Gorham Town Council Tuesday switched the location of tennis courts from Robie Park to the middle school for a November referendum. Pictured, from left, are Councilors Seven Siegel and Rob Lavoie; Town Manager Ephrem Paraschak; council Chair Suzanne Phillips; Town Clerk Laurie Nordfors; council Vice Chair Lee Pratt and Councilor Virginia Wilder Cross. Robert Lowell / American Journal

Gorham Town Council Tuesday split a single, $12 million referendum request for school improvements it OK’d last month into two separate questions for the November ballot.

One question now would seek to borrow $9.5 million to cover expansions at the high school and an HVAC repair at Narragansett Elementary School. The second question would ask voters for $2.5 million more for six new tennis courts to be constructed at the middle school.

The seven-member board this week reconsidered its August action that would have relocated the tennis courts from the high school to the nearby Robie Park that triggered a public outcry.

“I believe we made a big mistake,” Town Councilor Virginia Wilder Cross, who sponsored the reconsideration, said Tuesday.

Wilder Cross said the Town Council earlier this year approved a “wonderful master plan” for the park, and tennis courts would take up a third of it. Town Councilor Rob Lavoie thought the tennis courts should go to the middle school as school officials originally sought in its referendum request.

Town Councilor Lou Simms this week proposed a separate referendum question for the tennis courts.

So, the seven-member board voted 5-2 for the shift to send two ballot questions to voters, with Town Council Chair Suzanne Phillips and Town Councilor Phil Gagnon opposed.

Phillips, citing the narrow voter approval of the school budget recount by two votes in June, opposed the spending measure and also was the council’s dissenting vote last month for the referendum.

Gagnon, chair of the Robie Park Committee, said the middle school has been identified in a town study as a location for a future new elementary school and said locating the tennis courts there is “irresponsible” and support for tennis courts there is “shocking.”

Last month, Gagnon favored moving tennis courts from the high school to Robie Park. “I was looking to save the tennis courts,” Gagnon said.

Superintendent Heather Perry said in Tuesday’s meeting that the middle school site has room for a new school as well as tennis courts. Perry said the location of a new school would be determined as part of state approval for a project.

The $9.5 million referendum question includes $9 million for six modular classrooms, bathrooms and an expanded cafeteria at the high school, along with $460,575 to repair heating, ventilation and air conditioning at Narragansett Elementary School.

Money for the Narragansett HVAC repairs falls under the threshold amount requiring a referendum and could be funded without one.

Four tennis courts now at the high school are deteriorating and school officials want them relocated away from the cramped high school campus. The tennis courts would be available for University of Southern Maine teams and public use.

The Town Council will hold a public hearing on the referendum questions in October.