Since joining the Casco Parks and Recreation Department more than two years ago, director Beth Latsey said she has struggled to keep the program alive, with no center at which to hold activities.

Now, with almost half a dozen options available to Casco voters as to what to do with the community center in Casco Village, Latsey may have an answer.

“I’m not really advocating for one facility or another, just a facility,” said Latsey.

The Casco Board of Selectmen met Tuesday evening to discuss revisions to six proposed solutions to the problem of what to do with the deteriorating Casco Community Center, which houses a gym that was ruled structurally unsound two years ago. The building also has a mold problem.

The solutions will be presented in an advisory referendum May 20 for Casco residents.

The question of where to put the town offices is central to the referendum as well. Those offices, which were housed in the Community Center, were moved to a building behind the fire station on Route 121 in August 2006.

Working out of the building behind the fire station is inconvenient, and there is no secure place to store town files, said Town Manager Dave Morton. Files are now being stored in the basement of the T.D. Banknorth branch next door.

But the financial aspect of moving back to the community center is an obstacle. Morton said the money it would cost to rebuild may be unpalatable to voters. A proposal for a $1.7 million project to rebuild the community center, and add 2,000 square feet, was defeated by voters last November.

In light of the failed proposal, alternatives being proposed for May 20 include:

• Renovating the Community Center so the town offices could return, but without improving heating and electrical systems.

• Tearing down the Community Center, and rebuilding only a town hall on the lot.

• Rebuilding the town hall, plus a gym.

• No new construction or renovation while paying $25,000 a year for heating and power for neighboring buildings, while keeping the town offices behind the Fire Station.

• Moving the town offices to Casco Memorial School and building a gym on the school lot.

• Tearing down the Community Center, but ensuring the utilities there will still be available to the library, bank, and post office. The shared wall to the post office would need to be rebuilt to accomadate this.

A group of business owners in Casco, including Kevin Hancock, president of Hancock Lumber, organized a group of contractors to see what it would take to repair the Community Center so the town offices could move back in, and the gym could again be used again. The group concluded the extensive mold problem, including inside the walls, in the existing Community Center has made renovating the existing building difficult.

To some, the Community Center, which includes original Casco High School built in 1912, is an important part of Casco Village, and the best location for the town offices. Eileen Tidd, who moved to Casco Village for its convenience 14 years ago, said she is leaning toward wanting to renovate the existing building, and she does not want to have to pay much more than the cost of those renovations.

After a town-wide revaluation in the summer, which Tidd said quadrupled her waterfront property on Pleasant Lake, she said significantly higher taxes are not something Casco residents are prepared to handle.

“I can’t absorb much more of a tax increase in a short period of time,” said Tidd.

Though Tidd prefers the Community Center’s current location, she said moving the town offices to Casco Memorial School on Route 11, which may be vacant by this fall, is an option she is interested in as well.

Scholl Administrative District 61 has proposed to close the school as a result of consolidation, a decision that will require both voter approval in June, and revision of state laws, as the Maine Department of Education does not currently address the prospect of school closings under consolidation.

Adam Grant, who used to serve on the Casco Building Committee, feels that moving the town offices to the Memorial School is the only acceptable option.

“Why spend any money at all really, when we could just move into that building?” said Grant.

Grant said the school is more centrally located to the majority of Casco residents than the Community Center and that the preservation of the center is not a top priority.

“My family has lived in Casco since 1831, and it doesn’t have any significant value to me,” said Grant.

Grant admitted that there are some costs associated with moving the town offices into the Memorial School, but that compared to the cost of rebuilding the Community Center, they are negligible.

But to Latsey, who would like to see plans for a gymnasium added to each of the five proposals up for vote in May, the Memorial School option is unattractive, as it does not have a gym.

Many programs, including youth sports, classes for senior citizens, public suppers, and dances for teenagers, have not run since the gymnasium was ruled structurally unsafe.

“It’s really put a damper on the Recreation Department, and the community feeling as a whole,” said Latsey.

Public forums will be held April 29 and May 6 to explain the proposed options to residents in detail.

“I would just really like to resolve the issue, and move on,” said Morton.

Mold discovered at the Casco Community Center is one of the reasons town voters will consider six choices for where town offices and potentially a gym could be built. The non-binding referendum will be held May 20.