The initial meeting of the Capital Improvement Program citizens’advisory committee is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. today in the Paris City Council chambers.
The committee will meet with representatives of KSA Engineering, the company selected by the council to come up with recommendations for a 10-year, $45 million program to replace the city’s aging infrastructure.
Each member of the city council named one member of the citizen committee, whose responsibility it will be to give guidance on the priority in which projects will be undertaken.
The meeting is open to the public.
Named by the respective Paris City Council members were:
Mayor AJ Hashmi
“The purpose of this committee is not to go before the civic clubs and educate them about the vote in the May special election on the bond issue. The purpose of this committee is to provide some direction on the order in which projects should be undertaken,” Mayor AJ Hashmi said when the appointments were made several weeks ago.
“KSA Engineering is working up the plan along with the city engineer, and they have the expertise to determine the projects, but I would say to the members of this committee that they don’t know the town like you do,” Hashmi added.
Because members of the committee live here, they have the pulse of the people and are in a better position to judge if maybe a project scheduled for Year 2 should be moved up and done right away, he said.
“They may want to do something (in east Paris) that is quite necessary, but you can say, ‘You know what, northwest and southwest Paris have suffered for a long time and the residents over there need to be felt part of the town. We would like you to do this project over there first,’ “ Hashmi said.
By CHARLES RICHARDS
eParisExtra.com
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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