talking, not doing . . .


Paris talks about improving Paris.  Paris talks about the need to improve and beautify. Paris talks about substandard homes with unpaid taxes, and talks about what to do with them. Paris prefers talking, not doing.

Talking is a poor substitute for doing.

Behind all that Happy Talk, however, improvement is taking money – from some who can barely make economic ends meet – and giving it to others who are doing well economically, but who can help make the givers seem like they have a sound mind.

Most local builders are chased out of the city limits with inane regulations, which have created residential and business growth in most Lamar County’s smaller communities. In turn, the City of Paris uses public tax-dollars to pay for land, water and sewer services, streets, curbs and gutters, even administration, and “other development incentives” to guarantee a profit to outside firms – some who take their profit back home with them, and some who leave us holding an empty bag of promises.

Ordinances are local laws designed to hold those without brown noses to the grindstone, while allowing those with brown noses to practice “how to circumvent the law without accountability.”

Those with brown noses, for some reason, don’t like to be reminded of it.

Talking, and not doing demonstrates that Paris is at war with itself, as many weed-infested neighborhoods are breeding grounds for blight and decay –

But Paris doesn’t want to talk about that . . .

While talking, not doing, about keeping Paris beautiful, the grass and weeds keep onna’ growing. Not all weeds are flowers, but they are appreciated by all the local blooming idiots and passersby.

We use to tiptoe through the tulips. . . now we just waddle through the weeds.

                                               

Inside the city limits, there are five and six year old weeds in key places; i.e; on privately and city owned properties, along the right-of-way of state and U. S. Highways, and city streets.

Some are so old and large they are monuments to Mother Nature.

Those who believe that man can control climate should visit Paris, Texas; a city that proves weeds cannot be controlled (at least, inside the city limits). If weeds cannot be controlled, forget about the world’s climate.

As someone said, “Paris is a victory garden  —  too bad the weeds won.”

We’re lucky that so many weeds are covered with litter.

Littering, evidently, is a hobby for most folks in Paris, as, like the weeds, litter is all over town. All kinds of litter.

Drive around the Loop or around town and it’s likely the Florida firm that came up with the high-dollar logo proclaiming “Paris Texas – where Texans reach higherwas thinking that was how we stacked our litter or it was the only way to climb out of it.

While talking, not doing, we’re actually building a dump ground that 24,900 bewitched, bothered, bewildered and befuddled people call home.

Well, I’ve been all over this world

down to the Gulf of Mexico,

but I ain’t never seen a dump heap

calling itself a city before . . .

                                                                                         ( – apologies to Dr. John and his Cabbage Head song…)

The Paris Texas Chamber has urged Paris to invest in people for years. It’s actually the best – and least expensive – way to do community development: Build it and they will come.

So why will we not invest in ways to help people help Paris?

return to   Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce

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                                           The Objective Reality

Want to…”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), the 26th President of the USA, was talking about want to in stating that We need the iron qualities that go with true manhood. We need the positive virtues of resolution, of courage, of indomitable will, of power to do without shrinking the rough work that must always be done.”

 

Want to” … yearning … raises a lot of questions.

We begin life with want to and it seems we end life yearning for someone or something.

Yearning never quits.

When it comes to “want to”, you look at our leadership’s (or citizen’s) ability to adapt, evolve, lead with forward thought around a vision or a concept or a cohesive strategy, etc., and Paris mostly resemble Sears or Blockbuster video.

We cannot even agree on what historic restoration is or a vision or concept of what the Plaza and downtown area should be or a plan or platform that offers a cohesive concept of Paris, that will or would rebuild Paris as the North Star of Texas or as the Star of the Red River Valley.

It appears that we’ve even settled for a lack of “want to”…? Our want to seems to have packed up and gone . . .

. . . We just want to get higher, which is appreciated by Toco and Sun Valley.

Think not? Then, how long has it been since we lost the “want to” to pick up trash and stop the littering?

WHY can’t we stop it…? Shouldn’t we want to … ?

Paris is our home. People who litter crap in our kitchens and living rooms and bedrooms (and theirs). Are they really who we want as citizens?

They‘re the idiots our present policies are encouraging.

In some places, the litter almost makes it hard to see the weeds, which brings up another question: WHY are in-city weeds, that have not been cut or mowed for over 5-years, allowed to exist?  Ordinances exist that (supposedly) control in-city weeds and grasses, as well as junk, storage buildings, parking in front yards, etc., to help “Keep Paris Beautiful.” But when it comes to enforcement, the “want to” must be hiding in one of the dusty Master Plans at City Hall. 

Before we can Keep Paris Beautiful we need to Make Paris Beautiful (Yes, the Paris Chamber realizes that the ‘want to’ seems to be lacking, but it sure needs done.)

Is it want to or a lack of it?

A developer will gladly jump on a project that seems profitable. If a project appears unprofitable, they won’t do it. If they demand money to do it, they’re admitting it likely will not be profitable but they’re hoping that there’s a sucker somewhere.

