Category: Uncategorized

There is no “free” stuff.

Prior to 1987, government giveaways to private businesses were unconstitutional in Texas. Then, not-to-bright-voters were sold on amending the state Constitution to allow “free stuff” (incentive) programs to serve a public purpose.

Of course, voters, everywhere, have been sold a lot of things . . .

On June l, 1989, the Texas Department of Commerce approved a City of Paris request for an Enterprise Zone. To secure the designation, Paris had to claim the area was a “social and economic liability” and a “menace to health, safety, morals and welfare” – and promise and warrant a list of incentives that would be made available for economic endeavors – not just industry – that would locate within the zone. (Chapter 312.202. Criteria for Reinvestment Zone.)

Thirteen (13) days after the approval, the Paris News reported a Chamber of Commerce of Lamar County spokesman said that no incentives would be made available to businesses; only to industry. This violated oft-repeated and published guarantees the City of Paris made in it’s request for a zone.

We know the City lies, and ignores its own policies and ordinances; think zoning changes, street construction, demolishing buildings without asbestos reports, sidewalk repairs, signs, and the list goes on.

And now, leadership is so desperate for a success story, we’re subsidizing retail outlets.

It is not enough to promise fair play or to write policies into plans that claim to be fair. Those are words. It is the practice, what we actually do, that determines fair play. Transparency. Honesty. Character. Honor.

But Paris believes in corporate welfare: We give tax money, land, and other incentives to selected firms for a promise to create jobs.

The total costs are never considered. Those in leadership making the wonderful claims don’t want to know the net gain. They maximize what the ones footing the bills are getting for their money, which maximize the leaders importance.

Questions concerning their conclusions are not welcome.

The Paris Chamber has deplored this nonsense for years. Only after ‘all costs’ are included can the actual net gain to the community be known. It’s the same claim that every dollar spent in a community changes hands seven times. The COST of generating that dollar is seldom considered.

But until the costs – including every penny for land, utilities, grants, buildings, salaries, retirement, health care, vehicles, travel expenses, fees, meetings, advertising, all like-and-kind contributions, promotions, cost-sharing, etc.– the total amount of money transferred from taxpayer’s pockets for a project are known, the folks making the report are selling a lie.

None of that is “free” stuff.

IF Paris is to be the kind of town that people want to live in, we should implement policies that encourage private business investment by easing and streamlining the bureaucratic processes and work for neighborhood improvement in all areas; things that build a perception of a community that encourage business growth and innovation, and that reward its taxpaying citizens.

THAT is the only worthwhile incentive program.

return to The Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce

Never reinforce failure, said Napoleon.

And he was never in Paris, Texas.

Most citizens have a big blind spot when it comes to what the Paris,Texas leadership does or how they carry out the few things that they do – or try to do when they do do something.

A majority of citizens say a lot of good things about one of the 23 towns named Paris in the U.S. of A.

Of course, Ted Bundy’s mother had good things to say about her darling boy.

Belle Gunness – known as “Lady Bluebeard” – who was married at least twice and killed up to 15 men for their insurance had something good working for her. Evidently.

And Joe Biden has only good things to say about his son, Hunter “China” Biden, the famous artist, drug addict, computer expert, and woo-er of an Arkansas stripper with access to funds from several very highly successful foreign economic ventures. (No. Not the stripper: “Hunter”!)

The same or similar good words are true of every serial killer, every paid-for politician pushing more big-government, freeloaders, a profligate immoral wastrel, today’s “Superstars”, a city like Baltimore. Chicago. Seattle. LA. San Fran. Houston. NYC. Milwaukee. Or good ol’ Paris.

Nowadays, if you can’t lie with a straight face, you can’t be a leader. Its in a law book. Somewhere.

Our local bunch try to convince the world – and especially themselves – that Paris is pretty much normal. And whatever is normal in Paris is normal in Paris, but it’s unsettling when you’ve done everything and there are no results.

So, most people in Paris are on medication of some kind … even if its just 77-pounds of fruit and vegetables everyday in a little-bitty pill.

A lot of people who come from families of local social standing or semi-moral character seldom consider Paris as a visitor’s destination. They’re happy under their medical care. Many non-visitors are happy, too, claiming their decision is what makes them proud to be a Texan.

But Paris has a great many qualities. One of those qualities is ignoring anything that means long-term progress, which in Texas is hard to do. Other qualities are resisting watching things close-up; not taking sides; refusing to join in on a worthwhile fight for survival, and seriously not getting involved.

Yet, Napoleon was never in Paris Texas.

But most people in Paris Texas think its almost good to be alive.

They have an aching heart in a city full of them.

 

Paris Texas is a quiet, sorta’ sleepy, strangely unsettled town, nestled in Lamar County, an area that once was a part of Miller County, Arkansas. Today, parts of the city’s heart have stopped beating. Historically, the downtown area was the heart of the city, pumping economic blood from city limits to city limits. But it’s likely that the central economic muscle will never return. 

There has been by-pass surgery of sorts, but to survive, Paris needs a new heart or a vast new miracle to get it working again.

In NE Texas, Paris is a clean air area. When folks in the Dallas and Fort Worth metroplex want a breathe of the unpolluted stuff they can visit Paris. They can purify their lungs with some deep breaths and admire the local Eiffel Tower, the Red River Valley Veterans Memorial, visit the Lamar County Historical Museum or John Chisum’s grave site or drive around and look at all the litter.

 

Other people, unless they have relatives here, who wander in or deliberately visit Paris, never fully quite understand why they do so –– Especially, after July 4th and on into the middle of September. Rain clouds drift along the Red River, and then off into the Land of the Razorbacks. Every year, the heat encourage locals to do strange things as they enjoy 100-degree temperatures that feel more like 110.

Saying people in Paris sweat is truly superfluous. And some don’t wait for summer to do it.

Strangely, a lot of people who live and work in North Dallas, Richardson, Plano, and other bedroom cities thrown together in northern areas of the metroplex, have never seen parts of an old town. So, when they wander into and around Paris, an old town, where most areas show it, Paris terrifies them.

 

Paris is blessed with numerous assets and, because of them, numerous opportunities. Maybe so many that our leadership can’t make a decision on what to do or how to do it, which keeps Paris from saving itself. It keeps looking for someone or something to do it.

The Paris Texas Chamber could … but the leadership refuses to ask HOW.

It’s a shame.

Because those assets remain unused; the opportunities are wasted.

Think not?

Then, please explain how – in 50-years or less – Paris went from the largest city in a 100-mile circle of NE Texas and SE Oklahoma, one of economic prominence and prosperity, the North Star of Texas, to the ugly, junky, weedy, litter-covered, population-losing, boarded up, tax-wasting, self-deluded mess we’re in today?

 

Name one Paris decision over the last 25-30-or so years that has made a significant difference in population, appearance, better-paying jobs, family incomes, community attitudes, etc. – anything beyond a stopgap measure or some project that had a limited impact?

You can, dear reader, get angry – cuss and be disgusted – but IF you’ll drive around Paris, inside the Loop you’ll see a community reeking with 3rd world results.

So, how can you honestly believe that Paris got to the shape it’s in by making intelligent decisions for community and economic improvement over the last 25-30-or so years?

Neither can we.