By CHARLES RICHARDS
eParisExtra.com
Mayor AJ Hashmi
Mayor AJ Hashmi will propose to tonight’s meeting of the Paris City Council that an air park, including a residential community, be developed along the east side of Cox Field Airport.
“We have a good airport, but we don’t make enough use of it. I’d like approval for some money out of the budget to advertise the airport in a general aviation journal,” Hashmi said to eParisExtra.com.
“Once we have advertised, I don’t want to see city money spent on the actual development of the property,” the mayor added. “I want an outside developer who develops air parks to come and bid on the property and say, ‘Yes, it could be done.’ And then see what happens with it.”
“I’d like for us to interest developers into making an air park on the east side of the airport, where the farm road is, to provide access and develop a community where they develop homes that are directly attached to the airport,” the mayor said.
“Not only that, but I want to develop an avionics shop, an airplane shop, and an airplane upholstery shop,” he said.
For plane owners who don’t want to fly to the civil airports at Love Field or Addison Airport in Dallas, an air park in Paris would be a good alternative, Hashmi said.
“If we can develop something like that here, the likelihood of being successful and making better use of the airport becomes significant.”
Hashmi said he is hopeful that the full council will endorse the idea of developing an air park at Cox Field “because quite honestly, it is a no-brainer,” the mayor said.
The item is for discussion only tonight. It is not an action item.
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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