AUGUSTA — For the second week in a row, lawmakers split along party lines Thursday over a LePage administration proposal for a new 21-bed, privately operated psychiatric facility next to the state’s secure forensic hospital in Augusta.

Just hours after a press conference where House Minority Leader Ken Fredette, R-Newport, accused his Democratic colleagues of politicizing the issue, lawmakers on the 10-member Legislative Council voted 5-5 on a motion that could have allowed the project to move forward immediately. Republicans voted in favor of the motion, and Democrats voted against it.

The tie vote by the bipartisan rule-making committee again blocked construction of the facility on state land next to the Riverview Psychiatric Center. It followed a 3-3 party-line vote during a meeting of the Legislative Council on Nov. 30 that abruptly put the brakes on the administration’s plan.

House Speaker Sara Gideon, a Democrat from Freeport who is now chairwoman of the Legislative Council, said she arranged for a meeting with Gov. Paul LePage on Friday in hopes of finding a way to move the project forward.

Gideon said Democrats and Republicans were largely in agreement on the concept of the proposal but Democrats still had questions about how the facility would be operated and whether it would be more of a mental health facility or a prison.

“We have acknowledged and we absolutely believe that we are in a crisis situation, there is no question there are people who cannot find beds, we want to deal with this, but why can’t we just have these questions answered?” Gideon asked after the council vote. She said millions of tax dollars and the rights of the patients who would be housed and treated in the new facility are at stake.

Before the council’s meeting Thursday afternoon, Fredette said Democrats were simply obstructing the administration.

“I would almost use the word stubbornness, that we are having these conversations and (Democrats) have just been unwilling to move, unwilling to listen, unwilling to really hear what the issues are and why they are so critically important,” Fredette said.

Fredette said a desire to simply block anything from LePage’s administration is holding up appropriate treatment for the mentally ill in Maine, and not just those housed at Riverview. Fredette and Ricker Hamilton, a deputy commissioner in the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Riverview, said the new facility would help alleviate growing waitlists of mental health patients that are being housed in hospitals and jails.

“This is something that is an identified need,” Fredette said. “We are talking about mental illness and I don’t think there is anybody in the state of Maine who (thinks) we don’t have issues with dealing with mental illness in the state of Maine. Why can’t we simply do something to help people with mental illness? Everybody should be able to get around that.”

Hamilton said the new facility is meant to house patients who have been found not criminally responsible and are being held under judge’s order but who no longer need hospital-level care.

“By moving these individuals to this secure facility, they will get rehabilitation and treatment that they need, and at the same time this vital asset will free up beds in the community for statewide response,” Hamilton said.

The move could also save the state as much as $600 a day per patient because the cost of housing a patient in the state’s secure hospital is twice as expensive, Fredette said. Keeping the facility on the Riverview campus in Augusta would also save construction costs and allow patients in the new facility to continue treatment under the supervision of Riverview’s medical staff.

Concerns that the project had not been publicly vetted well enough are unfounded, according to Hamilton, who described 42 presentations and more than 80 hours of testimony the department has provided to the Legislature since 2015.

Gideon said Thursday that there has been no full presentation or hearing on the specific plan to build the facility, estimated to cost $3.5 million.

LePage and administration officials have vowed to move the proposed facility beyond the domain of the Legislature and outside Augusta, but argue that further delays because of such a move could cost taxpayers as much as $1 million. That cost would come from having to redesign the project for a different property and the legal costs of obtaining the permits need to build the facility. The project has already been approved by the Augusta Planning Board and is “shovel ready,” said Fredette.

Earlier this week, LePage suggested he would try to locate the facility in Gideon’s hometown of Freeport or in Bangor, but officials in both municipalities said they have had no contact with the state on a new secure mental health facility. LePage seemed to backtrack on talk radio Thursday, saying he couldn’t move the facility to Freeport.

DHHS officials have said the new facility would be used to treat so-called forensic patients who have been deemed by the courts to be not criminally responsible for their actions but no longer need hospital-level care. DHHS has also proposed that the facility would be run by a private contractor, a move opposed by the state employee’s labor union.

Senate Minority Leader Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, was among the new members of the council at Thursday’s meeting and said LePage’s staff appeared willing to provide more information and had been cooperative in recent requests for information. Still Jackson said they were still awaiting details including a copy of the request for proposals that would be sent to potential private management companies.

“I don’t think it’s fair for some of us new members to be expected to vote on something and don’t believe it’s fair to ask us to know everything about it at this point, especially when we haven’t received any documentation and that is a legitimate concern,” Jackson said.

The proposed facility is part of a DHHS effort to regain federal certification for Riverview and the $20 million annual funding reimbursement that comes with it.

The federal agency that oversees Riverview’s funding revoked the hospital’s certification in 2013 after regulators found many problems during an audit, including the use of stun guns, pepper spray and handcuffs on patients, improper record-keeping, medication errors and failure to report progress made by patients. That agency, the Center for Medicaid Services, also determined that Riverview was improperly commingling patients who needed intense hospital treatment with those who no longer required hospitalization.

In an earlier statement Gideon said, “We need to ensure that patients’ rights and safety are protected. We appreciate the Governor’s sense of urgency, but this Legislature – sworn in yesterday – is going to do its job and provide real oversight. The Administration may feel they want to move faster, but they should take responsibility and acknowledge that three or four years of mismanagement at Riverview requires three or four weeks of oversight by this Legislature.”

It was a statement Fredette took issue with during the Legislative Council meeting on Thursday, accusing Gideon of turning the problem into a “political football.”

Gideon shot back and said Fredette was busy holding a press conference while she was working to set up a meeting with LePage and discussing how to move forward with Republican Senate President Mike Thibodeau. “I did look over at your office and found out instead you were at a press conference playing political football with it,” Gideon told Fredette.

Gideon said if Democrats could get their questions answered in a timely fashion she would be willing to call a special meeting of the Legislative Council to possibly take action on the proposal. The council’s next regular meeting isn’t until Jan. 23, but council members could agree to call a meeting at any time under the council’s rules.