LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Questions City on airport

Posted

Dear Editor:

I want to applaud the Gonzales Economic Development Corporation board of directors for embracing the concept of improving the airport.

These matters were addressed in an open public meeting when I was a member of the previous EDC board. The question brought forward by City Hall was whether the EDC board would provide funding to purchase a parcel of land adjacent to the airport. The discussion lasted a good 30 minutes during which the runway length, lighting, signal beacon, and placement of the hangars were mentioned, but in no particular order of priority and more so in the context of background information. 

Those who offered the most detail on these subjects were senior in tenure on the EDC board and their testimony had the ring of truth to it. In that moment, the combined testimony coupled with questions and concerns about the property and its asking price held sway over our thinking.

I do not recall at any time thereafter that anyone shed any tears over the outcome of that discussion. There was no such thing as an Airport Layout Plan offered for our awareness and consideration. No one at City Hall followed up and arranged for the EDC board to hear testimony from any member of the Airport Advisory Committee, TxDOT, or any other qualified source that would refute our concerns or offer rationale as to the importance, much less the wisdom, of moving aggressively on that opportunity at that time.  

If City Hall had been more diligent in these matters, if the case had been presented well and the merits of the question well staked out, I am certain that outcomes could easily have been different.

With all that being said, I do not understand what benefit City Hall sees in throwing shade on the deliberations of the previous EDC board as it relates to the airport. Why not simply agree with the Airport Advisory Committee’s assessment that the airport has been neglected for the better part of 40 years and leave it at that?

 

S.H. Sucher

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