Category: Uncategorized

In the world-famous Red River Valley, Paris Texas is an economic sinkhole – and that’s being kind. Thousands of historically-obsolete houses and other buildings – unpainted clapboard, weathered, streaked with age; termite-havens with patchy, wild grasses and a variety of weed-greenery outlining vehicles parked in front yards, and not in clearly defined parking areas, in block after block of narrow, grubby chuck-holed strips of streets – are plain clues to its status as a failed community.

In its core, Paris looks older than its age, rickety and ugly, with a few amenities of polish and glitter.

Another fact is that those in Paris who try and speak the truth are condemned as “mean people”.

Its dangerous to dissent on what the leadership claims – or decides to do or not do. There is a dark heart that can be detected beneath the denials and the claims of progress.

Consider our friends at the visitors and convention council or whatever it or they may call it, who say, publicly, and with a straight face, “Welcome to Paris, a city graced by dozens of beautiful old homes and unique public architecture, creating a charming backdrop for a thriving economy and a contemporary lifestyle.”

Considering the handicaps they work under (some of their own making), they do a very good job of filling visitor spaces for events they sponsor, if not for Paris. They likely see their job as selling Paris, regardless of what they’re saying:

  • Do they actually believe that a few dozens of “beautiful old homes” negate the thousands of ugly old homes?
  • What town is bragging about not having any “unique public architecture”?
  • Three decades of in-city declining population is a “thriving economy”?
  • a “contemporary lifestyle” in a small city that will not consider pursuing a modern public WiFi or MiFi system to benefit all citizens, but will give some real estate developer millions in cash and incentives to build instant slums?

The Paris Texas Chamber is merely using the visitor’s group to point out that, as a community, we can only fool ourselves for so long before being forced to face reality.

Industry will not save us; neither will more subsidized retailers, apartments or residential subdivisions, or outside consultants long on promises but short on results.

A few amenities of polish and glitter only draws attention to the unpainted and falling down.

Community leadership created an economic sinkhole that eats whatever make-up we slap on it. Only by accepting reality can Paris change the future.

We’re burying diamonds in expensive, but cancerous, trash.

Return to the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce

Only in Paris Texas can Robin Hood be perverted into a public purpose.

The Supreme Court of the United States declared in Loan Association v. Topeka, 20 Wallace 655, that while it was not easy to decide what was a public purpose, and that the court was justified in interposing only when the case was clear, affirmed in most positive terms an inherent and essential general rule as to what the court recognized as a public purpose was recognized by the court in these words:

“In deciding whether, in the given of cash, the subject for which the taxes are assessed falls upon the one side or the other of this line, they must be governed mainly by the course and usage of the government, the objects for which taxes have been customarily and by long course of legislation levied, what objects or purposes have been considered necessary to the support and for the proper use of the government, whether State or municipal. Whatever lawfully pertains to this and is sanctioned by time and the acquiescence of the people may well be held to belong to the public use, and proper for the maintenance of good government, though this may not be the only criterion of rightful taxation.”

But it was said that, in the case at bar, no line could be drawn in favor of the manufacturer, which would not open the coffers of the public treasury to the opportunities of two-thirds of the business men of the city or town.

 

So is giving cash JUSTIFIABLE?

        “. . . legislative determination is not conclusive and is subject to judicial review.”

When it comes to government and corporations, most claims of acquiescence and compliance are symptoms of emotional insanity.

The PEDC, the City of Paris, and Lamar County – all governmental units – gave a 10-year tax abatement to a Limited Liability Corporation that has purchased the former Earth Grains, Sara Lee, J, Skinner building.

The PEDC proudly made sounds about a total investment $3.5 and $5.5 million over the next three to five years by the company, and an initial creation of 100 jobs – with a promised minimum of an annual $50,000 salary. The PEDC said that part of the incentives was “cash for jobs.”

That – and the abatement – was all the information released. Possibly, because the cash promised “for jobs” will come from some Paris families making much less then $50,000 a year.

Is that a “public purpose” in Paris?

Robbing the poor to give to the rich is more like insanity.

What is the time limit for the “initial creation” of the promised 100 jobs? Is it the same amount of time allowed for the 400 to 500 jobs promised by J. Skinner?

We get all the Happy Talk assumptions about industrial money-hunters coming to Paris, but we never hear or see a report about the industries that left Paris. But the lack of transparency in both instances are problems. (Shouldn’t a report on how much “cash money” taxpayers lost on J. Skinner be public, as well as all the incentives in all agreements? If not, how do taxpayers know the net gain to the community?)

Is the sin of commission greater than the sin of omission?

