OXFORD — SAD 17 has signed a lease with the Western Maine University and Community College Center, enabling the district to move its administration offices to Paris by early July.
“June 16 will be our last school board meeting here,” Superintendent Rick Colpitts told the Board of Directors at Monday’s meeting at their central office in Oxford. “After that, I suspect things will look pretty chaotic here.”
The plan to move Oxford Hills School District’s administration offices from the Oxford Shopping Plaza to the Western Maine University and Community College Center at 232 Main St. in Paris was announced several weeks ago.
In mid-May, the SAD 17 Board of Directors voted to support an amendment to its 20-year lease with the University College Center to allow the district to reduce its budget by at least $40,000 by moving the administration offices. The Paris building is owned by the school district and has been leased to the University Community College Center for $1.
The school district’s lease with Oxford Plaza owner Bob Bahre expired last year, but district officials received a letter from Bahre extending the lease by five years, Colpitts said. Under the new agreement, SAD 17 will share the operational costs of the Paris facility.
The move will save the college center about $125,000 a year and also provides it with expanded educational opportunities to use some of the adjacent Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School that didn’t exist before.
Colpitts said once school ends on June 16 and the last board meeting is held, it will take about two weeks to pack up the offices in the Oxford Plaza site and move them into the Paris building.
The first meeting of the Board of Directors in July is expected to take place in Paris, he said.
“So that’s it,” Colpitts said. “We’re wrapping up one legacy and moving into a new facility.”
The SAD 17 school district kept the former Oxford fairgrounds exposition building when it purchased the land through eminent domain in the 1960s.
In the spring of 2004, the restored building opened for classes as the Western Maine University and Community College Center. It housed the University of Maine, Central Maine Community College and the CareerCenter. Classes for the new courses began to be offered the previous fall at the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School. The CareerCenter has since relocated.
ldixon@sunjournal.com
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- The SAD 17 district has leased office space in the back corner at the Oxford Shopping Plaza from owner Bob Bahre for many years.
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