Category: City of Paris Texas

Change in Paris is an inconstant constant thing.

There are older neighborhoods where weeds and wild grasses can brag that they’ve had a wonderful time for years living a seasonal life without fear of being mowed. Some are 20-years old and a few even older. The termites, who can trace their family histories back for over a hundred generations, are living high on the hog in most neighborhoods. Businesses are opening and businesses are closing, but vacant buildings are winning. Littering is inconsiderate, but constant, as so many people are really good at it. Littering, and taking a great deal of pride in knowing how not to drive are tied at second place as Paris’ greatest recreational pleasure. In a really close third place is dodging chuckholes in city streets. But far away in first place is the trouble with transparency or the lack of it.

Its difficult to keep up with all that’s going on.

Transparency is the one thing in Paris that is inconstant.

Transparency, one week a year – sunshine week – is written and spoke about in reverend tones and the media brags about reporting all that’s fit to print or report. The media uses its own “what is fit” filter to shine the spotlight of transparency on “what is fit” –

Its this “what is fit” that cause people to grow old before their time in Paris, or want to move somewhere else in time – or at least, slap their Grandmaw.  But the Texas Tribune is all over the state and is really thriving among all the locals, and where it steps intelligence dies.

And you cannot move out of Texas, because all the people moving in have the highways blocked with their versions of what is fair and progressive in the crime-filled streets from the cities and states they’re fleeing. The only thing not left behind is the stupidity.  Most are bringing that commodity with them . . .

Transparency in Paris . . . .

. . . . which sounds like a song (but sounds better then it is) leaves a lot to desire.

We’re told the City of Paris is promoting progress for the city’s welfare by subsidizing every snake oil proposal that comes along, including the giving of land and money, building streets, rental properties, installing utilities, and joining hands in private-public partnerships with unknown private entities, all singing Kumbaya, backed up by a fiddle and 111 git’tars — one of which sounds like it might be in tune —

To some of us less-enlightened, giving public tax money to these private entities seem awfully unethical, if not semi-illegal, even under democratic socialism.

Even if it is legal, its still awful: Despite years of co-mingling funds, which is a locally-accepted practice (even if the IRS frowns on it). No public-collecting governmental unit should be giving public funds to private entities, regardless of what some judge has ruled. Until the Texas Economic Development Act of 1981, municipalities were limited to giving “like or kind” site locations and improvements – but not allowed to offer various incentives, including cash grants, to any private endeavor.

Just about everything Paris that does is so worded that those who are supposed to be the watchdogs against corruption in government think its a great idea.

The Paris Economic Development Corporation (PEDC) has never met a promoter it could refuse to hand out incentives and cash money, and brag about what a great deal it is for the taxpayers who are footing the bill. But you never hear the downside of things. For instance, the PEDC claimed that it was responsible for getting 200 of 280 jobs to Paris, and those jobs are good for a billion dollars over a ten year period. But, somehow, taxpayers were never told that during the time when the PEDC claimed it was getting those jobs, Campbell Soup announced the elimination of 300 jobs; and the loss of jobs at Sara Lee, Turner Industries, etc. Nor, was there ever a hint of what the lost of those jobs cost Paris – or even the dollar amount from years of giving incentives and tax abatement to the Campbell Company.

Its all meat – and no potatoes … and that ain’t right … like green tomatoes –

Other industrial plants have closed, changed hands, and businesses come and businesses go. But there’s never any info on the economic loss associated with a business or industry closing.

Its all Happy Talk. Sorta’ like the general, hopeful, talk about how the City of Paris is growing, when it’s the Lamar County area that’s doing it.

Repeating ourselves, again (because it can’t be said too often):

              the trouble with transparency is the lack of it.

 

 

                                                                                                            return to    Paris Texas Chamber

Typically, a master planned community (mpc). . .

 . . . . is on a large plot of land where a developer offers an array of amenities, including golf courses, restaurants, shops, miles of hiking trails, parks, community events, and more;  just about everything you need within a community. The Forestbrook Estates – a City of Paris local partner – claims to be a MPC.

Whether or not it is, as claimed, a mpc, the smell of the selling sizzle covers up the fact that local taxpayers, who have paid the bills for years, are now on the hook for an estimated $20 million to cover the developer’s cost.

Why?

 

There’s no guarantee it will pay . . . .

. . . and $20 million is over one-third of the current city budget. IF its such a good deal, why do the developers need the Paris taxpayers to guarantee them a profit?

The major draw of a master planned community is that you can walk from your home to the gym, shoot a round of golf, grab a drink at the clubhouse, play at the park, take your kids to school, all available for residents and are kept up-to-date by funds collected by a homeowners association (HOA). 