While the Paris Texas Chamber appreciates job creation and new investments – especially those that help hold the line on property taxes – we realize that what the Supreme Court of the United States declared in Loan Association v. Topeka, about the giving of cash, is correct, “…no line could be drawn in favor of the manufacturer, which would not open the coffers of the public treasury to the opportunities of two-thirds of the business men of the city or town.”

The PEDC is taking the widow’s mite to give to $50,000 wage-earners –

We can’t even get Robin Hood right . . . !

 

              

Paris, Texas is a city in decline, beset by problems of its own making. 

We know this factual statement will bring screams of resentment from those living in an alternative reality.

Unfortunately, we first made it back in October, 2011.  Wasted years. Wasted years . . .

We also recognize that the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce engenders considerable resentment from some people, just by being.  They seem to blame us for most of the problems in Paris, if not all of them – as if our observations and what we do are the problem, rather than the decisions of those who are actually in charge of community and economic development.

We are strictly a voluntary organization and, as such, don’t even have a vote on local decisions.  But the resentment our work engenders is real.  We don’t really mind the criticism, and we basically ignore the invective that come from limited or unthinking minds.

We like the give-and-take of ideas, and don’t worry about “image”, as we’d rather be hated for what we are than loved for what we’re not…  (And, yes, we realize this allows those others to shape our image.) But we know who we are . . .

So please…  Understand we only state the facts as we find them; drawing conclusions, which we believe are objective, based on situations as they stand at the time. We never say that conditions can’t improve. Or that they won’t improve.

The truth is; we are optimistic. We believe Paris, generally, is heading in a wrong direction.  But we also believe that…sooner or later…if given data and information…the community will make the right choices that will put Paris back on sound footing. Sooner or later, the more intelligent members of the community will eventually tire of the recent history of incompetence, finger-pointing, happy talk, and wrong decisions and look at things as they are – and do what must be done.

Please pay careful attention to the data we cite. And please send us any corrections to the facts. As we have repeatedly stated, we will happily publish any correction that can be substantiated. But please don’t send us accusations about “misstatements” or against our character, threats, or baseless claims about our lack of concern. If we didn’t appreciate the possibilities of Paris, none of the incompetence and wrong decisions would bother us.

We know that what we do involves politically charged and emotional issues.

Our conclusions are not easy for some citizens to accept. The fact that Paris is in a decline, as the 2.8% population loss in the 2010 Census (and 1.77% in 2020) show, is a very painful story that some present day movers and shakers do not want to hear.  And refusing to face facts, they react negatively to us.

And their limited-thinking sycophants follow suit.

The Paris Chamber has never said that the local organizations do not have Paris’ best interest at heart. We believe they do. But we also believe, when it comes to community and economic development, they don’t know what to do and, therefore, do too many things wrongly.

For, as the facts show, Paris is in a decline, beset by problems of its own making.  The Paris Chamber of Commerce simply challenges folks to re-examine what Paris is doing, and what they believe Paris should be doing.

Sometimes, thinking is a painful process.

We speak out because we believe someone must. And we have pooled our resources to do it. We are independent.  We do not ask for, nor want, tax dollars.  We prefer to be free from the pressure of answering to someone else paying our bills.  We will keep our list of memberships and supporters private, as much as allowed by law:  Our members and supporters have the right to privacy, free from short-sighted invective and economic threats.   

We do what we do because our political leaders, our business leaders, and our cultural leaders have made a long series of catastrophic choices that, as examples, include:

 (1) From those whom we employ to manage our organizations to those we elect or appoint to manage the managers (and don’t);

(2) In dividing Paris – for whatever reason – into two separate parts;

(3) Failure to establish a community-wide, recognizable structure of authority and responsibility for all governmental units, and known accountability that can – and must – be applied to each unit;

(4) Playing favorites among local non-profit voluntary organizations and rewarding the favored quislings that toe-the-line with tax dollars;

(5) Failure to develop worthwhile, affordable community and economic development programs (which develop needed, worthwhile and affordable projects);

(6) Thinking we can buy a “plan, study, consultant” that will tell us how to solve the problems we created.

For decades, Paris papered over these problems with a number of industrial payrolls that covered the holes in the fabric of our community, which can no longer be hidden…

We’ve reached the point where we will have to fix what lies at the heart of Paris’ decline… or be satisfied with stagnation and a vastly lower community standard in the future.  And possibly, a continuing loss of population.

The decision to fix what is wrong is not ours to make.

As we enter 2012, that decision can only be made by the citizens of Paris. 

Wasted years, wasted years . . .