City leaders insist airport plan won’t stall out

Gladewater Municipal Airport has plenty of traffic, but it’s never quite gotten the funding to take it to another level, Charlie Smith says.
There’s room for growth, according to Gladewater’s city manager. Now, there’s a plan for it, too, and a fire under council members to starting checking items off the new task list.
Texas Department of Transportation regulates the airports, Smith noted, and spearheaded the 2025 plan in collaboration with city personnel.
“Every 10 years we’re supposed to go in and take a look at the airport to see what changes might benefit us,” he said. It took the better part of two years to assemble all the tasks to fuel the airfield’s future: “That airport is used a lot. Just go out and sit for a day and see all the airplanes that come and go. There’s a lot of traffic.”
The city’s volunteer airport board reviewed and signed off on the structured plan earlier this year, and council members adopted it unanimously last month.
“This is the kind of plan we want to enact for everything,” council member Kevin Clark said.
The layout plan factors in available space and potential costs as well as opportunities to add new amenities such as enhanced communications, meeting spaces, additional hangars and more.
The council members briefly discussed setting a timeline for airport enhancements, i.e. during the coming decade, while brainstorming other ways to increase activity, such as airport events.
Smart plans for community growth have fallen by the wayside in years past, Mayor Brandy Flanagan said: “From a council position, what can we do to ensure this gets enacted?”
The experts divided the airport strategy into phases and aligned grants to enact those steps. Make it happen, Flanagan added, and put the airfield to its best use.
“It does us no good as a city to have these assets and let them fall apart… The whole point of having this before us is because it is the plan we will follow-through as the city.”