NEW OR RECENT POST

TRASH PICK-UP . . .

 

Back in July, 2022, the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce warned, “Privatization of trash collection is coming. It will be interesting to read the fine print.”

Evidently, we said, privatized trash pickup is more efficient and less costly. (And added, “than by government? Gasp!”) 

Sure enough, in February 2024, trash pickup by a private firm begins, and the base rate increases to $18.08 a month for residential pickup. This is good until September 2024 – which is a scary thought or a reason to rejoice, depending on whether you’re paying or receiving the money from the new rate.  The way the City of Paris keeps book, this is a $1.49 monthly increase.

CARDS, the private firm will receive $10.29 of the $18.08 fee to pickup and deliver the trash to the landfill.  The rest of the fee goes to the city for “bill administration, liaison between the two, and monitoring the city-owned landfill.”  Included in this rate-game-playing, $1.79 is ear-marked for “city street usage and maintenance.”

As CARDS picks up and delivers the trash for 10.29 per month, isn’t that the trash pickup rate? So, when such city categories as “administration, liaison, monitoring, and city street usage” estimated costs are increased, WHY aren’t such costs included as a rate increase? 

After the addition of two new assistant city managers, since 2022,  surely “administration” charges have increased?

 

The city budget HAS not increased by diffusion.

Back in 2022, when explaining why there was no corresponding reduction in rates when trash pickup frequency was reduced, the city manager offered that the reduction of trash collection is related to the volume of waste collected, not its frequency of collection.  He also claimed that the last rate increase was 12-years ago, and that he would not recommend adjusting rates “at this time”.

The Paris Texas Chamber observed that IF the reduced trash collection was related to the volume produced, Paris was either producing less trash or littering the streets with it – and it was hard to tell which . . .

Our Chamber also said If we were not losing population, it would be as clear as Buttermilk.

The Paris Chamber stated that “It’s difficult to believe there hasn’t been a rate increase on everything over the past 10-years. And there has been – check a few past water and sewer bills.”  And we still stand by that . . .

 Every time an “adjustment” is made on “administrative, liaison or management cost” relating to city services, a rate increase is soon to follow. Money is swept from services – based on an estimated cost the city assigns for those items – and added to the general budget. That process allows the city to keep crying about how sad it is that rates for a service must be increased to cover the increased expenses of the selected service.

Its all a financial game or a way to fleece the rate-payers.   

Worse, what should be a criminal act of deliberate lies, citizens are told that trash pickup rates have “not been adjusted in more then 10-years.” It’s the chattering of weasels.

In 2017-18, the city added an estimated $7.60 monthly to the local sewer rates (around $100 a year MORE than we were paying) to “help pay for a new sewer treatment plant.” Then, in 2020, water and sewer rates were again increased another $$7.65 a month for 5,000 gallons. This we were told, again, was needed to help the sale of bonds to “finance construction of a new wastewater plant.”

And if the income from rate increases isn’t in an established, ear-marked fund for a new plant, as was promised, where did the money go? If the money isn’t there, where is the accountability? For that matter, where is the accountability for the jiggery-pokery with estimated “related? costs and deducting it from a services’ rate income?

 

Priorities lack structure.

Even published legal notices in Paris lack transparency; you seldom know what’s where – addresses are hidden behind legal descriptions of who did the surveys and unknown large block numbers.

Transparency, despite any claims to the contrary, does not exist in Paris, nor in government, local or otherwise. Government is very good at snow jobs, and coming up with schemes whereby it can fleece money from the taxpayers.  Supposedly, its the reason why we elect people to oversee those in government positions: To protect the rest of us, the citizen taxpayers, who provide the money.

But what do you do when they do wrong? Or even when they never ask, “Is it needed; is it worthwhile; and can we afford it?” or even more importantly, “Why would we waste the taxpayer’s money on that…?”

Paris has a history of using tax dollars to pay a few too much and too many too little.

There are not twelve people in Paris who knows to a dollar the total amount of incentives, in cash and kind,  given to a few large firms or insiders over the last two years – or the net value (if any) Paris has received in turn?

It’s doubtful, if even twelve people know the actual costs of trash pick-up in Paris. But looking at voting results in city elections, there are not 599 who care . . .

Occasionally, however, taxpayers are rewarded with a small Dr. Pepper, as those who close the door on full transparency know, man cannot live by the bread of chicanery alone.

                        return to    Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce

 

links:  On Organizational Innovation

         Local Government

       A Free Press . . .

Since 2008, the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce has repeatedly stated that our local community and economic development organizations need restructuring.

After 14-years, they still do. Every time we say it, the local organizational bureaucracy react as if we had called their mothers a bad name (or told the truth about them).

