This is the mobile home part at 125 41st SE, belonging to Ranger Abbott. (eParisExtra photo by Charles Richards)
By CHARLES RICHARDS
EParisExtra!
On today’s agenda of the Paris City Council for the third straight meeting is the request of Ranger Abbott for help in his attempt to expand his mobile home park at 125 41st St. SE, one block south of the Bonham highway, U.S. 82-west.
It’s scheduled for executive session during the meeting, which is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. today at the city council chambers at 107 E. Kaufman St.
But Mayor AJ Hashmi said Sunday there will be no discussion. He said there’s nothing the council can do for Abbott, who sued the city because the city refused in 2010 when he sough a building permit to expand his mobile home park without getting a zone change.
Abbott produced a letter from then city-manager Kevin Carruth, secured by Abbott in 2008 when he was trying to decide whether to buy the property. Less than half of the 7.8-acre property was being used for a mobile park.
Abbott had wanted to make sure he would be allowed to clear off the heavily wooded other part of the property and expand under the under the non-conforming status the mobile home park was given after the property was annexed into the city.
Abbott sued when the city turned down his building permit. He won a judgment in state district court in Paris, but the 6th State Court of Appeals An appeals court rejected Abbott’s lawsuit, saying that by failing to appeal first to the city’s Board of Adjustments he failed to exercise all his administrative rights.
Abbott said he was never told about the Board of Adjustments. Instead, he tried to get a hearing before the city council in 2010, but Carruth refused to put him on the agenda.
Hashmi said it’s too late for the council to act on Abbott’s 2010 complaint because an appeal to the Board of Adjustment s has to be made within 10 days of the action one is complaining about. The city can’t go against its own ordinances, the mayor said.
But he said Abbott is free to file a new request for a building permit, and if he is turned down again, he would be allowed to take his case to the Board of Adjustments if he requests it within 10 days of the new rejection.
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Charles Richards Charles Richards moved to Paris in 2004 after retiring from a 40-year career in journalism – the last 26 years as a news writer and sports writer with The Associated Press in Dallas and Washington, D.C. In mid-2004, The Paris News coaxed him out of retirement, and he began covering the police, court and regional beat for The Paris News. Then in early 2005, he was switched to coverage of a sharply divided Paris City Council. He was appointed by the City Council in 2006 to the 12-member City Charter Review Commission, which extensively rewrote the outmoded document. His writing awards include two first-place awards in statewide competition for feature writing. The most recent was his 2005 story on a Paris doctor’s startling use of leeches in a successful attempt to re-attach a man’s severed ear. Over his career, Richards’ interview subjects include Alabama Gov. George Wallace, President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, David Koresh, Arnold Palmer, Muhammad Ali and numerous other political and sports figures. He is an alumnus of Texas Tech, where he was editor of the school newspaper. He lives in Paris with his wife, Barbara, who is retired after 30 years as a teacher and high school counselor.
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