IF there’s no HOA, will taxpayers – who seems to be stuck paying for everything else – be stuck with maintaining the streets, hauling off trash, repairing water and sewer leaks, and other such day-by-day expenses? And surprising us all by getting rid of litter?

The reported first phase of the nearly 200-acres of the Forestbrook development will consist of 87 of the 471 residential lots. This doesn’t seem to leave much room for playgrounds, schools, gyms, golf, clubhouses, parks, and all the promised related retail and commercial development; plus, the rights-of-way for utilities and streets, drainage, etc. 

The Paris Texas Chamber doesn’t know if a HOA is in the plans, nor do we have the least idea about what the proposed development will actually offer or who are the developers. We do know, however, that the endeavor itself is not as important as the centuries-old concept for selling democratic socialism – a private-public partnership, which is an insult to to the American Idea of self-responsibility and the need for accountability of one’s personal actions.

 

Private-public partnerships are not how you limit government.

IF the City of Paris cannot or will not guarantee every citizens’ debt, why is it guaranteeing the debt of a selected few based on Happy Talk promises and the only collateral being the taxpayer’s guarantee?

Where does the city, and government in general, get the right to pick and choose economic winners?

Its so much the key question that we don’t even understand those individuals who believe that robbing Pete to pay Paul is a good idea – unless they’re Paul.

Do banks even make development loans anymore? If not, why not? IF they can’t make community development loans, why are they needed?  (Community development is economic development, and consumer loans only get people deeper into personal debt.) So, what purpose do banks now fill – other than paying a little bit of interest on CDs in order to loan the  money at a higher interest rate to some government-guaranteed “too big to fail” Big Business? 

Isn’t government basically guaranteeing the success of banks?

Why are taxpayers forced to guarantee some developer’s debt?

 

Forced compliance is destroying the 13th Amendment of the Constitution . . . .

. . . . and the bad decisions keep coming: As the Paris Chamber warned years ago, thanks to idiots in the Texas legislature, anything can now be economic development. 

The City of Paris has extended its partnership with Palma Holdings, LLC; subsidizing “a residential 5 in 5 Housing Infill Development program” that the city calls economic development. Basically, its low-income single-family instant-slum housing offered at an estimated $200,000 sales price. Five or more have been built with no reported sales, but ten more were recently approved for construction.

Unfortunately, a $200,000 home is not affordable for most low-income families, but as taxpayer subsidized Section 8 housing, it can become a long-time profit center for a private developer. 

It all makes some wonder about sanity.     

 

 

 

The City of Paris needs a HomeOwners Association

IF Paris, which once was “The North Star of Texas” really wants – as it claims – to ‘clean up Paris’, it should form a Homeowners Association (HOA), which can take rule enforcement to the next level.

A HOA is needed, as the city will not enforce ordinances concerning litter, grass and weeds, boats and RVs, inoperable vehicles, fences, and yards full of unsightly (strange and ugly) junk. The mystery being that if the city will not enforce ordinances, why have them?

If we’re not using the ones we have, why not turn them over to a HOA for enforcement?

Uh … forget about the “strange and ugly” bit – otherwise, the population may be greatly reduced. And one or two of our Paris Chamber’s Directors would be among the first to be forced to vacate not just Paris, but the NE Texas vicinity.

So let that sleeping dog lie . . . But there should be ordinances enforced about bathing; at least, once a month.

Flowerbeds won’t regulate themselves, and we don’t want to get started on those trash cans left out overnight.

IF the city is going to do as it has promised over recent decades, it needs to start a HOA – one that can use military precision, when and if necessary. After these years of unenforced ordinances, Paris needs to aim for a disciplined, picture-perfect community.

Instead of giving taxpayer’s money away, the PEDC ought to fund the HOA effort.

By a big majority, this chamber’s directors voted to recommend asking that HOA employees don fatigues, a utility belt with handcuffs, a bug zapper, a firearm, a ballistic vest, breath mints, bean-o, and an approach to every violation with a “take no prisoners” attitude. (See below poster of enforcer-type and equipment.) To assure a resounding success, this is likely the only road over the next three years.

IF HomeOwners are trembling at just the thought, good – so be it.

In transparency, one of older Directors, voting against the HOA, said he, “can see a time that if I just forgot to mow for a couple of days, I’d be doing push-ups in my front yard, and I cannot do push-ups anymore.”

We assured him that while residents might scramble to comply, praying their grass grows no higher than the regulation three inches, they would be building new muscles saluting their new governmental unit.

Some folks are now saying that instead of having more government, they would rather do the cleanup work themselves.

They’ve paid taxes for 25 to 50-years or longer to allow city councils and management to litter it up.

You really have to appreciate the rate of return when investing in government.

This is, of course, a continuing development of a story that is a half-century in the making.

                                                    Return to the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce 

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