“This is the way Mark lived his life, trying to work with people,” Paradis said Tuesday night as the City Council voted to name a park in his honor. “I’m asking the youth of the city to do that, and keep teaching us how to live in peace and get along. If you disagree with someone, don’t disagree with them as a person.”

The park, formerly the Pierce Street Park, is between Birch, Bartlett and Blake streets downtown.

The city has started renovations to the park, part of a joint planning effort by the city’s Neighborhood Advisory Committee and the Lewiston Youth Advisory Council.

Part of the work involved a naming contest among the city’s elementary school students.

Lewiston Middle School student Nicole Morin, 12, was a sixth-grader at Montello School when she entered Paradis’ name in the contest. Morin said she didn’t know Paradis or his family, but saw news reports about him.

“I saw the news stories, and I thought it would be nice to have the park named after him,” Morin said.

Paradis served three terms as a Lewiston city councilor, and spent years serving on other boards and city committees such as the Lewiston Planning Board.

He ran for mayor in 2011, and was one of the top two vote-getters in that November election. He and Robert Macdonald were scheduled to face each other in a December runoff election.

Paradis later said he was diagnosed with cancer soon after the election and he died Dec. 9, just five days shy of the runoff vote.

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