Tag: City of Paris

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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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 higher” was 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?


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                                           The Objective Reality