PARIS — After tabling it two times, selectmen signed a lease with the Oxford Hills Christian Academy on Monday night, allowing the nonprofit organization to stay in the Mildred M. Fox School for another year.

The lease ends June 30, 2016.

At their meeting two weeks ago, selectmen sent the lease back to add language that holds the academy responsible for trash and recycling and clarifies insurance provisions. The academy will pay the town $20,733 for the year and there’s a 60-day clause allowing either party to back out of the lease.

Newly elected Selectman Vic Hodgkins asked if the lease should contain an automatic renewal. He noted the clause that if the agreement expires, the lessee can stay in the building from month to month as long as both parties agree.

“I gave it a lot of thought. It’s kind of like a moving target,” he said, adding the town isn’t sure what it will do with the building once it regains it. “I think it makes more sense to sign the lease for the year . . . instead of locking ourselves in continually (renewing).”

The future location of the 54-student K-12 academy has been up in the air since the fall when the town began considering taking back the three-story brick building at 10 East Main St. from School Administrative District 17. Academy Administrator Steve Holbrook previously said the organization is searching for a new home.

The town will take over the school on July 1. The town got first dibs on the building because it owned it in the 1960s.

Selectman Sam Elliot addressed some complaints regarding the lack of a solid plan for the future of the building.

“To develop a hard plan is premature. We don’t own it,” he said. “It’s not a white elephant at this point. It’s not sitting there empty. It’s being used so we’ll decide what to do with it.”

Ideas for the using building that have included a senior citizens center, a community and/or arts center, a business incubator, apartments and Norway Paris Community TV headquarters. The town could also sell the building and get it on the tax rolls.

The SAD 17 board of directors signed off on Superintendent Rick Colpitts getting rid of the building in April, but required the town to purchase the two lots associated with the school, because the other seven towns in the district helped pay for them in the 1960s.

Voters approved the purchase of the two lots — one with a bus loop and the other with a parking lot — at the June 13 town meeting for $80,868.

Interim Town Manager Michael Madden informed selectmen Monday night that the school district agreed to cover the $1,999 shortfall in the total price from calculation errors during the warrant process as the result of “ambiguous emails.”

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