08/05/1993 MINUTES - Laserfiche WebLink

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2 sales tax in did not have the authority to do so. When the legislature went into session, they amended the original article and made 4B which is Arlington Stadium, and eleven cities have passed the sales tax under 4B, and what it amounts to is we have 84 cities and the 11 cities that have the authority to do the sales tax and those cities last year would have raised over one hundred million dollars for Economic Development. The largest city to pass the sales tax is Lubbock, raising eight million annually. Amarillo is second, raising over six and one half million dollars. We have six cities in the State of Texas that raise more money that the State of Texas's budget. Mr. Shelton pointed out that the advantage of sales tax is an effective program. It allows you to borrow for the Texas Department of Commerce up to four million, and only the cities that have the sales tax can do this. So, if you have the ability, and if your project is now in place to guarantee from your future sales tax revenue to borrow 4 million dollars, the expenditures are handled locally, few legal restrictions in use of the funds, eliminates the red tape, funds are accessible to existing businesses for retention, and expansion. As for trying to move companies in from the outside, you can terminate it at the will of the community. The disadvantage is the misuse of the sales tax, more money than effective programs, abuse of the money, once you pass this private sector funding and involvement may be reduced. It does not have to be reduced. You have to be careful. It is important to keep the private and public sector working together. Advantages or disadvantages, once you pass this election, the traditional roll of the Chamber, the traditional roll of the Industrial foundation are changed. You have to realize that going into this, you need to work it out so that you all are in the same boat together. Economic Development is getting the right people in the boat. Simple to say, hard to do to get them going in the right direction. Mr. Shelton pointed out that your traditional programof attraction is manufacturing, but the creative programs pays attention to retention and expansion of local firms. In fact, an outside firm will look at how well you are working with local firms. We use to rely on Federal and State assistance, low cost labor, serving regular national market, and low cost land. Today, we rely on local leadership to provide skilled and flexible labor serving international and local market, accessible technology, and capital. Today the companies are demanding more and wanting more in skilled labor forces. Mr. Shelton gave the group a handout and went over the strategic planning process. Mr. Shelton said they would come in with Dr. Perryman and hold focus group sessions consisting of 12 or 15 groups in the City of Paris. They would have major manufacturers, smaller manufacturers, financial institutions, elected officers, school officials, people from the medical fields, churches etc. working with them to come up with a cross section of this community in order to come into a very detailed focus group session. They would talk about where you want Paris to be, what you see as your strengths, what you see as your weakness. They would also survey all the manufacturers here in Paris. They would conduct specific interviews with individuals, then they would go to all the utilities companies, railroads, and State Agencies that have economic development programs to get additional information about Paris. Then they would do an evaluation of current programs. This is basically very detailed. This data will be given to you in the form of a book, and will also be given to you on a computer disk. It will be very detailed and demographic of what makes up Paris, Texas. This will be a great tool and source of information. It is only as good as it is used. They would work with your Economic Development Organization on how to use that to make it an effective tool. They they will talk about your weaknesses. After this, they will come up with a potential target list, this will be a gross list. What they will do is look at the State of Texas. They have target groups. Lone Star Gas and T. U. Electric have target groups also. Then they will look at you assets