Tag: Paris

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?


return to   Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce


                                        link:


                                          Incentivizing


                                          Four Existing Facts


                                           The Objective Reality









		

	




			

	

		
	

	


		


					








1.  At its core, every government program sold as a public purpose has a way to fleece the public.


For this fiscal year, after 30-years of population loss, the City of Paris (Texas) hit taxpayers with a 3.5% tax increase, the highest allowed by law without a vote. This “small, measly increase” amounted to about a 7-million, 300,000 thousand dollar budget increase, which roughly averages another $700.37 owed by each of the occupied households inside the city limits just to pay for the increase.


 Total Housing Units & Occupancy: 11,854 units, 88% Occupied: 10,432.


The increase was on top of rate increases on water and sewer bills, with a percentage of those fees swiped off and added to the annual general budget, which, if transparency was required, would likely put the increase over the 3.5-percent.




2. The promotion of government programs are far better than the products.  Listen to government and everything sounds as good as burial insurance:


The most pernicious of all Big Myths is that the economy and society – at least, any economy that is productive, and any society that is good – are of the results of the state or sponsoring entity. But society is not a manufactured process, however, that can be controlled and managed. It is a living entity, comprised of sentient individuals each with his or her own mind and preferences and fears and hopes. 


Stupid people actually believe that socialism is greater than the American Constitution’s construct of individual freedom with equal economic opportunity because it is based on ideas greater than their narrow view of what they see only as greed and self-interest. 


But history teaches that it is the collective totalitarian control of society by a nation state that leads to the enslavement and human misery of its citizens.


 


3.  Good government can only be achieved by its citizens.


Based on the Paris Chamber’s knowledge of economic incentive programs, gained through years of community and economic development work, we believe that every citizen should be held accountable for the actions of their government. Government is their responsibility.


It’s why we have a vote.


It is in the development and implementation of policies that encourage private business investments in local families and neighborhoods, which encourage business growth and keep the economic gates open to equal economic opportunity and innovation to reward all taxpayers, are how communities and, in turn, economies are likely to achieve success.


 


4. The Paris leadership should remember that community growth will come from Paris being a resource for its citizens. 


Instead of contributing to or building a prosperous economy for all Paris families and promoting the creation of good jobs over the last 25-30 years, Paris has actually acted to lose population, deepened the expenses of small businesses, created income inequalities for working families, encouraged blight and decay in many neighborhoods, increased the tax burden on every citizen, and it has done so by meaning to do good.


This is not good government.


But whose fault is it?




 


5.  It is the job of a responsible citizenry to remember – and demand – that the local leadership remember how government acts under the THE BIG MYTH, which is government viewing the citizen as 


    

  • a) its servant: “do this, and don’t do that….” 
    • 

  • b) its resource: “I need more money, its for a [my] common good.” And
    • 

  • c) “The conscious creation of everything good comes from my blessings and benevolences.”  
    • 



 


6. The Texas Legislature meets in a regular session for 140 days every odd numbered year when 181 elected officials delight in making private citizens into common criminals.




Over 8,100 bill were introduced in the 88th Legislative Session; surpassing the 87th Session, which totaled 6,919 bills. Creating laws that control our lives increase every session, creating citizens as criminals and the criminals as isn’t . . .   Soon, we’ll all be in government or criminals.


For the past 40-years, an average  of over 5,000 bills were introduced in each legislative session: You can find more information on the number of bills filed in recent sessions of the Texas Legislature here.


Now, we have over a year of listening to why they need more money and more laws, why the laws we have now need changing (’cause they got it wrong the first time),  and how all the rest of us are so desperately in need of their control because we don’t know – like they do – what’s good for us.


Then during the 89th Legislative Session, in 2025, they’ll listen to the ones who feel they still need more of our money or why we need controlling.


Can you imagine the national corruption in Nutland, D.C., with the 535 elected members of Congress hotly pursued by thousands of lobbyists waving million-dollar bribes to attain some goal outside the best interest of citizens?  If not, you’re probably one of the 83-million plus dead and alive voters who keep us in an outside normal. 


 


 A (bonus) basic truth:  The PARIS TEXAS CHAMBER brings clarity and transparency to the conversation.


Adding your email address to the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce mailing list encourages good citizenship. It’s voluntary. It’s free. And you can unsubscribe at any time.


 


return to  Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce









		

	




			

	

		
	

	


		


					








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