PARIS — Selectmen signed off on a letter written by interim Town Manager Sawin Millett to Oxford Hills Christian Academy, whose students and teachers will be unable to return to the Mildred M. Fox School because the building cannot be properly heated.

Millett wrote a letter to academy Administrator Steve Holbrook dated Monday, Feb. 22, apologizing to Holbrook, his students, supporters and overseers of the school for his “inability to maintain a constant and satisfactory level of heat in the building subsequent to the pellet boiler failure.” The building is at 10 E. Main St. and has been the leased home for the academy since 2008. 

“I tried to accomplish three things in it – put the blame on my shoulders for my failure to get this thing running … to acknowledge at this point the better course for them is to look elsewhere to find a site … and to allow them to have continued access to the building with the temporary heat in there for their teaching materials,” Millett told the board. His letter said academy staff would have “complete and uninterrupted access” to the building until June 30. 

As far as the building’s heating woes, they began in early January when the pellet boiler stopped working and Holbrook had to cancel classes for two days. He since moved his 50 K-12 students to the South Paris Baptist Church on Route 26, where school has been held ever since.

A number of snafus have happened in the town’s quest to bring heat back to the building. These include firing up and eventual leakage of the building’s oil boiler and replacement grate issues. Most recently, two weekends ago, just as the pellet boiler was ready to go on automatic mode, the electrical switches malfunctioned, Millett said. There’s one last chance to get electrical manuals to try to get the boiler working, but the town has not yet been able to obtain them. 

“We were without heat during the coldest day of the year,” he said, adding backup electrical heating is maintaining the building’s temperate in the mid-40s.

Selectman Janet Jamison asked Millett if he felt they needed to continue to heat the building with the backup heat.

“It is actually costing us less right now to keep that building from freezing than if we were burning pellets,” he saidl.

Millett also told Holbrook the town no longer expects monthly lease payments of $1,900, because the academy paid for January and didn’t hold school there for the entire month.

“Frankly there is not much sense to squeeze them for further payments from my point of view,” Millet said, adding it’s $1,200 a month for the academy to hold school at the church.

“I don’t think there’s anybody in town who would have said you could have done more … so thank you for your efforts,” Selectman Vic Hodgkins told Millett. “I think it would be the wrong thing to ask them for anymore money at this time going forward.”

Also in his letter, Millett assured Holbrook the town has “no intention of exercising the ’60-day termination of lease without cause’ notification provision during the remaining four-plus months of the lease.” Millett said academy officials were worried about this because the building has been placed on the market in hopes of getting it on the tax rolls again. 

Selectmen gave Millett a verbal OK to send the letter to Holbrook.

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