PARIS — For the second meeting in a row, selectmen tabled signing a lease with Oxford Hills Christian Academy to remain in the Mildred M. Fox School, this time to hammer out details of the contract.

Selectmen opted two weeks ago to put it on a future agenda since they received the lease that day and wanted to review it.

A few details of the proposed lease were discussed Monday night.

“They’re going to take care of their own recyclables but are we on the hook for gathering up their trash,” Selectman Janet Jamison asked as she looked over the document.

“Originally, it just had recycling,” answered Interim Town Manager Michael Madden.

Jamison also asked about plowing at the school.

“What we had talked about was taking on the plowing when we sat with the administrator. They would take care of the recycling and we would take care of the plowing,” Selectman Robert Wessels said.

Selectman Sam Elliot said he agreed with his colleagues that Christian Academy should take care of its own trash. The board voted 3-0 to have Madden reach out to Holbrook to add the trash requirement onto the lease.

Come July 1, Paris will take back the 1882 three-story brick building at10 East Main St. from School Administrative District 17. The town originally owned the building in the 1960s and the school district no longer planned to use it, so Paris got first dibs under state statute. The school has been home to the Christian Academy since 2008 and Administrator Steve Holbrook previously said the academy is searching for a new home.

Also on Monday, Madden told the rest of the board he and Wessels met with Brad Moll of the Dunham-Group, a commercial realtor in Portland, on May 28. The trio did a walk through of the Fox School.

“He made some suggestions that might cost us some money in getting it surveyed and maybe appraised,” Madden said before the meeting. “We’re scheduling that with a few others to get ideas on the building.”

Some ideas already discussed for the future use of the school include turning it into an arts center or senior citizens/community center, housing a business incubator, retrofitting the building into apartments and Norway Paris Community Television has its eye on relocating there. 

Madden said the town will reach out to the Paris Cape Historical Society to see if it has any blue prints for the Fox School in its collection. Neither the town nor SAD 17 were able to locate the diagrams for the building.

At annual town meeting on Saturday morning, voters will be asked whether or not they want to spend $67,781 on the Dresser and Dunn lots associated with the school. Town Clerk Liz Knox said the lots were appraised at $2,000 too much, which can be amended from the floor at town meeting. The lots contain the bus loop in front of the school and a parking lot across from the First Congregational Church of South Paris. The SAD 17 Board of Directors voted in April to require the town to purchase the lots since the other seven towns in the school district helped purchase them in 1962.

Selectmen will take up the lease at their next meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday, June 22, at the Town Office, 33 Market Square.

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