MECHANIC FALLS — The Town Council voted unanimously Monday night to extend the lease on the Mechanic Falls Before and After School Center to June 2020, after parents opposed a plan to move the Police Department there.

The Public Safety Advisory Committee had been considering relocating the Police Department from the three-story Municipal Building on Lewiston Street to the center behind it.

Town Manager Zakk Maher said moving the department was part of an overall plan to save money on the former high school.

The town’s administrative staff and town library in the Municipal Building are expected to move to the former medical building on Pleasant Street, he said.

Twenty parents, family members and children attended Monday’s meeting to oppose the committee’s idea.

Jessica Smith said the nonprofit center is “so important to all of us.

“It is impossible to hold down a full-time, demanding job and career if you were worried about what is going on with your children,” she said.

She said the long-running center is “a well-operated, organized, fun, safe, licensed and insured” facility that serves 20 schoolchildren, provides space for Brownie and Junior Girl Scout troops, and Cub Scouts, and 40 children in the summer recreation program.

Parent Danielle Loring said she voted for the purchase of the medical building in 2017 because she believed the town had a plan.

“It seems it’s not the case anymore,” she said.

The town should do a feasibility study and tell residents, “’We need to go back to the drawing board,’” she said.

Maher apologized to parents and councilors for not advising them of the issue beforehand. He said he told center director Rain Tarantino the town is not trying boot them out.

Councilors Stephen Bolduc and Nicholas Konstantoulakis moved to vote on extending the lease to next year. The motion passed unanimously.

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