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840 <br /> <br />taxes and operating costs. Mr. Vest said that Paris is up against existing <br />facilities in other areas. He said that Project "Winter" had been looking at the <br />LOF building in Sherman: but it looks like that will fall through because there <br />a lot of things needed to be done to that building. It was his understanding that <br />the Sherman Economic Development Corporation was not willing to do <br />everything that is going to have to be done to the building. Mr. Vest said the <br />other buildings being considered by Project "Winter" are in Athens, Georgia, and <br />the PEDC does not know anything about thesites that Athens has to offer. Mr. <br />Vest advised the Board that he had talked to Angle Mendez last Friday who is <br />handling this project for the Texas Department of Economic Development to see <br />what the PEDC could do to enhance their opportunity. He also met with Todd <br />Thompson and went over with him what they could do to enhance the PEDC <br />chances to stay in this project. <br /> <br />Mr. Vest said he attended the Texas Association of Business Legislative <br />Conference in Austin, Texas, last week. He said they reviewed a lot of political <br />things that are going to come up in this next session as far as businesses are <br />concerned. Mr. Vest said there were a lot of speakers at this meeting. <br /> <br />Mr. Vest said that he also had a meeting in Austin with the TEDC lobbyist. He <br />said there were only six people in the meeting. They talked about the proposed <br />strategy as far as economic development issues that will be coming up in this <br />legislative session. Mr. Vest said learned that the cities of Plano, Addison, <br />Carrollton, and Richardson haxe banded together and hired a full time lobbyist <br />to try and get the sales tax for economic development eliminated. Mr. Vest said <br />that is something they will be looking at during this legislative session. He said <br />what those cities wanted to do is to amend the law to eliminate the economic <br />development sales tax so that, when all debt was retired, the tax would be phased <br />out in each community. Mr. Vest advised that their answer to that agenda is to <br />give the entire 2% sales tax to the cities and let the cities allocate it as they see <br />fit. <br /> <br />Mr. Vest told the Board that there is a new lighted billboard going up on <br />Interstate 30 on the west side of Greenville next week and presented a picture of <br /> <br /> <br />