another site or negotiate for a lower price.

He said the asking price for the land was $300,000 and it had been reduced to $230,000.

“My gut feeling is that the land is at its bottom price,” Eastman said.

He said the committee has chosen the best possible site in Paris and having to choose another site would probably mean compromising on some items the committee saw as non-negotiable, such as public water and sewer and three-phase electrical power.

Eastman said he has been to Augusta about five times to update State Board of Education officials on the progress of the site selection.

“It took six to seven months to convince them we wanted to keep the Paris school separate from West Paris,” Eastman said.

No, he does not want to start over.

“I’m anxious to get the school built and the children out of the situation they are in,” Eastman said.

Paris children in grades K-3 now attend the Mildred M. Fox Elementary School in Paris and children in grades 4-6 attend the Madison Avenue Elementary School in Oxford.

When the Paris elementary school is built, each of the eight towns in SAD 17 will have its own elementary school for the first time since 1966, when the district expanded to eight towns.

“My concern is that with so many issues being voted on that this issue will be lost,” Eastman said. “I hope people will go to the polls to express support for our community school concept.”

Eastman also said he has noticed that people have a tendency to be complacent at the polls when things are going right.

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