So, WHY is the city’s leadership giving the public’s tax dollars to developers who likely believe a project will not be successful or profitable? Maybe Paris should change the city’s name to Suckerville?

And why are the City of Paris and the PEDC giving tax money from some citizens, who are barely able to make economic ends meet, to industries that have money and assets of their own?

That surpasses want to; it’s stupidity.

Why not establish a program that exchanges building materials for “sweat equity” by those with lower-incomes who have the “want to” and the ability to improve their own property (instead of giving their tax dollars to private firms that have money)?

Want to or –

– is this community damaged goods by not wanting to do the right things in favor of wanting “my pocketbook first.” Or, as some claim, Paris is full of people who are too soft-hearted to “hurt people’s feelings…” Or, as others claim, “They don’t want to…”

More likely, for waaay too many years, the leadership majority operated with the same idea: That every dollar circulating in Paris belongs to them. There’s no other logical reason why Paris has so many deteriorated neighborhoods.

They forgot – and we forget – that we’re all mutts; not a show dog among us.

Paris people are not who you think they are

They are not who they think they are

They are who they think you think they are

They will browbeat you until you think you are

who they think you are

You do not want to be who they think you are

Or be who they think they are.

 

When you’re dead, you don’t know you’re dead.
The pain is felt by others .

The same thing happens when you’re stupid.
-Unknown

 

                                                               return to     Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce

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Investing In People

private-public partnerships

                          
                     
                                    
                                    
                       LionsHead Specialty Tire and Wheel’s new 120,000 SF facility in the NW Industrial Park

the economic landscape

Its time for the Paris Chamber to express a well-meant “Good Job” to the Paris Economic Development Corporation (PEDC).  Despite challenges that comes with ignoring certain economic facts, thereby, to increase a perception and promotion by an oversell of smart planning, hard work, job growth, and the total dollar investments in Paris, the PEDC actually has seen extraordinary success over the past two or three years.

Almost as extraordinary as the lack of transparency.

The March 2023, Universal Fabricating announcement came with an anticipated 100 new quality jobs.

In April 2023, Houston-based Ametsa Packaging, LLC, announced a sugar liquefication and packaging plant and 100 new quality jobs at the former Sara Lee and J. Skinner facility.

Huhtamaki announced its expansion plans in August 2023 for 80 new jobs, increasing their already impressive workforce of 200. This project promises approximately $75 million in new investment for a reported 400,000 square feet of facility expansions and road and rail enhancements. (Huhtamaki’s announcement demonstrates why supporting the existing employer base is important for a community’s economic health.)

The PEDC claimed that over the next 10 years, these projects would infuse an estimated total economic impact of $1 billion into the local economy. And that the “ripple effect” of these investments will stimulate further economic activity.

“Enhancing our economic landscape”, the PEDC celebrated projects such as the Texas Department of Transportation on their new district headquarters in the PEDC-owned Gene Stallings Business Park, Delco’s grand opening of a state-of-the-art 550,000 SF facility on HWY 82 West, as well as the above LionsHead Specialty Tire and Wheel’s locating (the best-looking industrial building in Paris, [our opinion], closely followed by the Texas Highway Department’s new building, which as a government project is not subject to financial limits.)

All this, of course, is worthy of praise for a job well-done, even if other towns in the Dallas metroplex are seeing much greater job and residential growth. It doesn’t need, however, the exaggeration, nor the fuzzy obfuscation, which ignores obvious facts.

The objective facts:

Since 1993, when voters approved tax-funding the PEDC, General Plastic, Turner Industries, Oliver Rubber, Westinghouse, General Electric, and others are no longer here; those jobs are gone; payrolls missing in action. But all those jobs, and others from the numerous recent business closings, must be deducted from the number of new jobs being reported in order to have a half-way decent understanding of where we are in NET job creation.

Past payrolls are NOT objectively compared to current ones. Payrolls, investments, property taxes and sales tax receipts are subject to inflationary figures, which, in examination, are subjective.

Objectivity demands that if you are taking credit for every new gain, you must take credit for every loss.

But the PEDC is claiming credit for a billion dollar economic impact over the next ten years – not counting job loss, property tax abatement, misplaced priorities, plus an average $3 million PEDC budget cost (and $93 million for the 31-years its been in operation).

Evidently, the PEDC is the only entity in the economic landscape that doesn’t have to consider expenses.

Doing Better

Regardless, the PEDC has justified its existence, even if Paris might have been better served by spending the money on creating local residential improvements.

Or picking up the trash and cutting weeds in all of the economic landscape.

Maybe then, we wouldn’t have to give profitable firms money to come to Paris; they’d come because they wanted to…

Businesses need employees in a town that the management wants to live in.

 

                                                      return to      PARIS TEXAS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

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          Goosey Gander 

          29-Years of Cronyism

          Six Uncomfortable Truths, plus one: