Tag: PEDC

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.

 

In our community ignorance, some refer to the PEDC as the “economic engine” of Paris. They’re off-track. It’s a twisted concept that does harm: Economic development corporations were never intended to be the driving force – in charge – of solicitation, decision-making on awarding incentives, and financing.

An ethical conflict exist in doing all three.

Describing the PEDC as the local “economic engine” is a personal editorial. It misses their purpose: EDCs were to serve as the community’s bankers.

EDCs were to be responsible for doing due diligence for the community on every prospect: Determining credit-worthiness, assets, products, market acceptance of products, etc., of an endeavor – before recommending incentives or arranging financing. This was to protect the taxpayer’s – and their money – and later doing verification; making sure that the terms of the agreement are met to protect the taxpayer’s money.

Even though there are positive models to follow, Paris insists on pursuing programs that have failed to build the community. Examples include

  • keeping ordinances in effect that the city does not enforce equally;
  • establishing re-investment zones in areas where no investment has been made (except the land cost), while ignoring numerous substandard neighborhoods
  • diverting tax dollars from the public base to subsidize private businesses
  • giving tax relief to a few, while forcing others to pay more
  • giving, in cash, tax dollars as incentives; etc.

Not one of those activities can pass the “equal treatment” test.

But until enough potential voters grow tired of their ox being gored, Paris will continue to elect (and appoint) those who act to take money from a lot of pockets and put it in a few selected pockets.

It isn’t charges of corruption that exist so much as it is the costs of notorious and appalling duplicated ‘improvement efforts’ that end up opaque or wasted. For instance, the city, the PEDC, and what used to be the Chamber of Commerce of Lamar County, all three, claim to do “economic” development.

Yet, they seem to never see the wasted efforts, time and money, or understand that “too many cooks spoil the broth.”

No wonder so little is actually accomplished that economically improves the lives of all our citizens.

There is order in all things.

The “economic engine” is the community – which is made up of a lot of working parts: The PEDC is just one of many.

Without the community, the PEDC would not even exist.

Jointly, currently, the City of Paris, the Paris Economic Development Corporation (PEDC), and the Lamar County Chamber of Commerce are paying a Florida firm (Florida?) to develop a Branding/Identity – a common new tagline – which they can use to try and sell a perception of the three being one united group.

As all three have lived off the taxpayers, like parasites over the last 30 to 50-years, when have they not been united?

Yes, even the Lamar County Chamber, supposedly, a “voluntary” organization, has had their hand in the local Occupancy Tax till, which is generating over $700,000 annually.

Voters have forgotten or don’t care that for years, the city leased the Depot building on Bonham Street to the Lamar County Chamber for one lousy dollar, annually. Then, after the chamber moved out, the PEDC still gave the bunch around $60,000 of the taxpayer’s money annually for “office space” – or some such silly excuse. It was an insider’s game at the taxpayer’s expense. All three organizations knew full well what they were doing and were okay with it – until the Paris Chamber exposed the unethical (and possibly an illegal action) that was going on.

After we pulled the plug, the three closed the funneling of tax dollars (in that manner) down, while griping about the Paris Chamber, which is the second best thing they do well.

Let’s face it: The three already walk and talk in-step. They seldom fuss, only brag about who has the power. They never dissent about issues, only power. And if that ain’t loving one another, then God didn’t make little green apples and it don’t rain in Indianapolis…

Branding, in the final analysis, only promotes or sells an identity. What they want to change is not how they do things, but the perception that people have of them.

But if you’re going to brand something, shouldn’t the first objective be that it is legitimate, functional, compelling, attractive, and different?

For years, they’ve believed their process is more important than Paris’ progress, and what we see them doing is just another process to make themselves look good.

For a decade the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce has repeatedly said that Paris needs to restructure its community and economic development organizations, and given our reasons for the restructuring need: Property owners and tax-payers need a program that sells people on Paris, not on the existing organizations or on a series of some annual one-time event being held in Paris.

Branding failures are the state or condition of not meeting the intended objective or the expectations of people. It can also be viewed as a failure of the product.

The three organizations are only trying to brand a hope that people in the local marketplace will see them as hot stuff, the saviors of Paris.

But behind the perception they’re hoping for is a reality that these three have ridden Paris downhill for the last 50-years. Fix that, and the perception will fix itself.