The first objective of our local community and economic development organizations seem to be protection of the status quo at all cost, regardless of how much it costs Paris.

So, allow us to re-frame the problem this way: Would bad organizational structure subtract from how citizen’s value their community?

Each of us can all think of ways in which it might do so: For example, when you encountered employees who face the public but are not empowered to make key decisions; where Artificial Intelligence (AI) robots have replaced live agents and you really want to talk to some high-management idiot; or when, signing up with a provider of Internet service, such as Suddenlink / Altice / Optimum (a franchisee of a City that protects the monopoly against any equal opportunities for access), you are, as with taxes, subjected to forced compliance: To give your money and every right you have under the Bill of Rights in exchange for Internet service, which is a “must have” in today’s digital age.

Forced compliance, it should be argued, is a violation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.

In those cases, restructuring by those organizations could generate improved customer experiences, enhance customer’s value, and enrich community value.

Years ago, the Paris Chamber realized that knowledge and knowledge flow must replace formal management structures and face-to-face administration. (As there is a world of difference between formal and informal management.)

Make no mistake, we’re not saying that daily production, a conventional planning-and-control approach, should be thrown out with the bath water. We are saying that greater freedom, flexibility, and an open attitude toward restructuring should focus on the individuals within the community; that removing boundaries and a constant exchange of transparent data and information with the community are ways of liberating their power – providing them a setting in which they can express their creativity.

These are a necessity for community and economic improvement.

After making sure headquarters are running smoothly, and cooperatively, the first goal is to try every initiative, while assuming that it could be a new opportunity.

Do not follow. Take the lead, change the standard, practice creative destruction (open dissent, when needed), and constantly try to understand how to increase value for the community – not the organization.

Promoters are bundling these common sense steps as “development of a process of innovation” – including, of course, calculation of how much they can charge!

It’s all terminology: Branding and Innovation; terms to relieve taxpayers of their money.

But all endeavors, except for government, live or die based on whether the market – the customers – pays for value perceived, or not.

Increase community value by more wealth generation opportunities, and this will reward the organization by its increased value to the community.

The advice is free.

The knowledge on how to do is is not.

The Great Art of selling baloney

BY Law, it’s the local Stooges – uh – property tax payers of Paris – who are responsible for all debts of the PEDC. They are the ones who are subsidizing industry in Lamar County, in addition to Paris. Families who can barely afford to feed their kids and pay the cost of city utilities are subsidizing some of the most profitable industries.

Consider that the Paris Economic Development Corporation (the PEDC) gave $350,000 to Blossom Aerospace, a firm in Blossom, Texas, which was recently purchase by an Oklahoma firm.

The PEDC’s President was reported that the gift “aligns with the PEDC’s priorities of business retention and expansion.”

The PEDC’s Executive Director was also quoted, saying that it “was a win for our community that will generate over $70 million in new payroll over the next seven years.”

The money being given away comes from the Paris retail sales tax, of course, not Blossom’s.

And the ability to tell the future – to the dollar – should earn one a multi-billion annual salary or, at least, an appointment as Secretary of the U. S. Department of the Treasury.

Even demented Joe could understand that kind of clarity.

It’s Great Art or a Sharpie drawing.

Every time you clean something, you just make something else dirty.

Regardless, its enough to make you wanta’ slap your Grandma . . .

Yes, we’re told that the local economy does not stop at the Paris city limits, as many of the employees, working in Paris, live in Lamar County and spend money in Paris.

So do some happy folks in Oklahoma, and in Red River, Delta and Fannin Counties.

Using that logic, will Paris subsidize industries in those areas, too?

Are Petty, Direct, Detroit, Roxton, Reno, and all the other Lamar County communities eligible?

For years, we’ve been told a lot of things. Most of it being Happy Talk and Half Truths; all tied together with a logic that defies understanding.

How much of this twisting in the wind help those who cannot afford to pay for salaries, retirement, office expenses, street repairs and water and sewer and property taxes inside the city limits?

Sadly, proponents of corporate welfare suffer from a false belief that they can best determine what technology has the best chance of success, which jobs and products best supply our needs, where best to expend scarce supplies of capital, and that the rest of us will believe just about everything.

For a lot of people, this kind of stuff ruins doing much for Paris.

And the excuse of “They’re creating jobs” ignores the fact that companies need someone in those jobs – people working to create or produce a product that can be sold for a profit. Without bodies, without someone in those jobs, there is no profit.

But the PEDC is swapping cash and other incentives for promises.

Some economically desperate towns will give anything that’s not nailed down to a new industry.

Not only will Paris do it, we’ll throw in some cash as well.