By Timothy Churchill,Staff Writer

PARIS – After a prolonged period of waiting, vetting and mulling over options, the town once again has a parks and recreation director.

Joseph Cormier was selected from a dozen applicants to become the new director by Town Manager Sharon Jackson and members of the town’s Parks and Recreation Committee.

“He was the best candidate,” Jackson said Tuesday. “He had experience. His ideas were good. He was what we were looking for.”

Paris has experienced some difficulty over the past nine months in its attempts to find someone to fill the part-time position. A year ago, the town hired Matt Shepard as its first director, but Shepard resigned after only three months on the job. Then in October, selectmen offered the position to candidate Nathan Danforth, who declined it. Earlier this year, a proposal was shot down to share a parks and recreation director among the towns of Paris, Norway and Oxford.

Cormier, a part-time Paris police officer, is no tyro when it comes to parks and recreation matters. He was formerly the director of Auburn’s basketball, tee-ball and toddler summer camp programs, as well as assistant director of summer camps at Central Maine Community College, also in Auburn.

Cormier moved to Paris in 2000.

In an interview Tuesday, Cormier glowingly described Paris as the type of town that’s “still not too proud to have a Santa parade.”

Cormier said his first few weeks on the job have been hectic. While the position ostensibly requires 20 hours per week, he said he’s been putting in upward of 30 hours. That, he acknowledged, is primarily because the town’s 14 baseball and softball teams – not to mention its three tee-ball teams – are about to begin their seasons.

“Stuff’s got to get done,” he said.

Looking ahead, Cormier, who works with a budget of about $40,000, said he hoped to be able to fund programs even for Paris residents who are not necessarily sports-oriented.

“My job is to promote activities everyone can enjoy,” he said, adding that seniors in particular have been given short shrift when it comes to Paris’ recreation planning.

In addition, Cormier said he looks forward to the day when Paris has a fully functional community center in “a central location where people can come to.”

A self-described competitive and high-energy person, Cormier envisions the department making great strides under his watch. “I hate to lose, I hate not to succeed at something,” he said, adding that the department is “going to grow and grow and grow, and we’ll do a decent job making sure the community is taken care of.”

Cormier and the Parks and Recreation Committee hold public meetings on the first Monday of each month at 6 p.m. in the meeting room of the town office building.

Cormier can be reached at the town office building at 743-2501.